Supercast

Kelli Cannon:
It’s just really fun to see how far education has come. 

Megan Dahlgren:
So to be able to take this and learn and see how it's grown from Oregon Trail to you know whatever, however you're using it in your classroom now. 

Kelli Cannon:
There are old programs that they used to actually print out and hand out to the attendees and there are topics like WordPerfect and AOL.

[Music]

Anthony Godfrey:
Hello and welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. They are supporting teachers in doing groundbreaking work, redefining what traditional learning looks like in the classroom. 

On this episode of the Supercast, we talk with a Digital Learning Specialist and an Instructional Coach to explore the history of digital learning, how it's impacting students today, and how teachers are seeing big benefits using the technology that is now at their fingertips.

We're here at UCET in the UEN Homeroom Podcast Studio talking about how UCET impacts your practice and we're talking now with Kelli Cannon. Tell us a little bit about your role in Jordan School District, with UCET, and how being at UCET and being involved has impacted your practice. 

Kelli Cannon:
Okay, so yeah, my name is Kelli Cannon. I am a Digital Learning Specialist in Jordan School District and I'm also a UCET Board member. This is my third year on the board and I love everything about UCET. My first UCET conference was my first year of teaching, 2014. It feels like a long time ago. When I think about that time I think we didn't even have laptops. So we had desktop computers and people were just kind of like sitting on the floor with like the first generation iPads trying to learn things and do things and just how much the conference has grown in the last 11 years has been just really fun to see. Just the impact that technology has had on education. 

Anthony Godfrey:
So when someone comes to UCET what sorts of things will they learn about in breakouts and keynotes and in talking with vendors? 

Kelli Cannon:
Okay, so the way we have the UCET Conference sorted out right now is in strands. In the strands there are different topics so there's like a robotic strand, and there's a tech basic strand, and a tech advanced strand, and so there's a little something for everybody here. There's also leadership and coaching because we have a lot of instructional and digital coaches as well who want to improve their practice. Then coming into this vendor hall as I look around I see a lot of tech companies. This year our theme is “Authentic Intelligence” and it's a little– like we say it's a little bit cheeky to AI in a way. There are so many AI vendors here and how AI is really shaping the landscape of education in Utah right now. 

Anthony Godfrey:
Tell us more about what “Authentic Intelligence” means. Why that theme? 

Kelli Cannon:
So when we were sitting around at our– we planned these conferences a year in advance. So we were sitting around in our meeting last July and we said “We know AI is gonna be really big it's not going away, so what can we do to kind of play off that theme?” So we said, “Let's use AI, but when we say Authentic Intelligence we mean how can we use AI or keep the human skills in a technology-driven world?” So we're still looking for that human input. I think that's what keeps teaching like personalized and relevant is having that human interaction. 

Anthony Godfrey:
I really think artificial intelligence propels human intelligence instead of replacing it. It's a way to enhance it to support it and to build a foundation. Kind of clear the easy stuff out of the way so we can get to the real deep thinking. 

Kelli Cannon:
Yeah, I agree. 

Anthony Godfrey:
Instruction is really at the heart of this right? I mean it's technology-focused but it really comes down to teaching and learning. 

Kelli Cannon:
Yeah, I agree. Something that we really like with AI and something we've been talking a lot about in our district is how AI, particularly school AI, has really personalized learning for each of our students. And how we've been able to use AI as a thought partner and not just, you know, putting students in the space or with a chatbot but really making sure that they are learning, and growing, and making it relevant to them. Like you mentioned to offloading some of those administrative tasks so we can have more time to work with the students which is what really matters. 

Anthony Godfrey:
Absolutely. If you go back in time to the 2014 Kelli and you compare her with the 2025 Kelli, how has UCET changed the way that you look at education and teaching generally? 

Kelli Cannon:
Well, I remember that year I met my new team. I got hired like a week before school started right out of college. They gave me this big huge stack of worksheets and they said this is our math for the year. I was like “Oh wow, okay, packets, worksheets, books” and I mean of course those things have their place but now I look at just the many opportunities that we have with technology and because of technology to teach in a different way and make it last. These are what our students now they spend a lot of time on devices and a lot of time on the internet and technology and so this is like what they're used to. So students of ten years ago compared to now are completely different. 

Anthony Godfrey:
So I love how you switched it from you ten years ago to students ten years ago. 

Kelli Cannon:
Sorry. 

Anthony Godfrey:
Which is really the focus. No, you're right. You're right because you have to think about what world are students coming from. What's their day-to-day experience and how do you tap into that to make sure that education is as effective as it can be? 

Kelli Cannon:
Agreed. 

Anthony Godfrey:
Tell us about a Digital Learning Specialist for those who don't know. What is your role in the district? What exactly do you do to help support our teachers? 

