Margarita Geleske & Tom Leonard on Student Engagement and Entrepreneurship in Community

You’re listening to the Getting Smart podcast where we unpack what is new and innovative in education. I’m your host, Jessica, and today team member Rashawn Shawnee Carruthers is sitting down with Margarita Juleski of Uncharted Learning and Tom Leonard, Superintendent of Enos Independent School District.

And together, they’ll talk about student engagement and powerful entrepreneurial experiences within the community. Margarita worked with the founding Uncharted Learning team to create Incubator EDU, which helps students develop future-ready skills as they build real businesses. Margarita also served as chairperson and trustee for the Barrington 220 Educational Foundation

and was a trustee for Barrington Youth and Family Services. Tom Leonard, Superintendent of Texas’ Enos Independent School District and home of West Lake High School in Austin. A native of Chicago, Illinois, Dr. Leonard served as superintendent in the Barrington 220 School District in the Northwest suburbs of Chicago for seven years.

Lots to listen in as Shawnee talks with these great guests about Incubator EDU as well as their secret to success in engaging communities and students. Okay, well, good morning. I’m so excited to be talking to Dr. Tom Leonard with Enos Independent School District as well as Margarita Juleski with Uncharted Learning.

The proclaimed chief evangelist. Super excited to be talking to a chief evangelist and a superintendent. Before we got started, I wanted to see who was winning weather-wise. Like Dr. Leonard’s in Austin with like 31 degrees and Margarita’s in Illinois with a blistery 18 and here I am in Kansas City with five.

So I think with a high of 31, Dr. Leonard’s winning. How’s it going down there in Austin, Texas? Tell us a little bit about your snow district. Well, originally I’m from Chicago and so it’s funny when it’s 31 degrees with no precipitation, we’ve called a snow day here.

So I’m still trying to figure that out a little bit. But yeah, my career was all in pretty much Illinois, a couple of years in Hawaii. But beyond that, it was all in Illinois. Seven years ago, I decided it was too cold there in February. Maybe I was right, maybe I was wrong, but that was a decision and I wound up in Austin,

Texas. Very similar district to the one I was with in Chicago area, which is suburban. This is, we are in the city proper of Austin on the west side into the suburbs. Very high performing, very high socioeconomics. We’re known for having Drew Brees and Nick Voles play football.

We’ve won two state championships in Texas back to back and we have high ACT, high AP scores. It’s a really very unique school district. But enjoying it, been here seven years and having fun. Awesome.

And you and Margarita met and when you were in Illinois in the Barrington School District, Margarita tells us a little bit about that experience, that connection and more about uncharted learning. Sure. I remember meeting Tom when he became principal of Barrington High School.

And then over the years, through my volunteer work, we had connected over referendum work. And that is a distinctive experience when you are sharing information about school needs to community members who may not be quite connected to the school and school district needs. And really, it had been a long time since they had ever thought about their schools.

So we went through some interesting experiences together on that because as you may recall when it comes to bond referent or anything that comes regarding the potential to raise your taxes, it’s not most people’s favorite topic. So it was interesting times then. I will say one word though for us in the northern half of the United States.

We have learned how to do insulation really well. Excellent. And Margarita, if you can tell us about uncharted and what you all are doing and how that connects with school districts like Tom’s. Sure.

Well, when Tom was superintendent at Barrington District 220, I was chairing the Educational Foundation at that time. And our goal as a charitable organization was to do whatever we could that would enhance both teaching and learning. So things that would help our schools, that would help our students.

And we had a good steady diet of enhancements to the classrooms. But whenever there was an opportunity to get more meaningful learning in place, we just jumped at it. And we had some terrific residents who are entrepreneurs and had a time and space in their professional lives when they were thinking about entrepreneurship as a discipline that

could be taught at the high school level. You didn’t have to wait until either post college or beginning your career. They thought, why not learn about this sooner so that you can hit the ground running when you’re a young adult. And luckily for us as an educational foundation, we had that opportunity to share the germ

of an idea with Tom. And luckily for this whole concept, Tom didn’t kick us out of his office then. He didn’t think that we were too crazy and he was willing to listen to the concept. So Tom, I’ll let you pick up the story from there. Sure.

Well, Michael Miles and Carl Frack, the two entrepreneurs, met with me for breakfast early, gave me their idea. And what they said resonated. It resonated that our traditional business programs, classes that we had in high schools were antiquated.

