Interview with Cecil Edwards, Superintendent of Baker Valley Unified School District

Cecil  is the Superintendent of Baker Valley Unified School District. The district is comprised of 145 student spanning preschool to 12th grade with 13 teachers and 14 classified staff on three campuses. Baker is situated between Barstow and Las Vegas and has a population of around 750 people.

Transcript

Don  00:04

Hello, my name is Don English Director of Children Deserve Success and Executive Director of the San Bernardino County Wide Gangs and Drugs Task Force. And I want to welcome you to our Children Deserve Success Podcast. Monthly we will be sending out these recordings regarding all things related to child welfare and attendance, School Attendance Review Board, foster youth services, McKinney Vento Homeless Programs in our county and the San Bernardino County Wide Gangs and Drugs Task Force. This month focus will be an interview with Cecil Edwards, Superintendent, Baker Valley Unified School District, thank you so much for being here. Really, really appreciate you.

Cecil  00:43

Hey, good morning, Don. I'm happy to be here.

Don  00:46

I tell you what, you drove a long way this morning, how long it takes you to get here? 

Cecil  00:49

Just at two hours. 

Don  00:51

Wow. 

Cecil  00:54

That's the that's the that's the thing we do every day our teachers drive an hour to get there. It's a drive when you're rural remote school. It's a drive to get to everyday. So it's just part of the you know, windshield times part of it.

Don  01:05

I appreciate you, I tell you what, you know, we did a little brief introduction. But tell us a little bit more about your district and about yourself.

01:16

I mean, the district is probably the most amazing place I've ever worked. We have about 145 Kids preschool all the way through 12th grade will graduate a class of 12. And then next year will graduate a class of five. Some of the most hardest working families. The kids are, you know, they're polite. They're kind, just an amazing place. We have about 13 teachers and probably 14 Classified Staff. On campus. It's three schools, if you will, but one campus, so have about 750 people in our community. We're very rural remote area out on the 15th between Barstow and Las Vegas. Everybody knows the Mad Greek and you know, alien jerky. So that's my plug for the day. But yeah, just a small little community kind of rural remote. away from everything. We are a proud district. And, you know, I'm just, I'm really, I can't explain how much I enjoy that community. Myself. This is my second career. I retired from the US Army a few years ago, and then got an education and you know, just made that transition. It's been, it's been really fun. A lot of a lot of time. 

Don  02:36

That's amazing. Sounds like I was a community school principal. So we had about 145 kids outside of our independent study program. But when you take on that role, you know, it encompasses so much of everything. So you learn so much. But then it's really a hands on position. So I can really relate to that. So what brought you to be the superintendent of Baker, how did that happen?

Cecil 03:02

Well, back in 2015, I was a teacher in Northern California up in Lake County, and some family things that come up, my son in law was stationed at Fort Irwin, they just had our first grandbaby and my wife said, I'm gonna retire and I said, I can teach anywhere. So we moved down to the Barstow area. And Baker Valley was the first one to say, hey, you know, you want to come out and teach third grade four. So I went out there, and I taught for a year and then my son well, you know, we had an army guy, found a new gig and packed up and left and I thought, Why am I in the middle of the desert, you know, but I went back down and got into my admin program, I went back up north, back to the same school, actually, and was the vice principal took the vice principal role, their state and admin up there, you know, ended up with the comprehensive high school as the principal. And then when the former superintendent, principal Baker, retired, they called me and asked me if I want to come back. So I flew down, talk to him, and here I am. 

Don  04:03

What was your ADA? It's your comprehensive when you were the principal? 

Cecil  04:07

About 1100. At the high school, the district itself ran about 4500.

Don  04:13

Okay, I'm gonna throw this question in there, trustee. So how do you deal with your board and how do they support you? 

Cecil  04:21

You know, you hear the stories of the boards where you say, Madam President, you know, your honor, and, and it's very formal. My board is very informal. We are we're, we're very trusting in one another. I'm a very open, transparent person. I don't hide anything. We have very genuine conversations. And it's been a great relationship is really truly been a great relationship with the board. 