Kelli Cannon:
Yeah, so there are about eight of us and we have about ten to fifteen different schools that we visit every month and we try to spend extended time there. We meet with instructional coaches and digital coaches, we hold tech trainings, we also do a lot of professional development in the district office. We love everything tech-related. People are always emailing– just don't call us because we don't use our phones very well. I don't know how to transfer a phone call, figure that out. 

Anthony Godfrey:
It's an archaic skill. It's an archaic skill like writing a check. Nobody needs to do that anymore. 

Kelli Cannon:
What is that? 

Anthony Godfrey:
Right, exactly. Exactly. 

Kelli Cannon:
Yeah, and so also part of my role is I work with computer science. I help train our computer science rotation leads and I get to do STEM and robotics and help them do lessons and train on tools. So it's just a really fun and unique job to have. 

Anthony Godfrey:
As I walked in I saw the “Eras” booth. The “UCET Eras” booth with lots of technology over the years. I felt really comfortable standing between the '80s table and the ‘90s table. That felt really good to me. Tell us about the “Eras” booth. 

Kelli Cannon:
Yeah, okay. So about a year ago “Taylor Swift The Eras” was really popular so that's kind of what started it, right? Taylor Swift through the eras. I've always listened to her music since I was a teenager and so I thought, “Wouldn't it be fun to go back in time and use that and see what's changed?” 

I've learned a lot in the last year. The original UCET committee was UCCE, which I can't remember that stands for. It's like Utah Coalition for Educational Technology, like that, and it was formed in 1980 out of Mike Bailey's master's project which I thought was really interesting to see a master's project grow into something this big. Just going through the history and seeing where they started out. Just you know a few people or maybe a high school auditorium with a hundred people to where we are today in 2025 with 1600 teachers here. And just the amount of vendors and moving even from high schools, to Provo, to the Salt Palace. Like every year we keep growing. So we're really excited to just keep incorporating technology. 

Then as far as the “Eras” booth, what we have is since we started in the 1980s we have a table for each decade. I've asked people to donate old technologies so we have old Apple computers, and we have floppy disks. In the 80s and 90s we have a VHS, which I just found out stands for Video Home System. There were some things over there though I didn't know what they were so I had my Gemini, my Google Gemini app, open yesterday I took a picture of it and I said “Google, tell me what this is and what year it was made” and it explained it to me.

Anthony Godfrey:
Using new technology to understand old technology. that is a thing of beauty.

Kelli Cannon:
Then in our 2020 era, we have a face shield that someone used during teaching of course. I think this one wasn't used but it's just really fun to see how far education has come. There are old programs that they used to actually print out and hand out to the attendees, and there are topics like WordPerfect and AOL. Then you know as we go through it's changed a bit.

Anthony Godfrey:
Is there a CD over there for 1600 free hours of AOL in a particular month?

Kelli Cannon:
There's a floppy disk. 

Anthony Godfrey:
Okay, that's great. It was really cool to look through the eras. And I actually think it's very instructive because as you look I think we're always looking forward. What's new? What's next? How can we get better? But we have to pause and look back and see our progress and see how far we've actually come. It was it was really nice to reminisce through the technology and really think about how far we've come. So bravo on all the work that you're doing and on the eras tour that I got to take through the UCET history. 

Kelli Cannon:
Thank you so much.

Anthony Godfrey:
All right, good luck with your presentation.

Kelli Cannon:
Thank you.

Anthony Godfrey:
Stay with us. When we come back, more on digital learning in Jordan School District.

Never miss an episode of the Supercast by liking and subscribing on your favorite podcasting platform. Find transcripts for this episode and others at supercast.jordandistrict.org.

Break:
It's giving busy parents a little more peace of mind when it comes to their students getting to and from school. We're talking about Zonar MyView. It's a mobile app meant to enhance the school bus transportation experience for students and their families. The app allows parents to check on their child's school bus location and the estimated time of arrival at the bus stop each day for pickup and drop off.

If you want to join the thousands of parents already using the app, it's easy. All it takes is a few simple steps. First download the Zonar MyView app from the App Store or Google Play. Then visit auxiliaryservices.jordandistrict.org/zonar. That's where you'll find the school access code and directions on how to enter your student's unique ID and learn how to create an alert zone around your child's drop-off and pickup locations.

Let the Zonar MyView app help you stay on top of things knowing when a bus might be running a little late and when to get your kids going or head out to meet them at the bus stop. It's one more way for us to better connect with you.

Anthony Godfrey:
We're now talking with Megan Dahlgren who is an Instructional Coach at Rosamond Elementary. Tell us a little bit about being an instructional coach for those who don't know what that is.

Megan Dahlgren:
Oh my goodness, so this is actually my first year as an instructional coach. I'm super excited about it. So my job is to go in and work with the teachers to help improve their instruction.

Anthony Godfrey:
This is now a full-time position. For a while, we had a few hours here a few hours there that we paid people to work after school, but I'm really proud that we are able as a district to have a full-time instructional coach in every elementary school and to have coaches in every secondary school. Every person in this world needs a coach of some sort to help them get better at what they're doing. You know the thing is LeBron James has a coach, Tiger Woods has a coach.