It wasn’t what real business was now. And they knew what it was and we knew that we had a problem with our curriculum. So there was, but they knew very little about, very little on how to navigate the school world. So I pulled some administrators together.

Let them give a 10 minute pitch. Told the administrators they had 15 minutes to make a decision. I was going to get out of the room. They got out of the room and they said they wanted to do it. So we created the first of the incubator programs there with the intention at the time of it

only being at Barrington High School. And then about, what was it, about six, seven months later, after we had kind of just started getting rolling, the government shut down, federal government shut down. Well, I was at a conference of superintendents in Chicago and Arnie Duncan was supposed to speak, but he was grounded because the government shut down.

So they needed somebody to do something quick. So I called Margarine a couple of people. We did a presentation and all of a sudden you had 50 superintendents in the room jumping up and say, I want to do that. And there was no that to do.

So I think that’s what led to uncharted learning actually, you know, for me as a nonprofit. Absolutely. We were still in development. I think we were just a couple of months in where the students were just getting into this.

There were probably 124 students enrolled at Barrington High School in incubator EDU and superintendent next door. And their students and teams said, hey, this is kind of curious. Can we come see? So we shared out, you know, what the experience was.

They came to visit the class. And before the conversation was longer than an hour, they said, let’s bring this to District 214 as well. And with Dr. Shuler, Las Lopez, we opened it up and said, here’s what we have now. We’re still in formation.

And they said, yeah, we’ll start this next year. You’ll have it together by then. And we thought, wow. And really what it got down to was with the community that they served, particularly at Wheeling High School.

Dr. Shuler and Las Lopez, they said their goal was to change the trajectory of student lives within this generation as and now. They were not going to be patient enough to wait for the community to cycle through. They wanted to get things going now. And what they saw with the potential of incubator EDU was students could not only learn to work

for others, they would have the chance to learn to work for themselves and learn what it means to work for themselves. The world of entrepreneurship, it’s not a cakewalk. It’s not easy. No, it’s not easy at all.

But we’ve seen over and over again how resilient kids are. And it’s interesting time that you bring up the story about the government being shut down because that was just an example of when things are strained, kind of like they are right now. They’re just a little bit strained.

And from health care to education to all different facets of our larger community. Our school is just not school. And so the connections between schools and students and business leaders, they don’t look like, you know, how they used to look. However, I do know that you still have a real focus on community and those community connections.

You have some programs in your current school district where you serve a superintendent like your everyday heroes, as well as your campus involvement that different people are doing. Why is community such an important focus for you? And why is it so important for you to partner with organizations like Uncharted Learning?

Yeah, so, you know, I’ve always said often the school district is the heart of a community. It’s kind of the thing that kind of brings everyone together more so than town squares or anything of that nature anymore. It’s something where in Texas, in particular, Friday night football, everyone goes, that’s what it is.

It really is. But it’s not just that. And obviously, school districts need the support of the community. As Margarita was saying, you know, most school districts you’re going to see probably about 60 to 70% of the residents do not have kids in your school district.

But there will come a time where you’re going to need a bond or you’re going to need a tax referendum or something of that nature. We’ve had two tax referendums and two bonds in my seven years here. We’re four and all have passed. And so part of that is because we’ve developed a relationship with the community that there’s

trust. They see that their dollars are being well spent and they understand us. They can’t understand you unless they spend time with you and really understand what you’re doing. And that’s why the incubator program in particular has been wonderful both in Barrington and

in Eanes, Westlake, Austin area to just connect people to the school district that traditionally may not have been connected with it. And these are influential people. So maybe you only have 50 of them connected to your program, but each of those 50 have a reach of about 100 each.

And when they talk, they’re 100. Listen. And so it is really a powerful way to connect to the community. And I just want to dig a little bit deeper for a second on that, connect them with the community about spending time with them because lots of school districts want to really connect

with the community, but sometimes they just don’t know how. So what are some of the ways you went about making that connection? Sure. And this was developed in Barrington with Margarita. But so we have about five to six classes, say 25 kids per class.

And we will have probably over the course of a school year, maybe 45 people who will be coming in from the outside and they’ll give two, three days of their time, experts on something and they’ll interface with the kids. And as the kids form their companies or their organizations of about five kids each, they’ll be assigned to someone who will stay with them for the whole course of the year.

