Heidi DeCoux: Building an Equitable and Empowering System

Building an Equitable and Empowering System

Daniel (00:02):
As a Ruckus Maker, I encourage you to challenge the status quo and design the future of school. Now, the third party is to invest in your continuous growth. And of course, a great way to do that is the Ruckus Maker Mastermind. But going back to challenging the status quo and design the future of school right now, if you were to change typical graduation requirements, which usually revolve an amount of hours and minutes in school, and like, the number of credits that a student earns, so on and so forth, if you innovated what the graduate graduation requirements were, what would you change them to? off the top of my head, maybe it’s you get a full ride to a four year university. I’m not saying this is the right thing or the only way of success after school. I’m just giving some examples of how we might change stuff.

Daniel (00:57):
What if it was around winning important negotiation? What if it was that you gave a 10 minute TED Talk and it got over a million views because you learned how to present effectively and could tell a great story? So those are some ideas . Again, not saying that’s the route to go, the only way to go, the best way to go. I’m just having us think differently as a thought experiment. And I’m setting up today’s podcast because today’s guest is launching a micro pod school, which we’ll get into in the main content of the show, and we’re gonna talk about what makes this program different. But their graduation requirement is something I’ve never heard before, and I think you’ll be really interested to hear what that is yourself. Hey, it’s Danny. I’m the Chief Ruckus Maker over at Better Leaders Better Schools, which I founded in 2015, a principal development and retention expert. I’m a bestselling author two times actually. And I host two of the world’s most downloaded podcasts. And this shows you a Ruckus Maker. And we already went over what that means. Thanks for listening. We’re gonna get in a few short messages from our show sponsors and then jump over to the main conversation.

Daniel (02:21):
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Daniel (03:20):
Well check out the Teach FX app by visiting teach fx.com/betterleaders, and you could pilot their program today. Go to teachfx.com/betterleaders to see how, why do students struggle? I’d argue that they lack access to quality instruction, but think about it. That’s totally out of their control. What if there was something we could teach kids, then what if there was something within their control that would help them be successful in every class? And it’s not a magic pill or a figment of your imagination. When students internalize executive functioning skills, they succeed. Check out the new Self-paced online course brought to you by our friends at Organized Binder that shows teachers how to equip their students with executive functioning skills. You can learn [email protected]/go.

Daniel (04:16):
Hey, Ruckus Makers super excited to be here today with Heidi Deco, who is a serial entrepreneur who’s built four businesses with 50% plus profit margins. Sold three of them including a seven figure exit, and has appeared in magazines and websites like Forbes. She’s become known as the Optimizer because she’s passionate about helping entrepreneurs optimize their businesses in life. She’s now gearing up to launch her newest company, alchemized Teams, designed to help small businesses build winning teams. And Heidi’s here on the Better Leaders Better Schools podcast to talk about innovating in education. So Heidi, welcome to the show.

Heidi (04:56):
Thanks for having me. I’m excited to be here today

Daniel (04:59):
For sure. So you have a renovation story which inspired you to innovate in education. Let’s start there.

Heidi (05:07):
Several years ago I was doing a major renovation for a large property that I had purchased, and I hired a bunch of kids, nearly 20 somethings off Craigslist to assist with the project. And for their first few days on the job, I’d put them in different areas, painting, landscaping, assisting the electrician, et cetera, to see where they really shined. And then I would assign them to that area. And all of these 20 somethings had almost identical stories. They grew up with single moms, low income, went to the same local high school, were told by their guidance counselors that they really had two options in life: a four year college degree, or work at a gas station or factory. Now, a traditional four year degree was really not an option for any of them because of the financial challenges and logistics involved.

Heidi (05:57):
So all of them were working at gas stations and factories, and then they were finding gigs on Craigslist as side hustles in order to make enough money to live on. And I helped several of them get into trade schools. A couple of them became electricians, plumbers, which of course completely changed the trajectory of their lives, thinking that I’d love to help more kids than just these few. I called their high school. I told the high school that I was a local entrepreneur. I’d love to come in and teach a class for free. I explained that there’s a massive shortage of trades workers in that area, and how many of their students could easily get into these short, affordable trade school programs where they would be hired immediately upon graduation for like 40 to 60K A year. And many of them could be earning six figures within five years.

