On this episode of Education Talk Radio, host Larry Jacobs speaks with Kathleen Petersen, a former elementary school principal from St. George, Utah, about the importance of early childhood education in America and how she implemented a PreK program into her school.
Kathleen is a former UAEYC Principal of the Year and NAESP National Distinguished Principal, and she currently works as a consultant. Joining Kathleen on the show is Anne Brown, VP of Business Development at Waterford.
Highlights Include:
- Changing family dynamics in American society and how they affect education
- Bridging the equity gap between educational opportunities in rural, urban, and suburban areas
- The importance of developing social emotional skills as a child
Listen to the podcast on blogtalkradio.com/edutalk and continue reading below for the full transcript. Learn more about Waterford UPSTART, our kindergarten readiness program.
Education Talk Radio: “The Real Value of Early Childhood Education” Full Transcript
Larry Jacobs (Host, Education Talk Radio): Hi everybody my name is Larry Jacobs. This is PreK-12 Education Talk Radio. It’s September 5th, two days after Labor Day and I think we’re used to the fact that the week started a bit late. It is Wednesday today, let’s see if we can get this music off, that should have stopped doing anything there. Let’s see. There we go. I knew it would stop eventually. The clickthrough didn’t work. Hey, welcome to today’s show which is a very good show. We have very fine, internationally recognized educator named Kathleen Petersen with us. Who brought her to me? It was Waterford Institute. And we’re going to talk about why early childhood education is so important to America. And I want to make the point, this is through the eyes not only of an early childhood educator, but an elementary school principal who won awards, NAESP National Distinguished Principal. OK so we’re talking about someone who sees the effect of good early childhood education on kids in elementary school and with her we’ve got my old friend Anne Brown who’s here quite often when Waterford supplies me with these wonderful guests and we’ll bring them both on in just a second. I want to make note that we’re going to archive the show at education-talkradio.org that’s our website. We put a new schedule up there on Saturdays, as you can always see what we’re doing. Follow us on Twitter, that’s over at @edutalkradio. Facebook is the same. We’ll send you a link to every show so you can see what we’re doing. Share it with your friends etc., and your colleagues whatever. I ask you to go over, although it’s the new issue will be up there over the next day or so to our magazine which is Digital Accessibility Compliance and Equity in Education, ace-ed.org, and you’ll be able to see the new issue which is absolutely terrific. Back to school issue, so to speak, it will be up this week over at ace-ed.org. All right, without further ado, let me bring on, I think they’re both calling from Utah, let’s find out. OK. Anne are you there?
Anne Brown (VP of Business Development, Waterford): Yeah, I’m here Larry, good Morning.
LJ: Good morning to you. How are you today?
AB: I am awesome.
LJ: I’m glad. And do you know it’s Wednesday not Tuesday?
AB: Barely, barely, I know that, yes.
LJ: Barely, well join the club. Are you are you in Utah today?
AB: I am in Utah. Yep, I’m in Park City, it’s beautiful.
LJ: Right, spectacularly beautiful as a matter of fact. Park City, Utah.
AB: Yep, we’re just getting the colors to change.
LJ: I guess cause of the elevation, wow that’s really early. Wow.
AB: Yeah, it’s about on time for us, it’s about right.
LJ: Wow, I didn’t know it changed that early. Here they start to change in about two or three weeks in Maine. OK. So that’s that’s really interesting. But of course, you’re at a much higher elevation. Beautiful, Park City, Utah is there and a place prettier in the world? Kathleen, are you also in Park City today?
Kathleen Petersen: I am not. I’m in St. George, Utah which is down in the bottom of the state.
LJ: I have been to St. George, Utah I’ve been to St. George, Utah and I even stayed there a night, you’re going to love this Kathleen. You know the next town over, Hurricane, I’m going to pronounce it right for you. Hurricane.
KP: You did say it right.
LJ: I know.
KP: Were you on your way to Zion?
LJ: Yeah I’ve been to Zion and what is it, Bryce right there as well? Bryce I think it yes.
KP: Yes.
LJ: Yeah, oh my God. St. George is really a cool place and just so you know I’m sure you do know this, you know there was a famous movie filmed there called The Conquerer. Are you familiar with this story?
KP: I am not.
LJ: Well I’m going to tell you both the story and the whole audience as well. John Wayne, this is a crazy story out of Hollywood but it’s true. John Wayne of all people played Genghis Khan in a movie produced by Howard Hawke, by Howard Hughes and it was called The Conqueror. That was made in the mid 50s. But they went to St. George to film it right after they tested all the atomic bombs in Las Vegas area and all the wind was blowing east and north. OK. And literally everyone who worked on that movie wound up getting cancer. Everybody.