Well, that’s developing a strong relationship with the school and the kids. And our kids sell themselves. And so some of these sometimes older adults or middle age adults who no longer have kids in the school or maybe never did are now seeing these kids in a different light and they’re seeing what the teacher does in a different light.

They become friends. They become supportive of one another. And those relationships last even after that school year. So you multiply that over five, six years with that many kids and that many mentors and coaches.

And it’s hard for it not to just create a really good relationship. Yeah, absolutely. And I know, Margarita, that is something that you are really emphasized that mentor relationship, the volunteer relationship, community members in schools, parents, booster clubs, etc. So how is a volunteer role in uncharted learning entrepreneurship programs different from traditional roles?

Sure. And I will speak to this question, having volunteered at multiple levels from kindergarten on, I’ve been room parent, math coach, PTO person, education foundation person, I’ve pretty much done it all. And then in the incubator program, I volunteer as a marketing coach, as well as a judge for

the pitch competitions. What is distinctive about this kind of volunteer role is that it accesses the professional parts of your brain and your experience. Because all the other ones were frankly just as wonderful. But this is a different kind of volunteer role because it is using my experiences that

I had in the advertising and marketing world and that I had in the community organizing and activism world and really blending it all together. And so when you tap into that part of your experience set as well as the talent, it’s engaging in a different way. And the students don’t see you as room mom, they see you as a peer.

Even though you’re mentoring or you’re coaching, what you’ve got binding you together is trying to solve for their business creation. So it’s a different kind of conversation. And it’s been really interesting when friends of my sons have been in the program because all of a sudden I’m not Mrs. Juleski anymore.

It’s like, well, tell me how I could fix XYZ, different story. Yeah, absolutely. And I can imagine, well, again, just having an 18 year old myself. I know how kids really want to be treated like adults, even as 14 year olds, 18 year olds, it doesn’t matter.

So being able to work alongside them as peers is so crucial. And so Tom, during this pandemic, I can imagine maybe some of those relationships might be a little strange because they can’t be in connection, be in the same space as one another. So how have those relationships changed for you during this pandemic and what have you done to kind of combat that?

Let me ask, are you asking how the relationships changed with those mentors and coaches in the program or are you asking how the community’s relationships with schools changed? Both. Okay, so for those in the program who were working with us in the past and are working with us now, it hasn’t been a huge change for them because we were always in a situation

because of people’s busy lives that sometimes they would be connecting over the internet. Now, obviously we have less volunteer, we have been in all school districts are different. We have been with in-person and remote learning since September 8th. Okay, so and we have not shut down since. So that’s good.

We got about 60% of our kids, 60 to 70% of our kids right now in person and about 30% ish remote. So to your question, in the class, we no longer have the volunteers coming into the building, but we always had a room that was set up very nicely even before the pandemic to connect outwards.

So just like in the real world of business, people can connect over the internet and can form teams. Now, our kids are in the room, but you still could have four kids on a team who are in-person and one kid was virtual. So that was almost seamless.

But the more interesting piece, I think, is the relationship school districts have had with their communities during this pandemic. Okay, that has been difficult, I think, everywhere unless there is one opinion that’s universal in a community about the pandemic, then maybe you’re okay. That does not seem to be the case.

I mean, you have people on one end or the other end of this, and sometimes they are very, very strong in their beliefs and emotional in their beliefs. And the school district, unfortunately, is in the middle. And whatever we do, we’re displeasing one group or another. So one of the things I think that has helped was some of the relationships that we had

with some of these key influencers, those coaches and mentors. So when maybe there’s a conversation going on in the community saying, the school district has gone nuts, for someone who doesn’t believe we’re doing the right thing, and what this person who’s leading the school district is crazy. And some of these people go, you know, that isn’t the person I know.

They really aren’t crazy. I can’t accept that easily because I’ve had a relationship with them in the school district for X number of years. And so that weathers it because that trust you built up earlier in the game helped. It’s not perfect, but at least you’re not starting in a place where you are going through

a crisis without having a formal relationship with the community. Hey, listeners, we’ll get right back to Tom, but first wanted to tell you about a new Getting Smart report about what’s next in learning. Over the last few months, the Getting Smart team has been working on identifying 20 invention opportunities in learning and development, and have pulled all of that together into

a report that was made possible by the Walton Family Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. These opportunities have the possibility to completely shift what we talk about when we talk about schooling. Check out our recommendations, insights, and more at the link in the show notes or at

GettingSmart.com slash invention opportunity. All right, let’s get back to the show. Sean, if I could interject during this time, some of our schools have actually noted that for volunteers, it has been an easier experience for them because they didn’t have to travel to the school.

