Shownotes:
In this delightful episode of the pod, we're joined by the innovative and inspiring David Miyashiro. We dive into the keys to creating happy kids, engaged in healthy relationships on a path to gainful employment. David shares his insights on developing vocational identity, exploring diverse careers, and empowering students to find their passions. Join us for an inspiring conversation that will leave you feeling grateful for the incredible work happening in our schools and communities. Let's get ready to spread some positivity and make a difference together!
About Our Guest:
Dr. David Miyashiro is a forward-thinking, award-winning education leader with a 17-year career spent revolutionizing learning approaches, education models, and school district capabilities in Southern California. As a digital pioneer, he has navigated districts into the hi-tech era, delivering numerous innovation “firsts,” for which he has garnered professional honors. Those include Superintendent of the Year and recognition from the White House and U.S. Department of Education as one of the “Top 35 District Leaders in Personalized Learning.” Districts under his leadership have also won awards, such as the California School Boards Association’s Golden Bell Award, the National School Boards Association’s Magna Award for Digital Learning, and the California Distinguished Schools Award.
Website: cajonvalley.net
Twitter: @DavidMiyashiro
Instagram: @miyashirod
About Lainie:
Lainie Rowell is an educator, international consultant, podcaster, and TEDx speaker. She is the lead author of Evolving Learner and a contributing author of Because of a Teacher. Her latest book, Evolving with Gratitude, was just released. An experienced teacher and district leader, her expertise includes learner-driven design, community building, online/blended learning, and professional learning. Learn more at linktr.ee/lainierowell.
Twitter - @LainieRowell
Instagram - @LainieRowell
Evolving with Gratitude, the book, is now available! Purchase here!
You can also get bulk orders for your staff (10 copies or more) at a discounted price! Just fill out the form linked below and someone will get back to you ASAP! bit.ly/ewgbulkdiscount
Transcript:
Lainie Rowell: [00:00:00] Hello friends. I am very excited to introduce Dr. David Miyashiro. Now, this is a very special guest for just a myriad of reasons. He is innovative, he is dedicated. There's so many things that I could say about David and I will try and gush as much as possible.
But first I just wanna say welcome David. Thank you for being here.
David Miyashiro: Thank you, Lainie. It's great to be back with you.
Lainie Rowell: Oh, this is so fun for me. Okay, so just to give the listener a little bit of background, if they are not already familiar with you, David is Superintendent of Cajon Valley.
I'm gonna add a little note here. I am a product of Cajon Valley, and I have shared that before with you and I just wanna remind you of that. And you don't have to claim me and depending on the, the context, maybe you, maybe Cajon Valley wants to claim me or not, I don't know.
But I had a great experience in Cajon Valley, so thank you.
David Miyashiro: That's awesome.
Lainie Rowell: You have had many roles as an educator. You are in your 11th year with Cajon Valley as superintendent, you've been a teacher, principal, assistant superintendent. So many amazing roles, and I just wanna give you, David, an opportunity to share a little bit more about yourself, if you would.
David Miyashiro: Sure, yeah. I've had every job almost in the school system on the certificated side. One thing people don't know about me is when I went to college, I wanted to study theater arts and journalism and broadcasting. Which do align with my strengths, interests, and values. But as I was auditioning for things and trying out for, for different roles in theater and broadcast, one of my professors at Cal State Long Beach said, if you wanna make money, you should quit this major, because they'll never be roles for Asians.
And 30 years ago, you know, that was wise advice. So I took that advice and I didn't know what to do with it because the only other job I'd seen was teacher, my mom. And so followed in her footsteps. Probably shouldn't have been a teacher because I'm not a rule follower. I'm not conventional. I question, you know, authority that that's not what principals like in a teacher, especially coming outta university.
But survived it all the way through to where I am now and grateful to be superintendent and our connection... If you remember, you trained our teachers in one-to-one technology using iPads when I was the Assistant Superintendent Encinitas. So to see you evolve from an EdTech guru and digital champion to Evolving with Gratitude is is pretty awesome.
Lainie Rowell: You're very kind. Thank you. And I'm so glad that we've had these connections and I went to Cal State Long Beach was actually where I earned my teaching credential. So we have a lot of crossovers and connections and I'm just honored to know you and maybe it's part of the hometown girl in me, but I'm so happy to see what's happening in Cajon Valley under your leadership.
And I know you're very humble, so I, I will add with your team. I know you have a great team too, and so I really wanna get into that because I find even your vision, as a district, very fascinating to me. Would you, would you share that really quickly.
David Miyashiro: Yeah.