Megan Dahlgren:
Michael Phelps has a coach.

Anthony Godfrey:
All the greats have a coach. Caitlin Clark has a coach. They all have coaches. They all have coaches over the years who have helped them become better and even when they're at the top of their game they want to be a little bit better. They want to maintain and the same is true of teachers.

Megan Dahlgren:
Absolutely.

Anthony Godfrey:
Everyone needs that coaching cycle. Everyone needs that support. So tell me about UCET. How does UCET support you as you support teachers and improve instruction and outcomes for students?

Megan Dahlgren:
So I first attended UCET years ago when I was just a teacher, and I came back from that to my classroom and I said “Oh, I want to try this and this and this.” It was when AI, as I think about it, it was when AI was just getting started in education there was a math– an adaptive math game– that I put into place. Or program, it was gamified, and then also a program that would listen to kids read. And I'm like “Oh, that's what Amira is now” so this is like a forerunner to Amira. I remember taking them back and feeling “Oh, I want to use these.” I could use one because it was free and I couldn't use the other because it cost money. 

So now here, I think I have a good grasp on what a lot of the programs are. So here for me as an instructional coach, where I'm also a digital coach, but I have a teacher that I am doing a coaching cycle with right now and it's for an ML student. So as I was going through the list of different presentations those were a couple that really stuck out with me, is how I can use the programs and digital technology to help these MLs. So I'm excited to learn and be able to take that back to her and say “Oh, what if we try this, and this, and this.” So that's one of my big focuses as I'm here over the next two days.

Anthony Godfrey:
For those listening, an ML is a multi-language learner. 

Megan Dahlgren:
Yes.

Anthony Godfrey:
So you're helping a teacher meet the needs of someone who's learning English at the same time that they're learning their native language and learning all of the subjects throughout the day.

Megan Dahlgren:
Yes. I can't even imagine being in that situation and so whatever we can do to help. I mean I spent time last week putting together little flashcards that will help her with vocabulary and things like that. But it's like “Oh, what can we use technology based that could help her as well.” Anthony Godfrey:
I'm really grateful that you do this work. What you just described is exactly, I think, why it's great to be a teacher in Jordan School District because of the level of support. I love hearing your enthusiasm when you learn about something new even years ago “Okay, I gotta get this. I gotta put this to use. And how can I help this teacher help this ML student?” I just love that energy that you bring to it. 

Megan Dahlgren:
Can I just say something? To my dad's credit, my dad was an educator and he got his master's in instructional technology from Utah State University in the 70s. So I literally have grown up with technology. We had an old Apple 2e so I had it in my home literally my whole life. So to be able to take this and learn and see how it's grown from Oregon Trail to you know whatever, however you're using it in your classroom now. So a tribute to my dad who was instrumental in bringing the internet to a small school in Wyoming.

Anthony Godfrey:
Tell us your dad's name and where did he teach?

Megan Dahlgren:
His name is Mike Roberts and he taught in Bighorn, Wyoming. So little town, I think each graduating class was between 20 and 30 students.

Anthony Godfrey:
That’s a lasting impact. I'm sure many students remember him and the impact he had on them.

Megan Dahlgren:
Yes. it was. It was amazing. Then he was able to take that and bring photography from a dark room to digital photography. Using that for students and having high school students build websites in the 90s and so it was it's really huge. He's my inspiration to loving technology.

Anthony Godfrey:
Well, that passion and that curiosity is carried through in your work now so I'm sure he's very proud of that. It's awesome

Megan Dahlgren:
Thank you. It’s a lot of fun. I love it. I love that even though I'm an instructional coach I can still be teaching. Just yesterday I did a little Google Tips and Tricks with some teachers at my school, those who came. It was my little tech bite as I call it. So I provide treats and come and so it's still my opportunity to be teaching even though I'm a coach.

Anthony Godfrey:
I love that, I love that. Well, it's such an important role. Thank you very much for doing it and hey for everything from Oregon Trail to the things you're teaching. The Oregon Trail had its virtues you know, opaque projectors and the like. I'd like to talk to your dad about that old stuff. Anyway, thanks for everything you're doing now and like I said, just for the caring and passion that you bring to it.

Megan Dahlgren:
I love it. Thanks for the opportunity to be here.

Anthony Godfrey:
Thanks for joining us on another episode of the Supercast. Remember, education is the most important thing you'll do today. We'll see you out there.

(upbeat music)

Raechel Bunnell:
And I did what I want my students to do. I looked and saw what I needed, where my deficiencies were, what parts of history did I need to study. How hard is it to watch yourself teach on a video?

Leslie Steele:
It is very stressful.

Anthony Godfrey:
Nobody likes watching themselves or listening to themselves.