KP: Yes they were downwinders.
LJ: Yeah. It’s absolutely an incredible story out of Hollywood. They all die, every actor died of cancer. OK. I have to tell you something, but the radiation is long gone. St. George is beautiful town. I’d love it there.
KP: Well I’m a down winder also and I’ve had cancer.
LJ: Right. Say what you just said again.
KP: I’m a downwinder. That’s what they call the people who were exposed to the fallout from the above-ground testing.
LJ: I didn’t know this.
KP: And and I am a downwinder.
LJ: Wow, there’s actually a word for this, downwinder.
KP: The government recognized in I believe it was the early 70s that the fallout had caused a lot of cancer and established a downwinder fund for people who lived here for extended periods of time and died from a specific form of cancer that’s on their list.
LJ: What a terrible thing to happen to such a lovely lovely place, and I had no idea that there was actually a group, downwinders. That’s what it’s called. Wow, you just taught me something, thank you. Wow.
KP: I hope that’s not the only new thing I teach you today.
LJ: Well, it’s not going to be believe me but that fascinates me. I had no idea that that had happened. Wow. St. George, I’ll tell you, we drive when we visit friends in Las Vegas and we always drive up there we go over to the National Parks etc. and it’s such a nice town filled with such nice people. I just love it there were just and I was there so long, you’re going to love or you’re obviously a native, right Kathleen?
KP: No I’m not, I moved here in 2000.
LJ: In 2000? OK. OK, because I was there I bet you don’t even remember this in the 1980s when the airport was on one of the buttes.
KP: It just barely moved two years ago from that butte.
LJ: I know they moved, but so OK. So it was still there ,and I still remember, I couldn’t believe this little plane came in to fly me to Vegas as a matter of fact. We were up on top of a Butte. The place is so fascinating to me with my East Coast eyes. I just love it there. I just love it there, you downwinder you.
KP: I love it here too.
LJ: You should love it. I just love the place. ‘Life Elevated’ as we like to say and it really is in beautiful St. George I got to tell you. Kathleen you have a very distinguished record here. OK. And when you were, you were principal of an elementary school, am I correct?
KP: Of three elementaries in my career, yes.
LJ: And I just want to run down this list you were National Principal of a National Blue Ribbon School. You were, is that from red books the magazine America’s Best Schools where you were listed in that?
KP: Yes, our school was.
LJ: Wow, congratulations, Governor School of Excellence. Yeah. The IRA, but I think now it’s the ILA. It was the International Reading Association. Now it’s the International Literacy Association Principal of the Year. UAEYC Principal of the Year and NAESP National Distinguished Principal. Well you have quite, quite an accomplished resume.
KP: Well thank you. It was just a ride.
LJ: I don’t think the ride’s over. What do you do in these days?
KP: Well these days I’m just working as a consultant.
LJ: Well it’s hardly a just, OK, you’re talking school districts all over the place?
KP: I’ve talked to several school districts, yes.
LJ: Well, if people want to get in touch with you, how do they do that? Because hopefully, we’ll, we’re going to prime the pump here. How do people get in touch with you?
KP: They can get in touch with me at my email address which is inkoilgrandma@gmail.com
LJ: OK grandma, what’s Ink Oil mean? Help me?
KP: Ink oil is an after-care product for tattoos.
LJ: Oh you are you are a fascinating lady, I have to tell you this Kathleen.
KP: It doesn’t quite fit with education.
LJ: Wow. I’m very impressed. inkoilgrandma@gmail.com, get in touch with Kathleen she’s really cool. OK this is going to be great. We’re going to, I love this. We’re going to talk about the value of early childhood education for children and for America. OK. Which if you ask any individual, they will tell you how important it is. But if you ask the whole country you will say we can’t afford to fund it the way we should which makes no sense at all. That’s why Waterford is their work with school districts all over the country. Anne, tell everybody about Waterford.
AB: Yes so Waterford, we’re focused on early childhood reading, math, and science and then actually literacy clear into 12th grade with our Curriculet program. And we’re just making sure that kids are ready for school. And you know have their, are literate and ready for school, that’s the best way to say it.