Over the years, we've come down to conversations that led to happy kids, engaged in healthy relationships on a path to gainful employment. That's what our parents, that's what our students, that's what our teachers, that's what our community was asking for. Happy kids. Kids that are self-aware have self-love and self-esteem.
Healthy relationships. All the people in our ecosystem, knowing everyone's story deeply and well, and accepting each other's story. And forming these relationships that would become a network on a kid's path to gain full employment, which includes our world of work curriculum that we developed ourselves here in house, where kids build vocational identity, explore careers across the spectrum, and by the time they start high school, have a laser-like focus on post-secondary learning.
So it's happy kids, healthy relationships on a path to gainful employment.
Lainie Rowell: Well, that makes my heart really happy. And especially that is so in line with, you know, as I'm talking about gratitude, it does tie in with happiness and nurturing those relationships. And I talk about it often in the context of learning and you are too.
And how do we have gainful employment? And I think that's, that's, that's so well-rounded and all-encompassing. I just really love, and I have to say, I don't know that I've come across too many vision statements that actually have the word happy in them.
David Miyashiro: Yeah. We got a lot of pushback from some in the beginning, but happiness is actually scientific in terms of the development of self, which, you know, you wrote about in your book.
But yeah, we had some, some of our teachers in the beginning say, I don't care if the kids are happy, they just need to learn my content and ace the test.
But I think that's a mindset of a lot of educators that grew up through No Child Left Behind is, is our job, is to produce high performing kids on tests.
And here, you know, if you have that mindset, you, you can't work here anymore. We, we find another district that aligns with your personal vision of of As and Bs.
Lainie Rowell: Yeah. That's a hard line, but it's important, right? It's, this is what we have established is this is what our community cares about. This is our, this is our promise, if you will, to this, to this community.
When I saw that as the vision, I was like, oh, that makes me happy. Just reading it makes me happy. So I love that, and I think that's such a noble approach to education and just the overall wellbeing and what we can do for our learners.
So, love that. I want to ask you, what does gratitude mean to you, David? And you can take that in whatever direction you want.
David Miyashiro: I think gratitude is, is a state of being and almost a way of life in terms of how we wake up, how we experience today, how we receive and process information.
When I read your book, I had my definition of gratitude changed and I had to think about it differently. In your book, you shared a personal story where you weren't the best receiver of gifts and praise always. And, and it made me feel guilty because I thought, that's me. You know, when I get presents or when I get a Father's Day card, or I'm not very outwardly grateful, I don't give the satisfaction of the giving to my family and my friends, and so I'm now recovering poor receiver and am practicing gratitude and by allowing others to, to give and honor those gifts and those words. So thank you for that personal coaching.
Lainie Rowell: You're very kind. I'm still recovering too. Indebtedness is a struggle.
David Miyashiro: Yeah.
Lainie Rowell: It's a real struggle. And I just wanna say this episode is gonna come out around Father's Day, and we're not that far off of Mother's Day.
David Miyashiro: Mm-hmm.
Lainie Rowell: And I have such an interesting relationship with these type of holidays that are meant to be over the top expressions of gratitude. And so I think as fellow recovering, gift receivers fellow, like, how do I cope with indebtedness? I think these days can be tricky and I guess for me, I would rather it be an ongoing appreciation of each other.
David Miyashiro: Mm-hmm.
Lainie Rowell: And not this one day that we have to go so over the top. And I, I think it's a lovely idea, but I just, I don't know, I have a complicated relationship with these days.
David Miyashiro: I love that phrase. I'm gonna use that too. That's great. Okay. The recovering and complications. I love it.
Lainie Rowell: We're all working through it.
I love how when you're talking about happy and in relationships with others and then going on to being gainfully employed, and I wonder if you could just kind of talk about maybe where does gratitude fit into that in, in this work that you all are doing? If you wanna tie it to World of Work, just wherever you wanna take this, but just kinda where are you seeing this fit into your world?
David Miyashiro: Yeah. The development, our vision started years ago and recovering from 10 years of chasing test scores during the No Child Left Behind Era, two of my schools when I was in Fullerton School District were low performing and we exited program improvement, which meant that we achieved our federal goals and you know, got the A+ mark in the newspapers. But we watched our kids still drop outta high school, still get pregnant in high school, still go into generational gangs cuz these schools were in the really hard areas to live.
And we thought, what are we doing in the name of federal accountability for our students if it's not changing their life outcomes. And then coming to Encinitas where our kids were reading before they started kindergarten and were teaching them how to read in first grade, it's like, what are, what's going on here?
