Palmdale School District's Technological Transformation: Equity, Innovation, and Literacy

Kevin Hogan OK. Hello and welcome to eSchool News's innovations and education, the podcast where we dive deep into the transformative approaches to modern education. My name is Kevin Hogan. I'm content director for ESchool News, and I'm happy you found us. Today, we're exploring a remarkable story of educational renewal in California's Antelope Valley. Our guest is the Superintendent of the Palmdale School District. A leader who's reimagining what's possible when technology, community and vision come together. From addressing technological inequity to launching a groundbreaking bilingual literacy program, he's turning the district's challenges into opportunities. We'll hear how the Palmdale promise is creating more than just better schools. It's building hope, engaging families and giving students tools to succeed in an increasingly complex world. Get ready for an inspiring conversation about education, innovation and the power of believing in our. Kids. OK, doctor, thanks so much for joining. Me today. I really appreciate. Dr. Raúl Maldonado, Palmdale School District Superintendent No, thank you for the invitation. It's a pleasure to be here with you and your great show. And I will have to tell you that my technology team does. Follow your show. Kevin Hogan I love it. I love it. We gotta keep us going viral. Right. Gotta get that mortgage paid, right? Dr. Raúl Maldonado Yeah, absolutely. As I always tell, my parents have more babies, so I can stay in business, right, we. Pool so I. Love babies? When I have meetings with my parents. Hey, where are the babies? Kevin Hogan Yeah. Bring them one. Bring them. Dr. Raúl Maldonado On yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Kevin Hogan Well, I know as with most, you know, leadership these days you are more than busy with, with plenty of things to do, so sparing a few minutes. For me, I really. Yeah, so many ways we could go. I know we could go on for a couple hours here, but I wanna kind of keep it focused. Maybe we could just start off, tell us a little bit about Palmdale in your district and and where you are and some of the initiatives that. Are at the top of your laundry list. Dr. Raúl Maldonado Absolutely. Absolutely. I love talking about Palmdale. I love telling our story, as I always say, I need to tell our story because somebody else is going to tell the wrong story, right. Ten years ago, I was appointed as the new Superintendent in. Palmdale I I had been in Palmdale for quite some time. I left for a year, went up to McFarland. I don't know if you ever seen my movie McFarland, USA, Cross country movie. I served there for about a year and then, you know, the board called me back and said we'd love for you to manage the the the school district. So a little bit about the school district where we are in the northern part of Los Angeles, we still are part of the LA County. This is what's called the high Desert Antelope Valley in my school district, there are 30. Tools. We are actually a kinder through 8th grade school district. But guess what, Kevin? We bought a high school four years ago. And so now we're kindred through 12. So with that, we have been making some great progress. But initially when I first came into the school district, you know, everything's about timing. And there was the right time. We had the right board, good atmosphere, the culture we needed to work on, and we started an initiative to write our strategic plan. And so we did a lot of work with our stakeholders, had a lot of meetings and we had one simple question, what are the hopes for the? Students in the city of Palmdale and many people there was about 100 people in the audience. We had had several meetings and they all gave their opinion. Of course, they wanted students to be highly intellectual, to get CTE, to get technology, to be safe. All of those things and that initiative. Called the palmville promise. And so we created a logo with the colors and so pretty soon when people saw the logo, they started asking questions about it. We created a PowerPoint where we go to the community. I went out to the chamber lunches and shared the strategic plan. But you know, Kevin, things are about. Results right? We needed to show the result. And in Palmville, what had happened is we had gone through some tough times, but we never looked back. We want to look forward and we started looking at our schools and the board was very clear. We need to make our schools the very best, the best looking schools, friendly schools with programs that are attracted to our families. And so with that, we began the journey of the Palmdale Promise, and now it has been in existence approximately 17,000 students. But now? I can say we have Palmdale promise Ambassador students Palmdale promise of parent ambassadors and guess what? We have action teams, these action teams. They go back to the strategic plan, they look at it, they monitor it, they modify it. We have to pivot. We will pivot. But we've been on this trajectory. For that long period of time, and when people ask me, you know, when does it end? End and I say we're just getting started. We're only scratching the surface, but in reality, learning doesn't stop. I mean, students still have a need to learn, and we continue to look at the strategic plan, but it's nice when your bosses say, yes, this is the right thing to do. And so we're