LJ: They do and by the way Waterford though it is a company, if I may, Waterford Institute it is an institute. OK. Dusty, Ben Heuston and everybody there works every day with children, researches every day to bring the best possible products to PreK-2 in particular are there with the new Curriculet product up to 12, grade 12 that’s a great company. I’ve loved it for a long long time. OK and you guys helped me so much with all these wonderful shows. You saw with your own eyes Kathleen, you’re a great principal OK when you were doing that talk from the heart. Why invest in preschools? Do, pretend you’re running for office. OK, as czar of preschools. Why invest in preschools? Kathleen.
KP: Well we can choose as America to invest in preschools and ensure children are ready to learn when they enter school or we can choose to pay for prisons where they end up if they can’t read and aren’t successful in school.
LJ: You know they both begin with the letters PR, preschool or prison, that should be our bumper sticker.
KP: That’s a great bumper sticker because that’s really the choice that we’re making when children enter kindergarten and prepared to learn. They are failures and they recognize that they are failures from age 5 and they label themselves and teachers label them and any number of interventions struggle and have failed to close the gap. But when children enter schools ahead of their peers or well-prepared for kindergarten, often they become the leaders. And that makes the difference of whether they graduate and are successful later on or whether they drop out and become a burden to society. Putting aside any altruistic or ethical needs we can look at it practically and say we can pay for preschool or we can pay for prisons.
LJ: Yeah and needless to say what we’re doing these days. We have to make sure that every kid has preschool but I have a question. OK I’m going to ask Kathleen this; Kathleen. Believe me, I am older than both of you young ladies put together. I can almost guarantee you that.
KP: I doubt that.
LJ: Maybe, maybe not but I’m older than you. OK. And I I started elementary school, let me think for a second, in 1952. OK I was born in 47. You can do the math OK. And so say I was five years old when I started, this was in the city of Philadelphia. Preschool did not exist. It did not exist and I doubt if it existed pretty much anywhere. All right. Something has changed. All right something has changed and guys like Dusty, the founder, Dusty Heuston the founder of Waterford Institute figured out that something has changed. OK. Because when I went to school and I don’t know about you two young ladies OK. Well you know we didn’t have preschool we didn’t have that option. All right it didn’t even exist. All right. And Kathleen let me ask you you were you were a principal for a long time over the course of your career, I don’t know at the very beginning, but what has changed that made early childhood education so important not only to the individual child but to our country? What’s changed?
KP: Larry a number of things have changed. But I think probably the most significant change has been the dynamics of families. Back when you went to school you probably had a mother that had been in your home most of the day.
LJ: Exactly, yes.
KP: Yes most children even in areas that have high priority of families, very few families have a mother that stays home all day with the children as they grow from birth to 5 years old. And so the teachings that were going on in the home when you were growing up are no longer taught in the home because the parents aren’t there to teach them. And these aren’t, the difference isn’t that parents don’t care anymore. They just aren’t there and don’t have the time. By the time they come home from work, they concentrate on the basics of getting the wash done, the meals prepared, the kids ready for bed and a lot of the preparation that you got from your mother or from your father or from your grandparents don’t exist anymore. The other thing that I think has changed significantly is the equity gap. We have, I grew up, what I realize now is poor but I didn’t know I was poor at that time and because most of the children that I grew up with and attended the school where I went to school had a similar family income. Now there’s a huge gap between the haves and the have nots. And the children that grow up in affluent families go to preschool because their parents can afford to send them and they have lots of books in their home and they have newspapers in their homes and they might eat dinner with their families and develop a large vocabulary with which to work. They may go on vacation and have experiences that their poorer counterparts don’t have. Children growing up in poverty homes don’t have the experiences, they don’t have the reading materials their parents don’t have the time and sit down to sit down and read with them and so they enter kindergarten often far behind their typical peers. And when that happens, they have so much catching up to do that they see themselves as behind and they label themselves even before educators label them and because of that we have a whole group of children who never catch up.
LJ: Anne, you’re director of sales over at Waterford okay as you talk to, are you there Anne?
AB: Yeah I’m here.
LJ: OK. As you talk to school districts like I do all over the country. OK. And you heard just now what Kathy Kathleen said. OK from from your speaking to everybody across the country do you agree with what she said? I do. I do. But I I’m just curious to hear your point of view. Anne.