It was because their standardized curriculum, standardized textbooks, and just a standardized way of things that didn't honor the child, didn't honor their, their strengths, interests, and values, didn't give them an opportunity to grow necessarily. And so the technology revolution that you helped us with there really helped show us what data and assessment could look like differently when it's personalized for kids.
When we start to ask kids about who they are, not just what they can do. And then the last 10 years in Cajon Valley, deep conversations with our students', parents, and community about how they're experiencing school and where it's fulfilling or not fulfilling societal need. And our parents would say, And you know, you know, when you drop our children off at school, we want them to be happy.
We want them to come home and say, I had an amazing day. You know, I played with so-and-so, I did this. And so how do we create experiences that, that create that intentionally. And parents also say, I want my kid to be liked. I want them to have friends. And, and our students would say in middle school, when I start school, I, I hope there's someone to sit with.
I hope that, you know, there are people like me that people that get me. And so the healthy relationships came from that. And from a community standpoint, El Cajon is, is high in opportunity youth, opportunity youth or kids that are age 16 to 24 that are not working and not in school. And to break that cycle of poverty, to break that cycle of outstanding student loan debt we had to think differently about being intentional about middle and high school to make sure kids find a vocational identity and when they make decisions about completing a fafsa, going to a trade school or going to the military here in San Diego, that it was because they know who they are and they're aiming their strength and interest towards something specific.
Yeah.
Lainie Rowell: I'm just trying to soak it in cuz there's so much, when I hear your story and I hear you talking about the No Child Left Behind era and then moving beyond that into really, how do we support kids beyond just test scores? Like how do we as, as your vision says, make them happy, have them in these great relationships gain fully employed. Do you feel like there's a new phase maybe because of the pandemic, I mean, not that that work doesn't continue, but kind of maybe how has, how have you to use a word I love so much? How have you evolved over this very challenging time?
David Miyashiro: Yeah. Before, before the pandemic and, and actually just as part of the last 11 years, I get to meet with the city manager, our mayor. Our police chief, our fire chief, the Chamber of Commerce president, all the city leaders, and I would always sit in awe of our armed services, our military, and our firefighters and police officers, you know, and tell the chiefs, I, I'm just in awe of your work because you put your life on the line every day.
Your service is so much, I think more impactful than ours. The pandemic changed my mindset on that because when school shut down, we were having weekly Zoom meetings with our parents and community and our teachers. And after the first three weeks when people realized, you know what? I don't think we're gonna come back anytime soon, our Zoom calls became therapy sessions of crying in desperation. Our local firefighters and police officers and public service providers had to go to work and they had no place for their kids to go. And so in April of 2020, we brought our union leaders and board together and said, our community public service leaders, the other essential workers, and we're considered essential workers are going to work and they need a place for their kids.
And so we opened our schools in April of 2020 with one classroom of 18 students. And then when people started to get word that, Hey, Cajon Valley's actually opening schools for kids that have parents for essential workers. We put out a survey to the community and 2000 parents said, we need to send our kids to you and you need to take care of them.
And so our employees stepped up by May of 2020 we had about 4,000 students in schools. And by June of 2020, all 28 schools were open. And any parent in the district that wanted to send their children for in-person learning could do so. And there's a story in the New York Times actually about our reopening because between April and June of 2020, we were the only school district in the country that was open.
And we didn't do it to stand out or to get recognized. It was listening to our community and saying, this is what our community is asking for us. They need a place for their children. And that's when we started to think of ourselves not as, we're not educators, we're public servants. We have a public service.
These schools belong to the community and to be good stewards of these schools and classrooms, we need to make them available. And we need to provide care, instruction, and healthy relationships so that our community can continue operating as a society and now I feel so much gratitude for this role.
I do feel that I have a seat at the table when I sit next to the police chief and the fire chief, and city council, and city manager. And we actually do a great service, and I'm so grateful for this job, for this role. People tell me all the time, a superintendent, you know, oh, I, I'm so sorry. It must be so hard. You know, your job must be so difficult. And I just, you know, I'm so grateful for the opportunity to be in a leadership role in service. To provide what our community wants and needs, whatever that may be, whatever that next challenge is gonna be. And right now it's happy kids, healthy relationships on a path to gainful employment.
Three years ago, it was opening up during the pandemic when nobody else was doing it. In 2021, we had 28 of our students that were stuck in Afghanistan because of the United States pull out and our kids were visiting their families for the last time. We utilized our resources, opened up a command center, and over the next three months, between August and October, brought all of our students home through special ops and NGOs because the government wasn't helping.
But those are the things that we do in terms of public service. We do whatever our families are asking us to do with the resources we have.
Lainie Rowell: I, I got chills multiple times that you were telling that. Having grown up in San Diego, knowing how the military is such a part of that...