Raechel Bunnell”
No, you're like, "Oh, my posture is bad." I keep saying, "Huh?" Like there's all kinds of things.

Anthony Godfrey:
Hello and welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. It is a rigorous, time-consuming, and challenging process. One that produces some of the most highly trained teachers in the entire nation.

On this episode of the Supercast, we meet two Jordan School District teachers who recently achieved National Board Certification. Doing so required them to submit materials from their lesson plans, recordings of their lessons, and many self-reflections that were reviewed at the national level by experts. Find out how their personal drive to be their very best is taking their teaching practices to new heights.

We're talking today with our two teachers in Jordan School District who are newly Board Certified at the national level. We want to talk with them about the process, but first, just introduce yourself.

Leslie Steele:
I'm Leslie Steele and I teach first grade at Eastlake Elementary.

Raechel Bunnell:
Raechel Bunnell and I teach social studies at Riverton High School.

Anthony Godfrey;
We're going to dive right into it and ask what impact has this had on your teaching going through this process?

Leslie Steele:
Oh my gosh, a huge impact. Not just for the kids who I certified with last year, but the kids this year. It asks you to really reflect on your practice. You video yourself and you watch it over and over and over and find places where you ask good questions and places where you could ask better questions. And the goal isn't perfection. It's reflecting on your practice. How can I dig deeper? How can I be better next time?

Also, you really analyze student work. For my path of certification, I'm early childhood literacy. So that's reading, writing, listening, speaking for ages 3 to 11. So it's a big span. But you basically take student work and just like dive in and work with that student one-on-one and help them craft their writing to be much better. So you're just really going deeper with things that teachers are doing every day.

Raechel Bunnell:
How hard is it to watch yourself teach on a video?

Leslie Steele:
It is very stressful.

Anthony Godfrey:
Nobody likes watching themselves or listening to themselves.

Raechel Bunnell:
You're like, "Oh my posture is bad. I keep saying, “huh” like there's all kinds of things. And that just makes you a better teacher. The reflection part of it is absolutely a big part of why board certification.

Leslie Steele:
It's a really good way to reflect on your teaching and always grow and always be better. It's not like, you know, this board certification process it says like, "Hey, these are really excellent teachers." But also it's like these are teachers that are continuing to grow, that are continuing to move forward and not just be stagnant in one place. You know after I got my master's degree I was like, "What's next?" You know, "Do I go admin? Do I go doctorate? Do I get a second master's?" And when I thought of National Board Certification I was like, "Okay that's the thing that's gonna help me be a better teacher for the future."

Anthony Godfrey:
I love your desire to go to the next level. Okay, what do I do now? What's next for me? And it's really impressive that you've both taken this on.

Now when you were speaking earlier you talked about some of the language that has now become just second nature when you talk about your own teaching and your own reflection. So it sounds like going through this process has really given you a structure for thinking about your own teaching.

Leslie Steele:
Yes, completely. 100%. I mean there's like national board speak. I feel like there's like this language that we use it's this very specific way of writing. It's this very sort of scientific way of looking at things and you're a scientist of like your own work and you're like okay. You're analyzing yourself in right next to your students work to see how you can impact that going forward.

Anthony Godfrey:
Which is not always easy to do. As humans, we tend to tell the most favorable story about ourselves in our minds like oh they're probably fine with what I just said oh this probably worked better than I thought it did. At least as a survival method, we kind of tell ourselves the best story we can. But you have learned through this process to really dig into what needs to change and what needs to be better in your class.

Leslie Steele:
A key phrase in National Board is ‘next time I will’. Next time I would and that has really altered my teaching. Just like I say it's just put this lesson to a side it's good enough but like oh you know what I could have done there. If you don't take the time to sit and do that, you know teaching is a fast-moving train, we move on to the next thing. So National Board forces you to slow down and dig deep.

Raechel Bunnell:
Considering the needs of the students is a big part of it and you know I hadn't been a data teacher in the past. I hadn't been somebody who asked the students how they were doing along the way. You know I might have done like an end-of-the-semester kind of a reflection from the students, but if you can get them along the way and get them to self-assess and how their own learning is going then we can help them to mold their learning into the future and make some better students.

Anthony Godfrey:
I love that focus on data and self-reflection and what you said earlier, it's about always getting better and having the tools in place to always get better. One thing that really struck me with this process as I heard from those throughout the state this morning who are newly certified or are maintaining their certification. I like that term it's “Hey I'm keeping up I'm moving forward”.

This is not an easy process this isn't a process where you just decide you're going to do it and you go through the steps and you're all set you check the boxes. You told a story about your pathway to certification can you tell us about that?

Raechel Bunnell:
So it took me a while. I started all the way back in 2020. Our school district wants you to do it in three years, one to three years. Or I guess the state wants you to do it in one to three years. They have had a system in place that they pay for your fees, and if you don't do it in three years then you have to do retakes on your own dime. So I was determined. I was like for sure in one to three years. It was COVID that messed things up, but I was able to get everything in in three years.