Heidi (06:49):
The high school declined my offer. And the heartbreaking part of this story is that one of the kids working on my home renovation team, he was this 21-year-old named Jesus super sweet kid. He was a complete pleasure to work with, always super respectful, always showed up on time, had this sweet, happy disposition. And his first week on the job, I noticed that he excelled at landscaping and absolutely loved it, even though he had no training in landscaping because of his work ethic and his love for it. Like he was a natural. So after a couple of months working with Jesus, I wrapped up the renovation, had to let everyone go. Unfortunately, that same week, Jesus was let go from his gas station job because they downsized. And then to add in fault to injury, his girlfriend dumped him. So a really, really tough week for Jesus.

Heidi (07:43):
Well, three weeks later, he got behind on his rent. He was feeling discouraged, depressed. He was in a state of desperation. And he got the idea to rob the library. So somehow Jesus knew that the library had $300 in it, which was the exact amount he was behind on his rent. So he borrowed his friend’s gun and attempted to rob the library. Now, although the gun was unloaded and Jesus was not intending to harm anyone he was caught doing armed robbery and he had pot on him, and Jesus was sentenced to five years in prison. So I actually Googled how much it costs taxpayers, you and me, to keep this sweet, hard working kid in our prison system. And it’s $110,000 a year for the state prison that he’s in. So his full sentence is gonna cost us over half a million dollars to keep this very sweet, hard working kid locked up and unable to contribute to our society. And of course, he got out of prison with a felony on his record, almost no employment options, which statistically speaking means that we have made him into a lifelong criminal. And so over his lifespan, that’s of course gonna cost taxpayers millions upon millions of dollars. And that’s just one person. The reality is so many young people find themselves in similar situations as Jesus. And my belief is had Jesus had a different schooling experience where he had an opportunity to learn money making skills, emotional regulation how to unlock his potential and vision for the future, he could be working as a landscaper, maybe own a landscaping company, have a house and a family, and be a taxpayer, and be a contributing member of our society and living his best life. And so, Jesus going to prison was really the nail in the coffin moment for me where I decided that I needed to help revolutionize our school system because I believe that every single person deserves a chance at living their best life.

Daniel (09:53):
It’s a powerful story and it’s tragic. To hear what happened to Jesus. And probably with just one door open and somewhere in his schooling, career, his future would’ve been massively different. And at the time he was just trying to solve a $300 problem. Missing rent. And now five years. In prison and costing taxpayers half a million dollars to keep ’em locked up. It’s tragic, absolutely tragic. Now, as an entrepreneur, you are not not afraid of rejection. It happens all the time. And here’s the local school, though. You put yourself out there. You wanna help out and do this workshop, which seems to be super duper helpful, but they’re like, no. Why? Why do you think they rejected that career workshop help?

Heidi (10:44):
I think it’s a multifaceted problem. I think that there’s some well-meaning people working in schools that are under-resourced and overwhelmed, I think the system is systemically broken and designed to continue to fail students. And so even the people in the system that are adamantly trying to change it and working tirelessly day in and day out to change it, it everything is so broken around them that, it’s just a really difficult battle,

Daniel (11:17):
And so now you’re here, wanting to make a ruckus, that’s what I call it, in terms of challenging the status quo and designing the future of school right. Now, can you talk a bit about the vision of where you’re going with illuminated life School?

Heidi (11:33):
So we are gonna be creating micro schools, also known as pod schools. So like little mini independent schools where we do customized learning experiences for every single student. And instead of teachers, we have what we call learning guides. We believe in actually guiding students through a process of identifying their core natural genius, and then unleashing that, into the world. And we believe that every student’s unique, every student has genius, and that they’re all gonna move at different paces and at different levels. We don’t believe in putting ’em in, clumping them by grade or age, and instead having this very customized experience, which you can do well in a really small environment. The challenging thing with micro schools or pod schools is that currently for the most part, they’re really only available to resourced kids because it takes money and it takes, not all the resources are there, you know it.

Heidi (12:38):
And so what we’re doing is leveling the playing field and creating it through a nonprofit, sort of like a nonprofit franchise system. I’m using these words very loosely, just to give you the conceptually what that looks like, where kids are on a sliding scale of tuition from full scholarship to full paying. And so at least half of our students in each of our pod schools are from under-resourced families. They get fed healthy nutritious meals. We help with transportation. Like all of the things that under-resourced families really can’t do, they can’t handle. And so, their kids can take advantage. And we level that playing field in our micro schools.