AB: Oh absolutely. Absolutely. You know what we see is is that even parents who are getting some support in the home often we’re just adding more guilt too the parents. You know so we’re saying to them, you need to read to your child, you need to read to your child 20 minutes a day. And there’s no books in the home. So they feel bad about that. You know you need to be, you know you need to be playing with your child and they feel bad because they don’t have the time because they’ve got other kids to take care of. And you know food to prepare and all those things. And so what we really try to do at Waterford is is our at-home resource which is called UPSTART is that we put the tool in the home, we put everything there so that the parents, so that the parents have the tool in the home, they have the computer if they need it, they have the internet if they need it. They have everything that they need in order to do it. So we’re we’re we’re not just saying do it we’re giving them the tools to do the work that their kids do.
LJ: And that’s called Waterford, it’s the UPSTART program, I’ve done a number of shows of them.
AB: The Waterford UPSTART, and Kathy is very familiar with that as well.
KP: In the state of Utah, the legislature offers the UPSTART program to all four-year-old children
LJ: Right.
KP: There is a waiting list so not every child actually gets it but the children that go through that program and complete it enter kindergarten ahead of their typical peers and they are starting the process of reading. They have the skills and the basics they need to learn to read. And those children do well, well beyond kindergarten. UPSTART uses an independent evaluator to track those children and some of those children that started the program are now graduating from high school and they’re doing definitely better than their, the cohort that did not have UPSTART.
LJ: Yeah we we actually did move the goalpost closer and closer to the game. The goalposts keep going further away. Excuse me, didn’t mean for that to happen. Anne just so you know, we’re talking. You just mentioned Utah and I should say Waterford is a Utah-based company. OK but you work in other states as well. UPSTART’s available across the nation, right?
AB: Yeah we have. We have about 10 states right now that are participating in UPSTART in some way or another. Some of them just did small pilots to kind of prove, to prove that it works in different populations.
LJ: It works it works.
AB: Yeah.
LJ: They don’t have to prove it anymore, it works, it works.
AB: Everybody wants that, but thank thank you.
KP: I echo that as well
AB: We are in rural, deep rural, all of those so yeah.
LJ: You know and I can’t say this enough. And I happen to know, OK because he’s been on the show etc. and I work with you guys so much as a state senator in Utah who brought this, who helped to bring this all about them obviously his colleagues helped his name Senator Howard Stephenson again a state senator and we can, it’s election season now everybody. And you know we got primaries going in many states Massachusetts was yesterday. OK. There’s more coming up etc. But we tend not to put a lot of attention on our state government maybe for the governor’s race. But that’s just human nature. We need to find people like Senator Stevenson OK who stand up for preschool education, really standing up for all education, and find that powerful senator that makes it happen. That that powerful charging horse that leads the whole brigade OK and brings it to victory. I just can’t say enough in this political season. We tend to, we don’t want to lose track anybody can mouth words. We have to find the people who will actually stand up and do it. And in Utah they actually did it, right Anne?
AB: Right. Yeah we’re the lowest funded per pupil in the country yet from an education perspective, we spend the least per child but we have a lot of children here. And we come in at about 20th and as far as our scores. So even though we’re 50th in spend we’re about 20th in our scores and you know a lot of it’s due that these early programs that we put a lot of the time and attention onto.
LJ: That sums it up in a nutshell. And that’s, I didn’t know you were 50th in funding, which says even more for the value of preschool OK it’s my old cliche. My old cliche line to build a good foundation you don’t have to worry too much about the house. OK. And that’s exactly what you’re doing. The house eventually grows, it takes care of itself. It’s the preschool that really matters, I have to tell you. It’s just unbelievable. Kathy OK. Kathy Petersen. All right. You look at the, when you look at the skills that the children get, of course literacy is key. You are a International Literacy Association principal of the year. Literacy is key but there’s more to it than just literacy. OK. Be cool and just talk about that, Kathy and you have seen this and you have to talk to the secondary school principals seen students grow etc. The skills, what does the kids learn before kindergarten that they’re going to take with them all the way through?
KP: Well of course the literacy skills are key to their success in learning to read and reading to learn later on. But as Anne addressed already, UPSTART talks to and addresses both the math and the science curriculum. But in addition to that cognitive development, preschoolers need to learn to get along with each other. There’s the social-emotional piece that’s critical to their success later on. Also the ability to problem solve and to address issues with grit and perseverance. And those are things that children learn in kindergarten, or excuse me, in preschool and if they don’t learn them in preschool often in kindergarten they experience failure because they’re behind academically and then none of those skills that are important to later success in life payoff for them and they’ll start labeling themselves as failures and giving up on those persistence and perseverance qualities that are so necessary for success later on.