Don  04:49

That's really important. You know, we see just the turmoil that different boards are going through with a number, a number of issues, LGBTQ plus, et cetera. And so that I can relate to what you're saying, I serve on the Chafee joint Union High School District Board of Trustees, we are very intentional about doing what's best for our kids. And we've had a five vote vote for the two years that I've been on the board. So that's something I know you can appreciate.

Cecil  05:13

 I'll tell you, Don, if if you maintain the focus of students first if it if everything in your conversations about the student, and if the board has that same view, you're not going to have an issue, you will see everything either you're going to have, you know, some some back and forth. But if it's always about the students, you're always going to have a good relationship. I think

Don  05:36

I agree. What are the demographics of your community?

Cecil  05:40

We run about a 92%, Hispanic population, we're about a 76%. Homeless, it's not your traditional homeless, it's thinking about living, you know, the more of we live in a trailer, we're doubled up, things like that. We have about a 62% EL. English learner population. It's funny, though, you know, you hear those demographics, you walk on campus, and all you hear is English being spoken. You know, it's, it's, it's this interesting, dynamic, you know, because everything there, the whole company is based on the service industry, and the service industry of the the gas stations and the fast food, you know, restaurants and stuff. So, but, you know, we're, that's, that's about our demographic, you know, social economic disadvantage, probably about a 78% socio economic disadvantage. We are part of the 100%. School free and reduced. Yep. So, but what's interesting is, we're a basic aid district. And you wouldn't think that right? So you think basic aid, you think Beverly Hills, you think Silicon Valley, those high property tax, we have Mountain Pass, which is MP materials run a mine up there to the mine rare earth minerals, that's in our boundaries, so their property taxes is going to exceed what we will get for ADA. So we're basically que district which is interesting. That is most people Yeah,

Don  07:10

man. Um, talk a little bit about, you know, I know, my team came up there, and, you know, obviously, foster and homeless, for the County Office of Ed, tell us a little bit about the resources that your families need in Baker, and the support you feel you're lacking. 

Cecil  07:25

You know, we talked about the top three, right, when, when a community service Schools initiative came out, you know, Hey, get out, get in touch with your local partners. And, you know, I don't have a local, I don't have a YMCA, I don't have a medical facility, we don't even have, you know, a clinic, I don't have a grocery store, we have a little little market, you know, so one of the top three that we talked about housing, you know, just not, not a lot of not enough housing, to support our district right in the area. And then we talked about the medical needs, you know, we don't have a demo, we don't have, you know, we have to bring vaccine clinics there to help get that support for them. And then, you know, we do have a little bit of a few food insecurities going on, but we don't have a food bank, we don't have somewhere to go to get things right. So that's the thing that we're working on right now is how do we get those services to come out to Baker, it's hard because we are that rural remote district, and you want me to pack everything up and drive for an hour, 20 minutes, and we might have 20 people show up, because we've never done that before. So you know, the first time you do it, it's always a little bit slow. Right? So we're gonna have to push past that. And the team here has been amazing. We've done a lot of good work and, and I think we have it set up to bring some resources out there next month. Yeah. But those are those are the top three that we talked about. 

Don  08:49

Okay, you know, Wow, sounds like some basic needs. 

Cecil  08:52

Very basic needs very, a lot of very basic needs is not that the families can't. It's a struggle. Barstow is a long way away. Most of our families work two jobs, you know, just to try to maintain so it's a struggle just to get to the facilities, you know, so how do we get the facilities to them?

Don  09:11

Wow. Tell me a little bit about your teacher's living situation in your living situation.