David Miyashiro: Mm-hmm.
Lainie Rowell: ...that community and you talking about all of these essential workers and how it's easy to say, oh, well, as educators, we're not really on that kind of frontline, but I love how you're explaining how it became apparent once it was taken away that actually we are this essential service. That we are part of the fabric of this community that makes sure that the, the first responders can go to work because we're taking care of their kids. So, woo, that got me. That got me. Oh, there's so much that you, that you all are doing in Cajon Valley that is just really inspiring and I do hope that people will take a look at all the wonderful things that are going on there.
As you're talking, I'm thinking about, okay, so there was the, the era of, I mean, and we're still in a point where people are emphasizing the testing, but moving past that and really focusing on that vision and just nurturing this whole child, is that a, is that a phrase that you all use in your district whole child or am I, am I throwing something that you, that's not one that you all use?
I can cut this out.
David Miyashiro: Yeah. We use happy kids and healthy relationships on a path to gain employment. And we're very transparent that we have a 5-0 conservative board in a blue state. And so when we start looking at vision, curriculum, assessments, we have to make sure that all of our language is politically neutral.
There is no one Republican or Democrat that's gonna disagree with happy kids, healthy relationships, or gainful employment. These are things that can unify a divided country. I think if we can start leaving the fringes and coming towards a common language and common understanding of what every child needs to experience to thrive.
Lainie Rowell: I appreciate that because I do think there are some words and some phrases, and they might even be buzz words that can be somewhat triggering because there is some political affiliation for at least some people's minds, even if it's not necessarily the case. But I think that you working on constantly having that neutral language and being apolitical in that sense is really what brings people together. And I hear you talking about unifying. I've heard you before in, in other times that you've talked, talk about shared goals and there's just this very big sense of community when you speak about what's happening in Cajon Valley.
And I think that is felt even outside of Cajon Valley. I know you're feeling it there, but I think those of us who are watching what's happening, we feel that too. And I think that's just some, I just wanted to say that's something to be really proud of because that building of community is, to me, essential.
I wondered if you're wearing your World of Work shirt. Yeah. Is there anything else you wanted to share about World of Work? Because I know you talked about it briefly, but I just wonder if there's anything else that you wanna add to that.
David Miyashiro: Yeah, so the World of Work actually started at Qualcomm.
Qualcomm's, a giant tech company in San Diego and Ed Hidalgo, who used to work for Qualcomm, created a one day experience there called The World of Work, and he would take at-risk eighth grade students from each district and take them through a one day experience at Qualcomm where they got to try on all the different jobs there.
Not just engineering jobs, but human resources, design, marketing, advertising, corporate social responsibility. And he took the kids through basically a strengths and interest assessment where they started to articulate who they thought they were. I like organizing, I like working on computers.
I like using my hands to build things. I like to use math and science to solve problems. And then he aligned those with the different careers and said, you have a place here at Qualcomm when you graduate from high school. And our kids would leave there like all excited, like, I wanna work here, but the, the idea of every kid has to code, or every kid has to go STEM was demystified by his process because he said, no, we have a lot of people from India that are engineers that are miserable in their jobs because they didn't think about who they were. They just thought about, this is how I'm gonna make money, and money's not the driver for gainful employment. Gainful employment's about what would I do anyways if I didn't even get paid, so, mm-hmm.
Yeah, so that's where it started. And then we took that one day experience and we spent several million to develop a K-12 scope and sequence where every kid could experience a variety of careers every year so that they could have exposure especially in low income communities where they may not have conversations with aerospace or civil engineers or types of work that if we don't intentionally teach them about these careers, they won't ever be exposed to it.
So our first graders, every October, they pitch the city manager on where we should put the next hotel and why we should move the school here because of these demographic patterns. And it's first graders talking this language about civil engineering, which is exciting because kids can't aspire to jobs they don't know exists.
And this is our way of addressing things like equity. We don't call it equity, but it's equity. Right.
Lainie Rowell: Getting to the heart of, we wanna make sure everyone knows they have all the opportunities and not dismissing opportunities because they have some preconceived notion about, well, I would have to do this to go there.
And by the way, Ed from Qualcomm, so brilliant. Like, oh, I'm gonna bring people here and then they'll wanna come work for me later. Like, that's a very, very smart pipeline, right? I wanna make sure people know we have a place for them. It's pretty smart. I like that.
I know I have to let you go pretty soon, but I just wanted to give you the opportunity, you know, Where do you see things going from here in Cajon Valley? You've talked about kind of the evolution and, and maybe looking ahead, what are you hoping to see happen?