LJ: And Kathy let me ask you this. I grew up in an inner city neighborhood, not inner inner inner city but a city neighborhood in Philadelphia. OK and it was a postwar neighborhood. There were five billion kids my age, or right around my age you know what, this was World War II by the way, neighborhoods were like… Kathy, do you find that kids have enough social interaction without preschool? Because you know my parents, this is back in the early 50s and throughout my whole life, they would just send, all the parents on the street, would just send the kids outside and they’d come in for lunch and then we’ll see you again at dinner. OK. But we had a lot, that was socializing OK that was, we didn’t know, we didn’t have words for it was collaboration etc. And I think today because all that’s changed, I sound like the oldest man on the mountain. OK but all that has changed and I think preschool, correct me if I’m wrong, helps to fill that gap. You know you drive around these days you don’t see kids playing on the street like you did in 1957 or 1962 or 1970 when they, they’re not out there playing anymore and that socialization part is such an important skill and the things we learn from it. Kathy, do the kids have enough play time to actually learn this? Does preschool help fill that gap as well?
KP: Absolutely. Play is essential to learning and the things that you learned when you played out on the street and when I played out on the street were cooperation, problem solving, sharing, working through things together, even how to address each other, how to give and take, how to compromise. Children need experiences with other children to learn those absolutely critical skills and they can learn them on the street like we did, or they can learn them playing board games, or they can learn them in preschool.
LJ: And they don’t learn it with video games cause they’re playing by themselves half the time, or at least seemingly.
KP: Absolutely, and they’re not developing vocabulary while they’re playing the video games they are, they’re minus a lot of those skills that you’re talking about when they come to kindergarten if they haven’t had preschool. But in preschool, and also in the UPSTART software, the Waterford Early Learning software social emotional skills are drastic and they’re critical to the success of children throughout their school and life career.
LJ: It’s frightening that kids are missing so many of the things that we took for granted. It’s amazing.
KP: But you can’t blame parents. I mean…
LJ: Oh no
KP: They are are very leery about letting their children play on the street or even have play dates at the park without people they know because of the dangers that have been so readily, you know, we are so readily made aware of. I grew up in a rural community and I think to some extent in rural America there are still experiences for young children. But in urban areas, I think it’s very difficult to access those experiences without preschool.
LJ: Right, and the challenge if I may, I just did a show yesterday with the National Rural Education Association the teachers in the Rural Education try so hard and a lot of the challenges they have these days of course is funding and be, the access to broadband etc which creates an equity gap. OK. And they’re having trouble getting teachers in. It’s a vicious cycle. And we want to make rural education equal to all other education, the finest suburban education in the world. However you want to do that and we do it which brings up the point. Kathy, what do you see? How how can we get that? I get, we’re talking to professional educators here, but they have to get the word out to people that we can’t just let it sit. OK how do we overcome the barriers? What do you think? What do you think teachers should do? Well you’re an ex principal. What do you think educators should do? Are they doing enough?
KP: Well, educators can spread the word about the critical necessity of early childhood education and they can support it themselves. I know in Utah we have had, well Anne already mentioned, we’re 50th in funding, per pupil funding across the nation. And we don’t have money for preschools but the kindergarten teachers were willing to actually raise class size in order to fund preschools. The principles were willing to give up a classroom in their school that might have been used for storage or for interventions or for any number of special programs like music or or fine arts but they were willing to give up the classroom for preschool and then through federal programs you can fund preschool. And even if the state legislature is funding it and address the needs of, especially the poverty children or the some groups that are at risk and get preschool for them. And it’s a cooperative effort among the teachers, the administration, the district that allows you to use the building and the community itself.
LJ: What made them, and I’ll ask Kathy and you can pass it to Anne if you want to or answer or pass to Anne. Kathy, you just said you know the teachers are willing to increase class size. The principals were willing to to create space etc.. What was it that got them all together that made them willing to do that? In your opinion.
KP: In the experience that I have I was the Title I director in a school district in Utah and I just went to the high-poverty schools and talked to the principals and we got them together and discussed what could what could happen. someone else, not me, had the vision for preschools. I was still focused on school age children at that time and someone came to me and said, you know we could we could save kids before they come to kindergarten. And I liked her vision and so we just got the, all the stakeholders together. We went to the community, Chamber of Commerce and some businesses and said, Could you throw in some funding for some of the materials? So we started on a shoestring with just three preschools and we, the very first year we only reached 90 children and now there are over twelve hundred children in this program.