Daniel (13:16):
Yeah, that’ll be massive. I have a lot of experience, right, working in Chicago and Houston and other major urban areas where the challenges that students face are very real and very inequitable too.So the fact that you’re doing a, something to level the playing field, so to speak and have that vision of at least 50% of the kids, will need that kind of support is certainly gonna make a, a huge, huge impact. Plus the thing that I’m resonated with is this idea of personalized curriculum and learning. To meet the student where he or she’s at. And instead of saying, this is the path that every student at age 12 must take, it’s like, who is hiding in front of me? What does she need from me? The learning guide in this moment to help get her on, on this bigger future path for a bigger future? And I think that’s a very entrepreneurial way of thinking about stuff. And obviously you have a lot of entrepreneurial experience. So what do you think it is from those companies you run and sold and that kind of stuff that makes you the person for this vision?

Heidi (14:26):
I think the most beneficial thing is the fact that I haven’t actually been in a classroom in like 25 years. And I do come from an entrepreneurial background. I’ve been doing entrepreneurialism basically my entire life from selling bracelets at age and nine. And so when I’m meeting with our team, our design collaborative and our board, et cetera, which has a lot of educators on it, the thing is they have the experience. So they know the problems deeply. However, we need to create something new for today and how the world is quickly changing. And so I’m coming in saying, no, wait, classrooms don’t exist. Chalkboards don’t exist, desks don’t exist. And so when you’ve been in education for a long time, it’s hard to break that mindset. And so they tend to just default to innovating the existing instead of wiping the slate clean and saying, if we were creating school for the first time today and you had never seen a classroom, you had never seen anything that existed today, how would you do it? What would you create that meets students with today’s world? And that’s designed to innovate itself. Like we should be as innovative when I die at 125 as we are on day one. And the model should be designed to innovate. The existing model was never designed to be innovative. Hence why we’ve seen very few iterations of it in the last 150 years. We put, we wanted, it was like the factory system. We wanted great factory workers, put kids in metal desks on our fluorescent lighting for eight hours a day with a bell that rings every 42 minutes. We’ve made some minor changes to that, but it still looks a lot the same.

Heidi (16:07):
If you look at a classroom from 1910 to today, it’s like they’re too similar. What I do is really wipe that slate clean. I’m somebody who has employed current employees and employed lots of people over the years, and all of my businesses, I know what business owners are looking at in terms of what kind of talent we’re sourcing, what kind of development people need. And then I’ve also helped entrepreneurs grow successful businesses. So I know what that takes as well. And so for our students that wanna take the entrepreneurial route, helping unlock that in them, and so really preparing them for today, and like my parents were both union workers at the same jobs for over 40 years before they retired. That was the last generation . To do that, our students need to know how to innovate themselves on a regular basis. Like they’re going to have the privilege of having multiple different careers. They’re gonna have jobs and businesses that solve problems that just don’t even exist today. We don’t even know what that looks like right now. . And so we need to prepare them for a future that they don’t yet know what it looks like.

Daniel (17:15):
Yeah. That’s sort of like navigating ambiguity, but that’s that’s a part of the, the path and the process is you’re trying to innovate within education and it’s learning to become comfortable with the uncomfortable, but asking those really interesting questions and really pushing the team. ’cause The default is the gravitational pull back to what we know in terms of school. And so saying like, there’s no chalkboards or desks and rows and all the, all the stuff that we associate with school and redesign it from the bottom up. That seems like a really interesting project to be working on and excited that you are. You mentioned sort of like these personalized learning paths teachers as learning guides, the micro school, I guess setting, so not like a larger traditional sort of setting. Are there any other things that you’re thinking about these days in terms of innovating the school experience that you think is relevant or you’d like to share with the Ruckus Maker watching or listening right now?

Heidi (18:13):
Another big core element that we’re gonna do in our programming, and I encourage other Ruckus Makers, is we’re going to put life skills, deep life skills into our programming where every single student learns deep financial literacy. They learn communication skills, relationship skills, negotiation skills, sales skills, like all of the skills so that they can go out and navigate this ever changing world. They can navigate both their personal life and their work life and all of that. They have emotional intelligence. We’re gonna work on their physical, mental and emotional wellbeing. And so we’re really baking that into our program. The other thing is creating true equity, which, is everything from creating a loving, nurturing environment for every single student, all the way to the tactile resources, which was providing, proper food for them, free of charge, technology guidance, like all of the tactile things that they need and the environment that they need in creating true equity, which I have found you can do dramatically easier in smaller environments, especially when you’re putting kids together that have come from different racial backgrounds, different cultures, different level of res financial resources, different, all of that.

Heidi (19:39):
When you put them together in a small environment, those families tend to actually see each other, hear each other, understand each other, and find, their common ground is they want what’s best for their children. And so I find that they actually start working together in the betterment of their child helping each other. When we put them in a big environment where we’ve got, like, say, a hundred families in my experience, they all go to their camps and then they start throwing stones and the kids are in the middle, unfortunately. And so that I think is just a big advantage that we have working in this small environment.