So it's you know you submit your work in April. Is it April? March, and then you have to wait all the way until December until you get the results back. It's very exciting, nerve-wracking because there's a lot that you know you're waiting for, anticipation. I had all of my family gather around while we were going to open the results of my certification in 2023. We're sitting there and it's like those Tik-Tok videos when people are opening college acceptance to Harvard. So we're all standing around it's very exciting. We stayed up late you know and I get the email I open it and there's so much anticipation and I didn't certify. I didn't pass. I looked up at my family's faces and I'm like “I didn't get it” and I started to just cry. And they're like “Okay” and they all kind of went away.

It was really anticlimactic and super sad because I started to think who am I? What did I do wrong? Am I even a good teacher anymore? It was really a weird thing to fail, quote-unquote fail because I just thought I was gonna do better than that. So I had to decide if this was really– did I want to try again? Did I want to do retakes or was I done with the whole process? It took a month to really think about it and figure out what I wanted to do next.

I did what I want my students to do. I looked and saw what I needed, where my deficiencies were, what parts of history did I need to study. What parts of geography and economics did I need to study? And I was able to do it. Gosh, it really came down to the wire. I studied. I did flashcards. I did all this and then even when we were waiting, you know Leslie and I took the test on the same day.

Leslie Steele:
That’s where we met.

Raechel Bunnell:
And we're sitting there and I'm waiting in line and I'm even listening to review videos on my phone while we're in line waiting to check in. And wouldn't you know it?

Anthony Godfrey:
You were cramming.

Raechel Bunnell:
I was cramming.

Anthony Godfrey:
You were cramming.

Raechel Bunnell:
I had studied a lot but I also did some cramming. The essay on the test was the exact thing that I had studied on my way in and then I had my phone to my ear and I did well. All of that time, all of the years that I sat there and tried and worked really hard. It is a really hard process, and so I took the test. This last December comes up, and I don't tell a soul. I didn't tell anybody that I was getting my results.

Anthony Godfrey:
You couldn't have a repeat.

Raechel Bunnell:
No, I was too nervous. I was much too nervous. So I was just sitting on the couch everybody was like watching TV. I opened the email and I said “Whoo-hoo” like so excited because I actually certified. It's been a really amazing process and stuff.

Leslie Steele:
And you saw your fireworks.

Raechel Bunnell:
I saw the fireworks.

Leslie Steele:
When you certify, the screen where you log in has like these firework confetti things coming down. So like in the National Board world, it's “Who got their fireworks? Did you get your fireworks?” I would keep logging in and like see them reanimate.

Raechel Bunnell:
Yep. Just so you could see those beautiful fireworks.

Anthony Godfrey:
The fireworks rerun.

Raechel Bunnell:
You know, I don't fail at many things.

Anthony Godfrey:
I wouldn't think so.

Raechel Bunnell:
It was it was hard emotionally and that's a lot of what students go through. You know, they get a paper back and it has a D, an F on it and how do you bounce back from that? Are you going to bounce back from that? Are you going to work at a retake or talk to your teacher and study and do better next time? That's absolutely what they go through. That doesn't end when you're an adult. It doesn't end in your career. So it was an interesting experience to have to go through that disappointment and then understand that it wasn't personal, right?  You can grow from it. You grow from your failures.

Anthony Godfrey:
Absolutely.

Leslie Steele:
And the support from the cohort. That was like a master class to me in teaching and giving students support. The way they would structure those meetings and give us sentence frames and guide the discussion. That alone was great professional development to kind of see how they taught us.

Raechel Bunnell:
Leslie's lucky because she started with a cohort. Back in 2020 when I started, I didn't feel like I had any idea what to do. I was alone and lost for a good for the first two, three years of it and then I figured out that there was support out there. So if I could do it all again, oh my gosh a cohort. There's one through the Utah NBCT, is that the one you did?

Leslie Steele:
Yes, I don't know how you did it without because they break it down for you and kind of say like “Okay this month we're really gonna focus on this”, “this month we're gonna focus on this” and then toward the end we're actually sending each other our papers. Reading papers, giving feedback, it was so incredibly valuable. No shade to National Board but those instructions are insane. Those instructions, I mean you can read them over and over. What do they want from me? So they help to really break it down.

Anthony Godfrey:
Stay with us. When we come back more with two of our National Board Certified teachers.

Never miss an episode of the Supercast by liking and subscribing on your favorite podcasting platform. Find transcripts for this episode and others at supercast.jordandistrict.org.

Break:
Hello, I'm Sandy Riesgraf, Director of Communications for Jordan School District, and we want to invite you to connect with us. So many exciting things are happening in your child's school, your neighbor's school, in every school here, every day. Don't miss out on following the fun or simply staying informed when there's important information we need to share. Join us at jordandistrict.org, or follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram @jordandistrict. We can't wait to connect.