They didn’t have to disrupt their work life in order to do their volunteer work with either meeting with their team or coaching a lesson. But realistically, some of them, it’s been much more difficult because their energy needed to be focused on saving their business or keeping their business afloat. So students were seeing some real life challenges play out in front of them, really having a

front seat into the real world, knowing that whatever role you have in terms of being responsible for a business, being responsible for payroll, for other people’s livelihoods, you got to give it your all to do what’s best for the people on your team as well as your business. So they are getting a real view into the real world. It’s not sanitized of if I do XYZ, if I check these boxes, I get boom, this diploma plus

this reward. I think they get a more full picture in terms of what it takes to keep things going. Absolutely. And that’s what we want. And so have those business professionals had those kind of conversations being very transparent,

that they had those with students and also whether they’re having those conversations or not. But just in general, what do business professionals bring to the student experience? Oh, my goodness. To answer your first part of the question, we’ve been hearing from our teachers that’s

when they have the difficulties with business partners, that’s generally the nature of it is they’ve got some immediate pressing issues regarding the livelihood of their business. But they get that. So I’ve not been voying into their conversations with students. I just wanted to share that.

But your other question, your second question of what do business people bring to the conversation? I think they bring authenticity. It is not an academic exercise. These students have the potential to create real businesses and they’ve got real mentors advising them along the way.

We had just finished a couple days of judging pitches a couple days ago. It was for their experimental design, for their MVPs. And the teacher shared once the students have left the Zoom room, it’s like, I’ve been sharing that with the students, guiding them, but I can tell you it was falling on deaf ears. And then all of a sudden the judges, lo and behold, had similar comments.

And then now the kids are a buzz. They can’t stop talking about how to iterate. And he just like, what? What am I here? Chopped liver?

And I think anyone who has dealt with students or a parent, you know that your voice kind of becomes like wallpaper after a while. And to have a different lens, a different person in the village, so to speak, to perhaps say something in a different manner, it brings a new perspective. And Tom, have you seen that as well?

Have you had that experience with students having those aha moments when other people are seeing them? Absolutely. And you know, it kind of goes back to that breakfast I talked about. One of the things that inspired me to give this thing a try was when Michael Miles said

that when he would be having dinner, a business meeting, and his children were sitting around the table, they were listening to these conversations. And he said, a whole lot of kids never get to listen to those conversations. And this was his way of trying to make that happen. And those conversations are important.

You know, in the past, in the dark ages, you’d read a case study. Okay. So, they had this idea of a business, they started it, that’s what they did, and then they made billions of dollars, because only the success stories get in those things, you know.

Now the kids are actually seeing it in real time. And it’s a two-way conversation rather than just reading a case study and asking questions and back and forth. And in the pandemic, when these businesses are kind of going through real time where they have to pivot and are really trying to struggle with the same questions the kids

are going to struggle with in terms of forming their own piece. And kids seeing the vulnerability of people and understanding, you know, these adults too, in their lives, are going to pivot, they’re going to fail, they’re going to adjust, they’re going to pivot, they’re going to fail, they’re going to adjust. And it’s a cycle that builds resiliency and they see that.

And that is critical whether they become an entrepreneur, no matter what they do in life. It’s just a process. It’s a methodology. It’s a way of thinking that can really help kids. And so I think it’s one of the most dynamic pieces of the whole program.

And Tom, I think you brought up a dynamic that is really important. One of the rallying cries in the community is to fail forward. We talk about that in education a lot, that it is important for kids to learn how to fail. And what is meant by that is not that the students are left in a puddle in their own pity party.

It’s let them do, let things take their natural course. And if it does end up where that decision was not successful, it was not the right one for that environment, that’s fine. Let the natural consequences happen. But because this is part of the school setting, because they’ve got a team mentor, students

are also guided on how to recover. You’re not left to wallow. It’s okay, take that breath, take a second breath. Now exhale. What did we try?

And what did we learn from the marketplace when it was either not responsive or we got a blazing no that doesn’t work? What can we learn from that? And then let’s think about what can we do differently next time round. And then sooner or later, that mentor is going to help motivate the kids to let’s do another

try. And to do that all on your own when you’re 16, 17 years old, that requires a depth of maturity and or moxie that a lot of teenagers don’t have yet. So you really do need that encouragement from outside forces. So it’s so important for people to find their why.