LJ: And are you talking about one district, your old district?
KP: Yes. One district.
LJ: So it started with ninety and now its twelve hundred. Twelve times growth
KP: It was just grass root from the community and the teachers themselves.
LJ: Anne, as you go around the country, do you find schools are figuring this out?
AB: l’m finding that more and more schools are creating some type of preschool. I think what’s unique about what Kathy is doing is I mean, that’s a tremendous number for her to be serving. What you’ll find often is you’ll hear people say we serve 30 percent of our eligible children, right. So eligible children, you know, is a fraction and then you’re serving a fraction of those where Kathy is is serving a tremendous percentage of available children for PreK in St. George. So I think it’s a pretty big accomplishment. The work that she’s doing, the work that she’s done.
LJ: It’s a tremendous accomplishment. OK. And you know what, I have to ask Kathy all of you know this, what’s the free and reduced lunch rate in the St. George schools. I think it’s going to astound me, but what is it? Do you know off hand?
KP: Forty seven percent.
LJ: OK. I was I was hoping you weren’t going to tell me something like 80 percent. OK so
KP: There are schools that are at 100 percent.
LJ: 100 percent. I’m sure. What always scares me, when I usually when I ask people to describe their district usually the first thing they do to describe it is the free and reduced lunch number and that number which is scary to me. OK. It is usually very very high. I’m thrilled to hear 47 percent ain’t bad, I got to tell you that’s a pretty low number though it’s 47 percent too high if you ask me.
KP: OK well Larry one of the things you have to understand about free and reduced lunch figures are that they are, they have to be self-declared by the parents and they have to come in and apply for free and reduced lunch. And there’s a predominant feeling in the state of Utah that you are self-sufficient. And so many families that could qualify for free and reduced lunch don’t apply, don’t label themselves.
LJ: You guys are self-sufficient. I wonder if that theory holds across the country. Anne, what do you think? That’s interesting.
AB: Oh I think it’s I think it’s an ongoing problem that families don’t want to declare or apply. And I think especially for, I mean we’re talking about preschool, but I think actually for older children when kids get to middle school and high school those families don’t, you know, don’t apply even though there is need. I mean 47 percent, you know it’s I mean it’s one thing to say a number like 47 percent but you know if you put a face on every one of those children, I mean that’s a lot of poverty.
LJ: It is. That is that is what I’m saying. It’s 47 percent too much.
AB: And in Utah we talk about, we talk about one in six children are hungry. So there is a lot of need and pain out there for kids.
LJ: There really is and you know you go to St. George it’s such a pretty community. OK and my kids grew up in Exeter, New Hampshire which is a pretty wealthy community. All right. Right along the sea coast in New Hampshire where the Academy is. And I was astounded to find out that even in Exeter there was a free and reduced lunch rate. OK. And there was a charity set up, as people know, to supply kids with food over the weekends. This is in a very upscale town. OK so it’s everywhere in the country. And the one thing we can do, we can supply food, and we can we have to encourage that. This is going to if we don’t nip it in the bud with products like Waterford produces, we are going to pay the price at the other end. OK. It’s that simple and you said at the beginning Kathy, prison or preschool there’s a new bumper sticker. Just it’s just astounding it’s just unbelievable. We’ve got to replicate the pockets of success. Ladies thank you so much. Kathy you’re really something.
KP: Well thank you. This has been really fun.
LJ: Well it’s been fun for me too, inkoilgrandma@gmail.com you’re just amazing. You are and your career was amazing and I know you’re still doing great work out there. And Anne, as always, she’s got her nose to the grindstone 24/7 for Waterford right, Anne?
AB: I do, every minute
LJ: You do, every minute. I know you do. OK. Say hi to everybody out there. Kathy, keep it up and what one suggestion, become an upwinder.
KP: Thank you, I’ll try and do that from now on.
LJ: Do it. And thank you both very much you guys have a great day. OK thanks.
KP: Thank you Larry.
LJ: Thank you.
AB: Bye bye.
LJ: Kathy Petersen she’s great. OK. And my pal, Anne Brown Waterford. Waterford.org. OK. Their UPSTART program. What can I say, you’re an educator. OK. Get your parents cranking elect the right people it’s election time. OK whoever they may be. All right. It’s a bipartisan statement by the way. All right we’re going to archive the show at education-talkradio.org and tweet it out over at @edutalkradio. My name is Larry Jacobs. This is PreK-12 Education Talk Radio. Thank you for listening.