David Miyashiro: What we're excited about is there's a lot of energy behind doing education different.
And when people hear our vision, happy kids have the relationships on a path to gainful employment. People just say, that makes so much common sense, you know, we should do that. But then the question is, is how do you measure that? How can you change the accountability system from math, science, reading, which are still important, but measure self-awareness and self-efficacy.
Measure the quality of the relationships, measure vocational identity. So we received 1.2 million from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to start building a data system to capture those drivers. And are in the process of securing a Walton Family Foundation to increase that. Lots of philanthropy and research are, are investing in new ways of measurement to show that if we do these things and create conditions where kids are thriving in healthy relationships, they will actually self-actualize.
They will actually find gainful employment. So that's what we're excited about. Building new data systems, changing the way we hold schools accountable, not just in California, but across the country. And there's bipartisan support for that.
Lainie Rowell: Amazing. You are so good at bringing people in, bringing people to the table.
And what I also love about what I see happening in Cajon Valley is that you all are on the forefront of figuring these things out and then you share it with the world. Like World of Work is, is is now all over. Right? That's not just a Cajon Valley thing.
David Miyashiro: Yeah, it's catching on. We had our first World of Work conference in March and 550 people from across the country came together. That were focused on career development and closing the gaps in their workforce, because most states, if not all states, are suffering from the great resignation. Mm-hmm. And people are struggling to find workers in high paying, you know, high demand jobs. So they see this as a solution for workforce, but also a way to make sure that every child can live out their version of the American dream, whatever that may be.
Lainie Rowell: Oh my goodness. I feel like I could talk to you for hours, David. You have so much wisdom and so many programs and just the vision is right there. I know we've said your vision several times, but the Cajon Valley vision is just, something to, to be shared and I hope others will adopt that approach.
And then thank you for also looking into the measurement of like, how do we know if we're actually achieving this? That can be a very difficult thing. So I look forward to seeing how that all plays out. Now, shifting gears, I'm gonna give you the opportunity to give a shout out. Who would you like to show some gratitude to?
David Miyashiro: I would like to shout out Lane, who actually, you know, your name was inspiration for my daughter's name. Her name is Lane.
Lainie Rowell: Oh, no way.
David Miyashiro: It was gonna be Lainie. But then my wife thought I want, when she applies to college or for a job that people won't know that she's a boy or a girl. So Lane is, is gender neutral, which is why, but I wanna shout out my daughter Lane, who's the most amazing 10 year old, and my wife Jill.
I am grateful and they do so many wonderful things for me that I need to be more thankful for.
Lainie Rowell: Oh my goodness. Well that is lovely. And I can, I can say that is a very cool, I like the Lane and sometimes people call me that as my nickname Lane. But I think that's amazing. And so what a lovely shout out and I think you're getting very good at gratitude.
We're in this together, my friend. We're gonna get better at it, right?
David Miyashiro: Yes. If you're listening, you haven't bought Lainie's book, then that, that's a good start for the recovering non-grateful folks in the world.
Lainie Rowell: You're very, very kind. Well, and, and I tell people, I'm like at look at the cover, like it's says Lainie Rowell Evolving with Gratitude, intentionally Lainie on top.
Like, this is me working on it. This is not, this isn't like, I figured it all out. You're welcome. And that's why there's so many contributors in the book. It's like these are people who have great things to share. I need to, to raise them up cuz I'm still learning. Thank you so much. David, what are the best ways for people to, to reach out to you to, to find out more about all the amazing things happening in Cajon Valley.
What's the best way for them to catch up with you?
David Miyashiro: Yeah, Twitter's great. My Twitter handle is @DavidMiyashiro, my first and last name and direct message or follow and would love to connect and collaborate.
Lainie Rowell: Absolutely. I will put all of your information in the show notes and I really do hope people connect with you. See all the great things you're doing, all the great things happening in Cajon Valley, and I just thank you so much for your time. Your superintendent, where are you all in the school year? We're recording this at the end of May. Do you, do you all have some, some more time with kiddos or are they off?
David Miyashiro: Yeah, two and a half more weeks.
We're just hanging on. Okay. How about, are you, are you in Orange County?
Lainie Rowell: I'm in Huntington Beach and we're in a K-8 district, so believe it or not, my kids still have a month of school left.
David Miyashiro: Wow.
Lainie Rowell: And we don't start until a couple days after Labor Day.
So we're still on a very traditional summer calendar like that so we get to go on vacation the end of August when no one's around.
David Miyashiro: That's awesome.
Lainie Rowell: We get the best deals. Alright, my friend. Thank you so much for being here, and thank you all for listening.
David Miyashiro: Thanks, Lainie.