Anthony Godfrey:
What advice would you give teachers who are considering becoming National Board Certified?

Leslie Steele:
I would say you can do it. Dive in. The first step is just deciding that you want to do it. There are people in our district who are here to support you and to help you sort through the process. It seems really overwhelming at first but it's things you're already doing, you're just going deeper. Anthony Godfrey:
There is some financial incentive at the state and at the district level. Talk to folks about that who are listening and might be interested.

Raechel Bunnell:
So at the state level, there is an annual stipend, I suppose, that is about a $1,000 or $2,000 if you are teaching at a Title One school. That is one of the lower that states offer in the United States right but I think that there's a push to get more.

Leslie Steele:
Yes, the tides are turning I feel it.

Anthony Godfrey:
I feel like that's true because they talked about legislators who are interested in sponsoring legislation going forward to provide better support and more financial incentive.

Raechel Bunnell:
In any state where they have a higher financial incentive you, have a higher amount of teachers that are doing board certification. It's not all about money though, like our school district also has a great stipend of $2500 a year, and that's awesome.

Leslie Steele:
The state also pays for you to go through the process. So they pay for your individual components because that would be a couple thousand dollars I think and so the state works with the TSSP funding and that just goes directly into your National Board account.

Raechel Bunnell:
Yeah, and if anybody has questions about that, ask one of the National Board Certified teachers that you know and we can help you figure that out.

Anthony Godfrey:
I've talked with you about how much you love teaching first graders. I have visited your classroom and talked with you about how you handle current events and the difficulties of teaching social studies and the joys of teaching social studies. Tell me just about what you love about teaching first grade and teaching high school.

Leslie Steele:
Okay, first grade is like the growth. I mean from beginning of the year to end of the year it is wild the difference. The kids do a writing activity every month and then I put them together and at parent-teacher conference, I spread them all out. Parents get emotional and just to see from okay this is their August work and this is their latest work. The kids love to see it and just that growth that happens in first grade is unreal. You get kindergartners coming into you and you forget what they're like and then they leave and they're like second graders. So I just love the growth. I love the excitement. Everything is fun, and cool, and special, and magical, and I just love making school a happy place because if they love school in first grade you know we've set them up for success.

Raechel Bunnell:
So for high school social studies, it's exciting. We're in a time that is so important for students to know how to navigate the media, civil discourse, controversial issues and we don't shy away from that. We try to set the kids up with a foundation of civil discourse so that they can handle the big topics so that they can talk to each other in our class without hating each other.

Anthony Godfrey:
It's really fun for me to hear about the experiences at the beginning of a student's time in Jordan School District and toward the end of their time in Jordan and the progress they make.

Raechel Bunnell:
I hope we’re doing fun things the whole way through. It's gotta be fun in first grade and we do hilarious things in high school.

Anthony Godfrey:
Absolutely.

Raechel Bunnell:
Like we have a funeral for Napoleon and we bring out all of the people to eulogize him.

Anthony Godfrey:
Hey, high school kids are full of surprises.

Raechel Bunnell:
You know, a 12th grader will do almost anything for a sticker on a paper.

Leslie Steele:
They're the same.

Raechel Bunnell:
They're the same if they're 6 or they’re 16.

Anthony Godfrey:
We will need to talk more about the trench warfare some sounds really cool. Thank you both for being incredible teachers and for pursuing this next level of excellence. I know you're just gonna keep growing and growing. There are lots of lucky students in your classrooms over the years so thank you so much.

Teachers:
Thank you.

Anthony Godfrey:
Thank you for joining us on another episode of the Supercast. Remember, education is the most important thing you'll do today. We'll see you out there.

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Anthony Godfrey:
What is it that you're judged on?

Mackenna York:
So I know we're judged on our knife cuts. We're also judged on safety and sanitation, teamwork skills, and then obviously how your food looks, how it tastes, and then the cleanliness of your cuts.

Grant Ashby:
Teamwork comes into a big play because it really, even though most classes do involve it, it's more of a smaller amount of people. So you get to really personally connect with everybody

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Anthony Godfrey:
Hello and welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. They are high school students crafting mouth-watering masterpieces in a sizzling hot competition where culinary talents are put to the test.

On this episode of the Supercast, we join students from four Jordan School District high schools dishing up delicious food in a very impressive ProStart CTE competition. It's a competition where rising young chefs are on a fast track, turning their love of food service into successful careers.

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We're here at the ProStart competition at Mountain America Credit Union Exposition Center to talk with some of the students who competed today. Introduce yourself and tell us what school you're from.

Keyon:
I'm Keyon and I'm from Bingham High School.

Mackenna York:
I'm Mackenna York, I'm from Herriman High School.

Grant Ashby:
I'm Grant Ashby and I'm from Mountain Ridge High School.

Ashlee Brixley:
I'm Ashlee Brixley and I'm from Copper Hills High School.