Cecil  09:16

 I'm kind of a nomad, right. So, up until a couple years ago, all but two of our teachers lived in Las Vegas. i Live in Henderson. We had a couple of teachers lived on campus. We have some, some trailers out there that they lived in. And the school district provides vans, commuter vans for them to come in every day. So they'll leave the M resort is where they meet and then they drive in and they do their thing then they drive home. So all of our teachers live there. Here in the last few years, we've hired three new teachers that graduated from Baker High School. So it's really a great kind of dynamic to bring that back in bring them back to the community, you know, so, but we still have a majority of our teachers live in. In Las Vegas, we have a few that live in our housing on campus, we have two trailers in a little apartment. And then we have two that live actually in town. So we've, we've seen a shift to bring a lot of our teachers back, personally, I live in Las Vegas, there's a house on campus that they offer. And so I have my CBO. And I will, you know, late nights or what have you will, he's got a bedroom, I got a bedroom, we'll just go to there and stay the night and get up or, you know, if I'm just, you know, I work late, I just, you know, tend to stay there a couple of nights a week, two, three nights a week I stay there, so, but our teachers drive back and forth every day.  So how much of the site level principal role are you in? Versus the CEO role? As superintendent? How would you say your time is split 100%, both. I don't have a principal, we don't have a superintendent, Assistant. It's me, I'm the only administrator on campus. And then we have a CBO business manager. So you know, we were having this discussion the other day. The most of your day, you was at a community, you know, most of your days dealing with kids dealing with our kids are amazing, right? But you still have the things you have to go out and deal with. And it's so important to be present on campus. So, you know, your day is doing that. And then, you know, after all the kids leave, or if I can squeeze in time, and it's hard because you know, you want to get out and be in the classrooms, you want to get out and do the mentor you want to get to the guys but yet I've got to write the LCAP, I've got to do this sarc plan. I've got it. You know, the state wants it Oh, the State gave me $5 They wanted 25 page report, right on how to spend that $5. And then you got to report on that for the next year and a half. But so there's so many demands and my CBO and I've got really good at he's really good at what he does. And he's taken a lot of that off my hands, but still you have. So I would say during the day if you help me break it down probably 80/20 80% of my time is spent during the principal's job and 20% is done spent during doing a superintendent job. And then that's during the school day, then, you know, evenings and weekends if I gotta if I have to do something that's just the way it is. 

Don  12:09

What extracurriculars do you all have for students?

Cecil  12:11

We have girls volleyball, we have boys and girls basketball. And then we've been struggling for a couple years. And this year, we finally got it kicked off. We have an esports team for our middle school and high school kids. Mostly our middle school kids get on or they were in a tournament last night. We got about eight kids that do eSports we run an after school program for our kids. We do after school tutoring not extracurricular, but we do that. And the community does a soccer league. So, you know, we don't have a lot of extracurriculars. But we have we have a you know, during basketball season when they travel, our high school is depleted, all the kids are gone. You have one kid left in a class and the teacher is like, what am I gonna do with this one kid? Right. So yeah, but that's that's what we kind of offered to our kids.  Wow. Um, that's something that it's so interesting because it just reminds me of back in the day when we were coordinating sports programs and just trying to engage kids get our attendance rate up, but we had a 95% attendance rate. That's all intertwined, you know, exceptionality, as it relates to all that It is We're very, you know, we were kind of they all said, I got a big heart. And I'm Alenia and you know, during COVID. You know, we would do things. And then second year, you know, I gave I gave a couple of, you know, waivers for kids to get a semester on the grades. We've been very hard on our kids. If you're not passing your grades, you don't. You don't get to play, you know, we're going to hold a standard. That's how we're going to get there, your academics, your attendance at all plays into what you can do. And you know, what's interesting to you mentioned, what we have extracurricular. We just had a huge, huge essay, huge, we had our carnival, right. And the whole community comes out on an island, the kids put on booths, and they all try to fundraise and do that kind of stuff. We had turkey trot where we just gave away a bunch of food to the community, you know, so we do a lot of stuff with the community too. And the kids are intimately involved in all that. 

Don  14:13

Wow, that's great. What's your attendance rate? Would you say right now?