all in agreement and it feels good. It builds pride, it builds a lot of enthusiasm and hope. You know a lot of the times we learn in many ways that hope is not a strategy. Every morning I use it as a strategy to. Get up at. I hope I'm going to do a good job today, so I'm here very hopeful that I will have a great interview with you. Kevin Hogan Well, that's excellent. And certainly after the pandemic, that idea of hope and that idea of no social emotional learning became front and center, right and if? And faculty and administrators and parents don't feel safe or have that same sort of sentiment. The and the learning. Is going to. Take place among those many aspects that that you talk about. I know that there is a a pretty heavy technology component. Can you talk a little bit about that and? Then a specific program. Dr. Raúl Maldonado Absolutely. Technology is one of those things that I always liked when Apple 2E's came out. I was a I was a fresh teacher and my principal said you are the media tech now. I had no idea what I was getting into, but little by little I I got into it and now Fast forward as a Superintendent. What are the things that I encounter in my classrooms is that we had schools that had a lot of technology and then we had schools that had very little techno. Analogy. So I walked in to some of the inner City Schools where they had an old projector projecting onto the wall. And then I asked the teacher why are all the curtains closed and she said to me it's because if we don't close the curtains and the kids can't see the projected image. And I thought how sad, because I go to the same district. And other areas and they got this beautiful projector that is just so amazing. So I told the board look under the Palmdale Promise. It has to be about equity liquid. So important for our kiddos, so that no matter what school they go into in Palmdale, they have the same quality of teacher instruction and. Program and in this case technology. And so we did save up some money. We invested about $7,000,000 and new technologies. Now the technology is a tool. You know the device is a tool. It's what we do with it. And so the first year I was here, I learned about footsteps to brilliance, which is an online program that you could use with your phone, your Chromebook, your iPad, your computer. And I brought the idea to the board, and I said, hey, we need to work on early, early literacy, you know, when the kids are just starting. To go into school, we need to already get them on that computer. Reading a book, writing a book. And so it was just fantastic. Everything lined. Club I met the folks from footsteps to billions, which is again the online program. And let me just give you a little bit more of information about Palmdale. Kevin 1/3 of our students speak a second language or are considered English learners and footsteps to brilliance. Is actually bilingual. So I was able to convince the board to purchase the program. We did a national press conference. We invited a lot of guests. I showed up at a school with the students in the audience and we launched the program citywide. The mayor was there. City Council, our local congressman, was there. It was just fantastic. And guess what? The best thing about it was it was free to every single family in Palmdale under our ZIP codes, right? Parents loved it, specifically Spanish speaking parents. They appreciated it because they could read at home with their kids, either in English or in Spanish, and it just got the whole family together. I even had several families say to me that they were learning English because they were reading the books in English. At home with their kids and so in that sense, we just thought it was fantastic. It was a great launch and I don't know if you want to hear some more, but I challenged my one of my local school districts, Pomona, a good friend of mine, Richard Martinez. Was also at the same time launching the program and I said, Richard, I've got a. Challenge for you, let's. See which school district reads the most and will challenge you for the next six months. Let's challenge each other and guess what? We're still #1, alright, keeping it on the post. Kevin Hogan Now you mentioned devices in as part of that initiative and what I read at mobile devices are a. Big part of. As I mentioned before, we started recording we're finding in our coverage over the past several months that there's a little bit of a blowback when it comes to the use of mobile devices. Now, over the years, there's always been kind of a, a a curve, right, you know, the introduction of them, they're going to be the greatest things in the sliced bread. Then there were bands and then they. They found applications to bring them back in and that they were positive and and and then it it kind of. Goes back and forth. Recent studies that come out the worries about screen time, the worries about cybersecurity, the worries about social media platforms and their effect on mental health have made a number of districts, including that little one right to your S There Institute new device policies. That talk about. They use the word bank. Which I I think is a a pretty extreme 1 and in my personal opinion like good luck with. That trying to bend normal devices, but on the other hand it does need to be kind of studied and looked at where like where is your point of view when it comes to those views. You obviously have seen some successes in terms