Daniel (20:19):
I think that piece you highlighted in terms of like seeing other folks and building meaningful relationships, connecting is easier in that type of environment. We met at a business event thrown by Ron and Selena, and for me to be honest, that actually felt big for me. And so I prefer an event that’s like 25, 30, and once you go over that 30 number, I start to feel a little lost. So that’s a personal preference, but I’m resonating with this idea of the micro, because I think people will thrive in terms of building relationships and especially from different backgrounds and that kind of thing.

Daniel (21:04):
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Daniel (22:33):
Ironically, did you know that executive functioning skills are not taught, rather, they are best learned when students get practiced using them by virtue of engaging in a predictable daily learning routine? Our friends at Organized Binder have created a new course that will teach your teachers how to set students up for success. You can learn [email protected]/go help your students [email protected]/go. So can we talk a little bit about this, like financial literacy or financial life skills sort of strand and correct me anywhere I go wrong, but eventually you’re gonna release or, or launch, I guess these sort of micro pod experiences prior to that. I think there’s some after school programming and some of these life skills that you’re gonna start, serving right out, right away. And one of those I think is the financial arm of it. And so can you fill in any blanks and erase any mistakes I made Okay. And sort of setting you up there.

Heidi (23:38):
No, that was perfect. So as we gear up to launch our micro schools, which realistically is gonna take us a couple of years, what we’re doing is we’re taking our different learning strands, starting with financial literacy and like you said, launching them as afterschool programs. So with under-resourced students, our first program is launching in October. So before this podcast goes out, we’ll be live. I currently live in the Caribbean and so we’re launching it here in Puerto Rico. And Tao Baja with a group of students that come from under-resourced families, it’s a two night a week program. We do feed them a healthy whole food, primarily organic meal. Each of the nights. Many of these kids experience food scarcity. And so we kick off the night with the healthiest meal that they get all week and then they go into their program.

Heidi (24:30):
And so then they do their program, then we send them home with a snack, and that program is going to get them just basically kind of potentially right there, change the trajectory of their lives, even never being in our school. In that we’re gonna give them deep financial literacy, and then we’re baking in some mental and emotional wellbeing, like how to regulate their emotions, some things like that. Some unique things about our financial literacy program that I am super excited about. Tell me. And this may be helpful for some other Ruckus Makers, if you’re looking at launching financial literacy. And just to plug two, we are creating a guidebook around this that’s gonna be available by the time you’re watching this. It might be available to download if you, this is the kind of program you wanna incorporate in your school and what we’re doing with these kids.

Heidi (25:21):
So before you start teaching kids about the banking system and how to save money and invest money and how interest works and like all of that, if they have no financial resources, that’s kind of irrelevant. Your writing teeth are actually sure. Know how to make money. If you don’t even know how to make money and you’re always living in poverty, understanding all of those things is only minutely helpful to you. So the very first thing that we do in the program is we actually show these students how to make their first $1,000, like literally how to find a need and then service the need and then collect the money for the need and do that, and then rinse and repeat until you have a thousand dollars cash that you’ve made in your pocket.

Heidi (26:07):
And we’re partnering with local banks to get them set up with a checking and savings account. We’re actually gonna partner with a group that’s gonna help. So for students whose parents have no idea where their birth certificate is or what their social security number is, of course that also contributes to kids Beco being unbanked for life. Because it’s very challenging to get that stuff figured out if you have no financial resources. So we’re gonna help them get that figured out so that they actually get banked, they make their first thousand dollars, they’re now inspired. They, they have the confidence, like, I know how to make money. I know how to see a need, fill a need and get paid for that need. And in that they’re gonna learn communication skills, customer service skills, all of that.

Heidi (26:50):
And just those kinds of skills. Then we’re gonna build, so that’s like phase one. We have a three-part phase program, and our little guidebook goes over the program with you. And then, into phase two, we actually start getting into the financial literacy part of it, . Where they can, how can you compound that thousand dollars? What are different ways to do that? How can you leverage it to make more money doing a better service? How does interest work? And then, we layer on top of that. And so this is a six month program that we’re doing where they’re gonna come out of that program with some mental and emotional skills on how to take care of themselves mentally and emotionally regulate their emotions. And they’re gonna have this deep financial literacy, plus they’re actually gonna be banked and they’re going to have money in their bank account.