Cecil  14:17

It's funny yesterday, we had our award ceremony for the middle school and high school and then went to war for my first for the elementary and one of our challenges is the class with the highest attendance gets a pizza party every month, right? I think our ninth grade one with a 96.8% and our fifth, fifth sixth grade or four or five combo one with about a 96%. We right now we said about a 93 94% attendance. We got hit hard on our chronic absenteeism. You know, I do it just tells me I have to do something that didn't penalize me for but that's coming back together and we're really working hardest it's a tough because during all that COVID stuff, you know, keep a kid home when a kid right now you have, oh, you are around somebody now you got to stay home? Well, I believe that gets in the mindset, right? Oh, you know, you woke up with a headache. Stay home, you know, used to be. So we've got to work past all that too. And I think everybody's in that same situation. 

Don  15:18

Yeah, that's absolutely right. As you know, I oversee attendance. So yeah, I'm intimately involved with that. But again, it's kind of what you said, it's really getting kids invested. Um, how do you continue to create an environment that empowers those at your school, be a step down students and the community facing the adversity that you, you kind of spoke up earlier?

Cecil  15:43

You know, when I, when I first got there, I told the staff and community members, I said, we can't we cannot be the largest entity and Baker and not be a part of Baker, right. So we've really tried to get to school, we want to talk about the community, we really tried to get the school involved in everything that community does, you know, from the food drives, or Christmas program and all that stuff, you know, they go out into this big Christmas parade, take four hours get around Baker, and it's a mile from and then Baker, right. But they take toys to every kid, while we're not involved in that. Right. So we got involved in that, you know, and so we started trying to open our doors up, become more welcoming, become more more, you know, centered on our community. But I think with the students and the staff, I think it all boils down to the relationship. You know, it all boils down to the relationship, when, when Johnny steps out of line, and I walked by smacking him on the back, say, Johnny, come on, let's go. He knows that I've got his back. But he also knows I'm a holding to a standard, but he knows I'm invested. And if the staffs invested, the students are invested. Right? We celebrate everything. If it's a little when we celebrate it, if it's a big win, we celebrate it, you know, and we try to celebrate not just the wins, but the just the we do our turkey trot and we had a kid that couldn't make it all the way around, but he won best effort. 

Don  17:00

Right, right, right, 

Cecil  17:01

let's not celebrate the kid that was the fastest we don't we're gonna celebrate you too. But we're gonna celebrate you when you try, you know, and give the kids a reason to do well, right. But I think it all comes back to staff. I'm, I try not to be micromanager. I'd like to know what's going on. I read somewhere a long time ago that, you know, teachers are independent contractors and treat them as such, right. oversee, make sure what's going on needs to go on, but let them let them go. Let them teach their classes and I tried not to get in there and push my this is the way I do it. And why did you do that? I do it this way, you know, hey, let the teacher teach if they're doing what's good for kids, and we're going to be fine. So, you know, 

Don  17:47

I agree effective leadership is to provide resources and empower people that didn't go to work. Let them go to work. Yeah, I totally agree with that. What do you see? And this is kind of two parts of where do you see Baker? What's up next? You know, what are you looking forward to? And then the next five years, what do you see?

Cecil  18:06

I think we have to shift out we've got a great community, but we need to do a little shift in our academics and our where we're heading academically, right? So we've made some big shifts towards our goals, right? We're really focused on our reading, we're really focused on, you know, our, our focus is on academic language, you know, you want to judge our students based on a test that they may not understand. They know that they know the content, they know the algorithm, they just may not understand that language. So we're really focused on academic language. But I think the shift for us now is, is to shift that academically. We brought in dual enrollment a couple years ago, we run about 20% of our high school kids dual enrolled now with Barstow Community College. So, you know, I think, in the next five years, I want Baker stand out, as you know, Hey, where'd you come from? I'm from Baker, hey, that's awesome. You know, we built a program with the mine up there, that we're working on now that they have a fast track to hire our kids. We had one student inheritable last year, and I, here's rave reviews we want, I want Baker to be that place that kids come from, that people recognize who you are, and what you bring to the table. But I think that comes to a lot of that, you know, academics plays a big part in that. It, it's, you have to be dedicated, you have to be devoted, and you have to have follow through, you know, and I think we can teach the kids that are gonna be successful in whatever they do.