So I’m going to ask both of you because it seems very personal for you like Tom, you’ve been in high performing districts, but this notion of community and helping kids have these conversations who may not be able to sit around the dinner table and listen in to their parents, you know, it’s still very important to you to create those opportunities. So why is this so personal for you?

And Marguerite, I’m going to ask you the same question with a follow up. Sure. Wow. I think there’s nothing more important than our youth and education of our youth and that’s important.

And to play what’s important to me is I think one of the we’re a high performing school. We got reading down, we got math down, right? And most school districts have a way of getting there. They really do. But getting resiliency down is not something we practice.

You know, we allow kids kids fail in athletics. You know, there’s a you win, you lose. You win, you lose. Almost every academic course that we have, we design with the idea that we want kids all to succeed.

Well, of course we want them to succeed and we want them to succeed in this as well. But we are so hesitant to allow people to have situations where they fail. And you cannot build resiliency in people and teach people how to bounce back unless they have adversity and have places where they get. So for me, it’s if I can build that in kids and I can build that in young people, their

lives are going to be a whole lot better in the future. And that’s what I’m about. Mark, are you the same question? Oh, Shawnee, thank you for giving me the heads up. You’re going to ask me that.

You are a friend. You were on the bubble. I think in terms of my why, why do this? I think the phrase of you have to see it to be it is my compass north within my own upbringing.

The only it there was to see was the medical path that my parents had chosen and had pursued. And I just knew that wasn’t the path for me, but I didn’t know what other path was. And because of adults who took me under their wing and shared with me, this is what my life is like that opened up so many other avenues. And for all the good things that our home school district does in Barrington, I thought

this was an area that could really be expanded and help all because as Michael Miles had said, not every student has a place at this table. Not every student has a place at this table of opportunity. And because it’s so varied in terms of the way the incubator approach does it or any other approach, any other high school, really think about, are we able to expose our students

and to offer them immersive experiences? And so that deepened, I guess, my why behind this. And then as a volunteer, I’ve seen students. Really grow in this experience from MVP pitches. When you notice that one of the team members looks like they should be reaching for a bucket

any moment because the stage fright is just so intense to four months later, they’re leading their own piece of the pitch. They’ve got a smile on their face, their shoulders are squared and there’s a confidence to them. I just think this is miraculous. And I’m largely from the business side.

So maybe the teachers are nodding their heads thinking, well, now you finally get the magic of why we’re in education. And I get it. I get it now. But I think in terms of as just being an individual here, if we can share more of that magic and

show more opportunities to students, I think that’ll only make our world better. And now I really love that. I really love your all piece. I love Tom’s piece about being resilient and teaching that we can teach the core subjects, but we don’t necessarily focus on those other things that kids need in order to just be good citizens.

And I love that both of you are so part of the we culture and not just the me, me, me, but how can we create more of this we incentive. So Margaret is speaking of the we the we culture. So I think we need to be more of a people volunteer for the kind of roles that you offer to school district like Tom’s. Sure, sure.

There’s a, I guess a number of different ways. And that is locally. If your school offers incubator edu, they will gladly take on volunteers. We’ve also been fortunate that some corporations have discovered us like all state like CDW. And I think that’s one of the things that we’ve been doing is we’ve been working with all the other teams and all the other teams

that ask, is there a school of significant need that we can help out? And most recently this year, CDW has adopted one of our schools in the Chicago area. And I think they filled with the exception of one role, all the volunteer roles from classroom coaches to team mentors to judges. So when it comes to the foundation when it comes to social justice, they didn’t want to just be sitting in the audience. They wanted to take an active, proactive role to let’s shape the next generation and let’s make sure it’s multi cute.

So you can volunteer locally with your company, you can reach out to us at uncharted learning.org. We are not for profit and we will help connect you with schools as well. Excellent. Tom, when you hear Margarita talk about those amazing opportunities

and you think about the experiences that you have, there are other superintendents around the country who need some suggestions. So what suggestions do you have for school districts to consider and rebuild engagement

with their respective communities like you’ve been able to do? Yeah, and I think for some, we are all going through the dark tunnel of COVID and it’s strained everyone everywhere,

to varying degrees. If you don’t have this program in place or something like this, I think this is a great opportunity to reengage with your community

because I have yet to meet a superintendent that doesn’t recognize that there’s a part of their community that they are not connected to. I mean, you’ve got the mothers and the parents and the fathers of the kids,

they’re pretty much connected with you and are pretty good. But that’s 60, 70%. If you don’t reach them, you’re gonna have some troubles.