of the direction and then in terms of the Community involvement, but talk a little bit about the management of those devices and how that. Works in the in the day-to-day District. Dr. Raúl Maldonado Kevin, I think we need to differentiate between a cell phone and a device, right? And so in our school district, we have many devices in. Fact we are. Now 2 to 1, so 2 devices per student and what that means the student can take a Chromebook home or an iPad. And so when we talk about devices. I think as you mentioned, many school districts are now restricting cell phones. And So what happens is what I'd like to say about that is sometimes, you know, whether or not we like it, kids like to use their cell phone in the class. They're listening to music. They're chitchatting with their friends on TikTok or what have you. And to me, that's one of the issues because they're not paying attention to the teacher. And so if we can control it. We are in the process in Palmdale putting together a policy because, as you know, in the state of. California the governor gave approval on putting together policies that will limit or restrict the usage of the cell phone. And So what we say in Palmdale is we're having conversations with every community, every school, and how do we handle that? And so as an example, we are testing we. Basically allowed one of our middle schools to go ahead and use what we call the pouches and these pouches as the kids come in on campus and they put their cell phone in the pouch. But again, the devices, the electronic devices are available in the class. Them uh they students also can check out, as I said, uh Chromebook, to take home to do their homework. You know that every teacher, whether or not we like it, they're assigning homework on line which students need to have devices to be able to complete, and particularly students that I serve in poor communities. In the inner city, they needed even more, and So what happens is at this middle school stage, we allow the students we actually require the students to put. Away their devices. Kids fought us at the beginning. The parents fought us a little bit. But you know what? On the other hand, we had a lot of parents come to us and say thank you. I don't have my child calling me every other minute. I forgot my lunch. I forgot my pencil blinking to me. So we've seen a change in the culture, and that's intense. However, the importance of the devices is still there. We want students to use the latest. All of our classrooms through this palm, the promise strategic plan, we made it very clear every class will have a Promethean board and and I don't know if you know what a Promethean board is, but it's a panel large TV where kids can write them. It's what I call the new White Board or the blackboard, right. And I started teaching. I'm I'm old. It was a blackboard and now it's a Promethean. I'm bored, but I'll tell you, Kevin, during the pandemic, every single one of my classrooms had a Promethean board. We were ready. We weren't planning for a pandemic, nobody was. Nobody knew that it was gonna happen, but when it did, guess what we were ready. Panda was ready. Every classroom, every teaching environment. Had a Promethean board, we could talk to the parents, communicate with children, and then we back then were one device per per child. So the kids could get online. It's it's, we've added a lot more we give out actually free computers that are, you know, two or three years old through our foundation, we give those away to our families if they wish to have them. And so it's changed the culture quite a bit. So it really isn't device driven. It's more of the management of. Kevin Hogan The applications that are on those devices, the proper I guess teacher training to to direct students to the the best content and interaction. Dr. Raúl Maldonado And absolutely, because again the management part of it is we we manage what students can log on to right, whereas the cell phones we we don't manage that but any any student that gets on our system we we can look in and and we can block websites we can do all. Of that but. One of the things that we are not. 4 is trying to block a students access to things such as artificial intelligence because to me. We cannot just block students from learning, you know, this came up back when You Tube came out, right? And teachers wanted it. And we were like, Oh my God, you know, we can't have that now. Everybody has access to it. And so it's a learning curve. It's something new. And AI could be used in the wrong way, but it can be used very effectively. As long as we build that capacity with our teachers, the understanding and the students use it approach. Good. Kevin Hogan Well, we got through a conversation for almost 10 minutes without mentioning AI, so that that might be a record for me this year, specially in education technology and it kind of bleeds into my next question though, which is, you know, a great description of the current state of play of Palmdale and and the history of what you're doing. I'd like to wrap up these conversations. Guys asking what's next, what do what do you see coming up on your horizon that you anticipate that you'll be going to the board for either for approval or for for integration for you know, some of our readers and our listeners who are maybe not as sophisticated or progressive along? The way that you are. Dr. Raúl Maldonado Well, Red red segue to the next topic, but