Don  19:32

Well, you know, we can talk about that, because that's intriguing. So work based learning, what component of Work Based Learning Do you have, as we talk about the mines and all that and there's a pipeline for that?

Cecil  19:45

Yeah, it's, it's tough when you only have 40 high school kids, and you want to build up a CTE program, but you got to hit all the academics, you know, your state because we're in a big school, so we have to hit all that right? And then we talk about 61% of our kids EL So they had to pull out for ELD. You know, we did a business management class, we got three kids in it, right? And it's hard to do that. So we have to be, I'm working with a school district now that maybe I can bring their auto tech teacher out in the evenings to do something under our over our adult ed program, but bring our kids to do that too, right? So I'm trying to do that kind of stuff. We're working with the mind to get some kids up there to start, you know, and bringing their mill rights and their mechanics and their, you know, explosive ordnance guys down, just to teach this come down, spend a day with the kids, talk to him about things and get involved, we have a goldmine. That's not too far from us. And so we're starting to build relationships with Goldmine, you know. So, there's a lot of resources we have to you. But we have to think outside the box, I can't just say, well don't open a culinary arts class, and we're going to open an auto shop class, I don't have the resources, and I don't have the student base to do that. Right. But how can we do that, and get our kids prepared for the future. Most of our kids work already. You know, if they're after basketball practice, they go down to their job, and they work their job. So, you know, there's a lot of hard chargers there that are devoted to do what they need to do. So

Don  21:15

will Cecil I think you're the man for the job, you seem to have some energy

Cecil  21:19

I appriciate that Don

Don  21:20

I  heard about. Alright, well, last message would you like to convey to our audience about Baker USD, 

Cecil  21:29

You know I tell everybody that comes out there. Our students deserve everything everybody else gets. And I think I think all of our smalls need to think that way, right? It doesn't matter if you have 40 kids, or you have 4000 kids, every kid deserves the same, right? And we just have to be able to think outside the box, if you will, just how do we go about the unorthodox thinking, how do we how do we get this? How do we achieve that? Right? Because our students deserve the same thing that everybody else deserves, you know, and you just have to push forward with that focus, I think and your teachers, let them let them do their job. Just let them work, right. I've got to share a little story. I've got a science teacher than and he teaches a robotics class. And we bought all these robotics things last year for him. And couple years, he's been doing all this stuff. And I walked by the other day, and I looked through the window. And he's got four or five 3d printers going, and kids making like, masks and little trophies. And I told him, I said, I said, Jesus you it's a robotics class, man, what are you? Come on now? He said, No, no, no, I'm teaching them how to use these. These 3d printers. Here's the program, we're going to print 3d cars, that can work and then we're going to build a 3d robot with these things. And so when I first looked in, I said, Come on, man, you're making you're making a mask, right? What what's the what's the point behind this a robotics class. But when you sit back and see their vision with what they're going to do with it, you think, Okay, I just need to shut my mouth sometimes and let it happen. You know, and just let it go. Right? And it's, it's amazing what our staff will do if you if you guide them in the right direction and let them go. So and then always get out there and give the kid a pat on the back and, you know, know their name, see their faces.

Don  23:23

Superintendent Edwards, I appreciate you coming today.

Cecil  23:26

I appreciate it. I appreciate the invite. Don I've had a good time. 

Don  23:29

What a pleasure. Thank you for listening. We hope you find this information valuable. If you have any topics or questions that you would like addressed, please email them directly to cwa@sbcss.net as always, we hope you stay well. And continue to transform live through education.