Daniel (27:38):
So the thousand dollars, I could see like even adults wanting to learn how to make the first thousand dollars that I see that sometimes on the internet with people wanting to start businesses that’s solving the important problem first. Before learning how to use money effectively and make it grow for you, work on your behalf and that kind of stuff. It’s like, well, how do you make that first dollar, that first thousand dollars? Which also leads us, I think you have like, is this still the graduation requirement that students will have to make $10,000 in order to graduate from the pod school? Is that something you’re still thinking about?

Heidi (28:13):
We’re committed to that goal. So when students are actually enrolled in our full school program, not just our six month after school program, but the full sure, complete, micro school / pod school, then to graduate 12th grade, that is a requirement. They have to make at least 12, $10,000 on their own. Not, mom and dad rolling up their sleeves and helping out. Like, you have to make this on your own. And again, we’re committed to equity. So students whose parents don’t even make that kind of money and who have no resources at home and no help at home, they’re gonna be given the step ups that they need and the resources that they need to go out and actually accomplish that goal. So we are gonna be guiding them and providing those resources for them to accomplish that goal.

Daniel (28:56):
Brilliant. I’m eagerly watching and cheering for you to see how this all plays out. You mentioned that the guidebook would be available, eventually to Ruckus Makers who are interested in it. So do you mind just telling us where we’d be able to get that?

Heidi (29:11):
Yeah. Go to our website, which is illuminated life school.org, illuminated life school.org, and just sign up for our progress report. And then we will be announcing that when that little guidebook is available. And the guidebook will do an overview of our financial literacy program. And then if it’s something you wanna incorporate, we’ll show you how you can get access to the full program and incorporate it in your own school or afterschool program or community.

Daniel (29:46):
Awesome. Heidi, if you could put a message on every school marquee for at least one day, what would your message be?

Heidi (29:55):
It would be, you’re a genius. I want every single child to know that they’re a genius. Because I believe that if everybody was to identify, identify and cultivate their natural genius, and then use it to live their best life, whatever their best life looks like for them, our planet would look completely different. Like, think about if everybody working at every job and running every business was doing something that was totally in alignment with their core genius. They were waking up every day doing, and maybe some of them aren’t working, maybe they’re parenting or they’re, whatever they’re doing, they’re doing art, they’re doing this, they’re doing that, but whatever they’re doing is an alignment with their core genius. Like, what a different planet we would live on.

Daniel (30:46):
Absolutely. And you, you’re kind of doing this in real life, but I, I still wanna ask the dream school question. So if you were building a dream school from the ground up, you weren’t limited by any sort of constraints. Your only limitation was your ability to imagine what would be the three guiding principles in building this dream school?

Heidi (31:06):
Number one, equity. So a truly level playing field that gives every single child what they need to succeed. Number two, the customized learning experience. So designed to help each child really identify and cultivate their natural genius, and it heads them in the direction that they’re already naturally inclined to go and doing it on their own unique path. And then the third is a whole child education approach. So including physical, mental, emotional wellbeing, comprehensive life skills, and social and emotional development, fun play, no kids sitting at a desk, wonder floor and lighting. We’re not having desks in our school, not traditional ones anyway. Like, so incorporating a lot of fun and play. I know that studies are definitive on this. Kids need fun and play for their brains to develop. And so our model is going to be based on inquiry-based learning, which many people are familiar with project-based learning. So inquiry-based learning is kind of another iteration of that. So we’ll have milestone experiences because of course there are some core things that you still need to make sure that they’re getting and all of that. So that’s through milestone experiences. And then inquiry-based learning is what the main model is built around.

Daniel (32:22):
Beautiful. Well, Heidi, we’ve covered a lot of ground today. I appreciate you stopping by the show of everything we discussed. What’s the one thing you want a Ruckus Maker to remember?

Heidi (32:34):
I would say the one thing that we know for certain throughout history is the only real progress has come from the Ruckus Makers. So if not you, who, and if not now, then when.

Daniel (32:52):
Thanks for listening to the Better Leaders, better Schools podcast, Ruckus Maker. How would you like to lead with confidence, swap exhaustion for energy? Turn your critics into cheerleaders and so much more. The Ruckus Maker Mastermind is a world-class leadership program designed for growth-minded school leaders just like you. Go to BetterLeadersbetterschools.com/mastermind. Learn more about our program and fill out the application. We’ll be in touch within 48 hours to talk about how we can help you be even more effective. And by the way, we have cohorts that are diverse and mixed up. We also have cohorts just for women in leadership and a BIPOC only cohort as well. When you’re ready to level up, go to BetterLeadersbetterschools.com/mastermind and fill out the application. Thanks again for listening to the show. Bye for now and go, Ooh, make a ruckus.