And I have seen this in all types of school districts, all different types of socioeconomics, being very, very successful. You know, it can be a small businessman that’s given advice

or it can be a woman who runs a huge firm, you know, in a big city giving advice. It really, it doesn’t matter how you connect or how you get them. And sometimes one thing Margaret didn’t mention,

sometimes those individuals who are very successful in whatever they’re doing at whatever level, they are missing something. They get to a point in their life where they’re missing the why.

I remember we had an attorney with Jones Day who was very, very successful, talking to the big people about LLCs. And he said, even doing that for 30 years and could keep doing it for 30 years.

And it was boring. But getting in there with a bunch of high school kids and mixing it up, that was the most interesting thing in his week. And so it’s mutual with these individuals

and it is a dynamic way to strengthen your relationship and potentially repair your relationship with the community because you’re gonna need them. There’s gonna be something else coming down the line. I don’t know what, hopefully not another pandemic,

but there’s always something else coming down the line, whether it’s a bond, whether it’s a tax rate risk, whatever it is, you’re gonna have to weather it. And it’s the relationships that help you weather it. Absolutely.

And I love that you brought up that it’s a win-win on both sides. We do forget that those business people love to be fed as well. And there’s literally nothing better than going

and talking to kids to really make your day. So I’m glad that you were able to bring that up and remind us of that fact. Well, Margarita or Tom, are there any closing thoughts that you wanna share with us?

Tom, Margarita does a bug me list for her kids. She’s got a new idea. So is there anything on your kind of bug me list that you’re kind of pondering for new ideas for your district as it relates to community yard?

Well, I guess since Shawnee, your audience tends to be a community of educators, something that I’ve seen make administrators nervous is the dynamic of opening those classroom doors period, but frequently and often to volunteers,

whether it’s the incubator program or any other program you’d have in the school, I would encourage you to keep those doors open and keep opening those doors, whatever way you do, because only goodness can happen,

whether it’s learning from each other, learning what you do well, or perhaps learning what could be better, that’s all good learning for both the community members as well as the educators.

So don’t be nervous about opening the door because that’s how we all get better. Now, I guess I’ll play off you, Margarita, a little bit. I guess my bug me would be that often most public institutions are just slow to change.

This is not a huge risk. There’s risks in everything we do. We do pole vault for, I mean, really think about it. So there are always risks, but I have seen the track record of this.

It’s not that scary, but it can be initially scary to a traditional teacher. It can be scary to a principal, who is this person walking in? But we know how to screen people we always have.

And I think people need to recognize that we really need to change what we’re doing in our schools because the traditional curriculum that we were using is not the world we’re living in now. And if we’re not venturing into entrepreneurial studies,

if we’re not thinking about robotics, if we’re not thinking about some of these things, we’re preparing kids for a world of the 1970s and that’s gone. So it bugs me that not enough people are thinking

in that direction and are not moving there because their kids are suffering because of it. Absolutely. And I love that you are thinking very future forward. I love that you both are preparing students

for a world that doesn’t exist, that doesn’t exist simply by helping them to think differently because we know that you can teach them all the skills in the world, but if they don’t know how to problem solve or pivot

or think critically or whatever the case may be, then they’re not prepared for what’s next. And so through both of your programs, through your school district and try that learning, you’re teaching on that entrepreneurial mindset

because even if they don’t go on to be entrepreneurs in a traditional way, we know that companies want entrepreneurs within their own businesses. And so by the value that you all are bringing to kids,

they’re going to be able to be ready and that’s really, really exciting. So thank you both for one year service to education. And thank you both for joining us for this conversation today.

I know that everyone learned a lot and we appreciate what you are bringing to your respective communities. Thank you. Stay well.

Stay well. Thank you. A big thanks to Margarita and Tom for joining us on this week’s episode to talk about their inspiring experiences

in community and student engagement. For more on youth entrepreneurship, check out episode 216 with Don Letrick on teaching entrepreneurship. That’s it for today listeners.

Thanks for tuning in. And before you go, just remember to leave us a review. It really helps. All right, that’s it for the Getting Smart podcast.

This is Jessica signing off.