Anthony Godfrey:
Grant, tell us what you cooked today.

Grant Ashby:
Yeah, so for us, we cooked an appetizer with marinated zucchini, toasted bread on top of creamy ricotta, with a chili crunch sauce, and toasted hazelnut.

Anthony Godfrey:
Very nice.

Grant Ashby:
And then for our main, we cooked a petite filet with gochujang carrots on top of creamy mashed potatoes with a chimichurri sauce and microgreens on top.

Anthony Godfrey:
And for dessert?

Grant Ashby:
We cooked a lemon meringue tart with a strawberry coulis and a strawberry brunoise with toasted pistachios on top.

Anthony Godfrey:
I haven't made a strawberry brunoise in I can't tell how long, so.

Grant Ashby:
Yeah, well, we tried our best today.

Anthony Godfrey:
Tell me what is involved in the strawberry brunoise.

Grant Ashby:
Yeah,  so it's sauced strawberries that are very finely diced.

Anthony Godfrey:
Okay, cool. And what did you make today?

Mackenna York:
So for our appetizer, we made a vanilla bourbon glazed vinaigrette salad. It was like a salad in a cucumber bowl.

Anthony Godfrey:
A glazed vinaigrette salad?

Mackenna York:
Yes.

Anthony Godfrey:
Okay, go on.

Mackenna York:
And then for our entree, we made a pan-seared duck breast with an orange sauce with a parsnip puree and a sweet potato rosette with lemon brussel sprouts and garlic butter mushrooms. And then for our dessert, we made a hazelnut, what's it called? A hazelnut tarte with strawberry curd and chocolate mousse on top.

Anthony Godfrey:
That sounds fantastic. I should not do this interview at lunchtime. How about you? What did you guys make?

Keyon:
So for our appetizer, we made an Asian cucumber salad that was on top of purple cabbage and it was with edamame, carrots, and roasted peanuts. Then for our entree, we made salmon and sauteed vegetables, rice, and the salmon was a miso salmon. And then for the dessert, we made deconstructed cheesecake with a blackberry sorbet. It was like oat and honey crumble. And then we had passionberry curd.

Anthony Godfrey:
Wow, it's like I can picture all of this. It's such an incredible combination of colors and flavors, that's really exciting. What did you make today?

Ashlee Brixley:
So today we were really, really focused on having our team create their own recipes and work solely off of those. So we made our own recipe for our crab rangoons and our sweetened sour sauce. Creamy, crunchy, sour, savory, amazing. Our main dish was a miso pork ramen. We team prepared the stock, it took 12 hours to put that together. It took forever. And yeah, we had carrots, we attempted some eggs, they didn't turn out all the way. And we put some pork, some bean sprouts, and some beautifully diagonal cut green onion on top of there.

Anthony Godfrey:
That's high-stakes cooking eggs these days, because it's $3 an egg, so you–

Ashlee Brixley:
I know, it was really expensive.

Anthony Godfrey:
–you can’t mess up on those eggs.

Ashlee Brixley:
I know, I know. And then for dessert, we did a no-bake matcha cheesecake that was inspired by a riverbed so our first layer has poppy seeds within it to represent the rocks. Our second layer is our matcha layer, and then on top it's shaped like a lily pad and has a carved strawberry to look like a flower.

Anthony Godfrey:
Good heavens, that all sounds incredible. What is it that you're judged on? What is it that you're competing? What are the criteria?

Mackenna York:
So I know we're judged on our knife cuts. We're also judged on safety and sanitation, teamwork skills, and then obviously how your food looks, how it tastes, and then the cleanliness of your plates.

Anthony Godfrey:
So do you prepare in advance, or do you know what you're going to make in advance if you bring all the ingredients, or do they say here's a horse hoof, some cauliflower, and a flavor packet of Wyler's lemonade, and now you need to make an entree?

Ashlee Brixley:
Well, thank goodness we get the opportunity to create our own menu, which is actually another thing we're graded on here.

Anthony Godfrey:
Oh, okay, so creating your menu, you talked about the 12 hours of preparation, and then you execute while you're here, and they watch the teamwork. Tell me about knife work. Is it cutting everything the same size so it cooks evenly, or is it just simply not severing a digit? What exactly are you judged on?

Keyon:
So we're judged based on a list of knife cuts that we could choose from originally, and we don't actually get judged on the knife cuts within the dish. We put aside two of the knife cuts, and that's where the judges come in and look over those knife cuts.

Anthony Godfrey:
So it's the knife cuts in addition to what you've prepared?

Keyon;
Yes.

Anthony Godfrey:
Wow. Well, I knew from the first description of the first dish that this is far out of my league. I could eat all of this effectively, but I could not prepare any of it.

Stay with us. Coming up, more tasty tidbits from students competing in the ProStart CTE competition.