you know, we asked ourselves. So we spent 10 years implementing the upon the promise and now I gathered my cabinet members and and board and said what what would you like to do? And this is what they all said. Now we need to go into the promised 2.0. Like the next step of that. And So what does that mean? Well, that means getting back together with all of our teams and discuss. Seeing what is it that we want to do in the next 10 years around technology, around curriculum, there are always challenges because as we speak, you know we there are standardized tests. There are requirements that we have to comply with. We always like to say in Palmdale, we like to be competitive. We want to be able to compete with charter schools or a neighboring school. But I think for the next 10 years, we will keep up the technology. I know some of the Promethean boards are getting old and now they're ghost images. Sometimes you get close to the Promethean and it changes the the website. So we've got to make sure we buy the next edition of the Prometheans. So that's one continue to train our teachers. We have a lot of new teachers. In fact, I would say within the last five years, Kevin, about half of our teaching staff is either brand new or or fairly new. So they always need all of that training. But I will say new teachers come in and the first thing they ask for is where's my Chromebook? Where's my computer? Where is my Promethean? Board and and they're they're good at using all of this technology and setting up ways to communicate with their grade levels. It is just, you know, fantastic. My suggestion as as you know, I have colleagues listening to me. Yes. When in a school district, you come up with a plan. In many ways I've experienced this. You get in. You plan to do things for the next five years on the weekend and it doesn't go anywhere. Our strategic plan is alive. It is moving. That we're constantly looking at it. So one of my advices would be sit down with the community and find out specifically what they would like to see in our schools, you know, because I can say 10 years ago. Our schools needed some TLC. They needed paint, they needed repairs, and so we went to the community and. They supported us. And now I can brag. We have the most beautiful schools with the latest technologies, with great programs, international backyard programs. We grew our dual immersion programs. I don't know if you know what those are that we call them DI. Programs. OK, but DI programs is where the students learn 2 languages, and in this case Spanish and English half of the day is in Spanish and in English. So we started with one school and today I'm gonna brag. We have 4 schools that have dual immersion programs who are again using technology in schools at home and parents are very supportive, absolutely supportive. So that's kind of the challenge to listen to the parents. And as you implement your strategic plan, do it with fidelity. You know, I can't say we're implementing the upon the promise without feeling proud. You can see my pin here on the promise. I carry that everywhere. We have videos around it. We brag. In fact, we have a morning. On the radio. Sorry, doesn't compete with yours. But we make many of the announcements for the week on the radio show. We talk about the programs. It's just been, you know, one of those things I'm blessed to to be the leader in the school district and to know that I have a lot of people following me and who believe in our strategic plan. And so again, it it's been fantastic. Kevin Hogan Well, congratulations for for all your successes. I used to say when I had kids in school, after conversations like this, I would tell my wife if we need to move to palm, to. I'm you. Schools sound fantastic, but you know. Over the, you know, the past several years have been such a struggle, but it sounds like you've been resilient and going forward and really dealing every day with so many different aspects, including the idea of of using technology. Look forward to watching your further successes and I hope we can follow up later with other initiatives that you're. Dr. Raúl Maldonado Oh, absolutely. Be glad to welcome you here in the city. Show you and tour you around our beautiful campuses and most people that apply know the palm, the promise, and they want to work for the palm. The promise. But we have some great partners and I know that you know about footsteps to brilliance. And if you look at the data for footsteps. Billions in in Palmdale. We're number one in the nation. Because literacy, early literacy, you know when the kids are infants all the way to 5th grade is when we need to catch them. That's where you build the habit of reading. You know that discipline to sit down and read a book, to be interested in asking good questions. And then the imagination to write a book is just incredible, right? Thank you so much. You know I'm here for you. Anytime you call on me, I'm here. Kevin Hogan And that's all we have for this month's episode of Innovations and Education. Be sure to go up to eschoolnews.com and add your name to the subscription list if you. Want to get? This podcast every month if you're not already doing so, be sure to go into our webinars where we have other conversations such as this talking about some of the top and most important. Issues that you need to learn for the way that you operate your school districts. So thanks again for listening. And have a great day.