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Never miss an episode of The Supercast by liking and subscribing on your favorite podcasting platform. Find transcripts for this episode and others at supercast.jordandistrict.org.

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Break:
Does your student want to become a veterinarian, commercial pilot, programmer? Maybe they want to make a difference as a dental assistant. These are just some of the programs offered as part of Career and Technical Education, CTE in Jordan School District. CTE provides the technical skills needed to prepare students for future employment or a successful transition to post-secondary education. Career and Technical Education provides work-based learning opportunities. We partner with industry experts to offer apprenticeships and internships with students working in the real world at real jobs while going to school. The CTE experience starts in our elementary schools with the Kids' Marketplace and grows through middle and high school. To explore all CTE has to offer in Jordan School District visit cte.jordandistrict.org today and let's get your child started on the pathway to a profession.

Anthony Godfrey:
Oh wow, this is really nicely put together. Describe where the crab rangoon is, is that right over there?

Ashlee Brixley:
Yeah, so right here's our crab rangoons.

Anthony Godfrey:
And I like the smear of, I don't know, the dash of color there that you've got. Very nice. This looks delicious.

Ashlee Brixley:
Yeah, it's awesome.

Anthony Godfrey:
What's your favorite of these dishes?

Ashee Brixley:
I am the one that actually created the recipe here for the ramen, so I definitely am a natural favorite to the ramen.

Anthony Godfrey;
Yeah, that looks really good. And I like the little stack of carrots, what would you call those?

Ashlee Brixley:
Those are julienne cut carrots.

Anthony Godfrey:
Julienne cut carrots. Gives a nice little pop of color and boy, that is nicely arranged. Okay, let's take a look at the next one.

Keyon:
So, what questions do you have?

Anthony Godfrey:
What did you do to the cucumber there? That is quite an intricate cut.

Keyon:
Spiral cucumber, when we cut it, we had two chopsticks below the cucumber, and we cut it 90 degrees first, and then we flipped it over and cut it 45 degrees to achieve that kind of look.

Anthony Godfrey:
Wow, that is really cool. And I can see that you have carefully arranged the salmon here. That is really nicely constructed.

Keyon:
Yeah, so.

Anthony Godfrey:
Tell me about that design.

Keyon:
We're struggling with the salmon a lot, especially the rice because it's kind of difficult to shape the rice to where how it looks good.

Anthony Godfrey:
It looks great right now.

Keyon:
We decided to put it a little well for the sauce. And this salmon filet is actually a little small because it doesn't cover the sauce up there.

Anthony Godfrey:
I see.

Keyon:
And normally it covers it on top, but it's whatever. As you can see, a lot of our dishes were focused on bringing out the color of the dish instead of just like, you know.

Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah, the colors really do pop, and I even felt that in your description, like I could see what it looked like. Tell me about the latticework here.

Keyon:
So she actually just melted some white chocolate and put some coconut oil in it. And as that melted, she put it back into the cooler. No, she drizzled it just with a spoon. So it was just a spoon.

Anthony Godfrey:
Wow, it looks really cool and the coconut oil made the difference that it could kind of keep shape like that.

Keyon:
Yeah, it looks really great and it tastes amazing.

Anthony Godfrey:
And it tastes really good. Well, I'll have to take your word for it. I can't disturb that. Is that a lime rind?

Keyon:
Yeah, that's a lime rind. So that was actually to give some of that lime flavor to the sorbet. I didn't taste it personally, but I think it tastes pretty good. I think the dessert probably tastes the best because there's so many combinations of flavors throughout the dessert, but everything works really well together. And the texture of the coldness of the dessert makes it so good. I just love it.

Anthony Godfrey:
Well, everyone's probably heard of every ingredient here. It's how you combine them in a unique collection of flavors and colors that can really make something unique.

Keyon:
Actually, our dessert right here is $17, and our salmon is $12 because we have vanilla bean inside our cream cheese.

Anthony Godfrey:
Dessert’s more expensive. That would make it very enticing. Like, ooh, why is the dessert more expensive than the entree? I must know.

Keyon:
It tastes so good.

Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah, good. So it's the vanilla bean that makes it expensive?

Keyon:
Yeah, it's in the cream cheese right there.

Anthony Godfrey:
Oh, yeah. Very nice. Let's take a look at the next one. Okay. Where's that strawberry you diced up?

Grant Ashby:
The strawberry brunoise is right on top.

Anthony Godfrey:
Oh, the brunoise.

Grant Ashby:
You can see those finely diced ones mixed in with the pistachios.

Anthony Godfrey:
With little dots of-- is that strawberry puree?

Grant Ashby:
Strawberry coulis.

Anthony Godfrey:
Coulis.

Grant Ashby:
Yes.

Anthony Godfrey:
Oh, I should have known. Wow, this all looks so nicely arranged. And that petit filet is something that I would love to sink my teeth into.

Grant Ashby:
Yes.

Anthony Godfrey:
What did you do to the carrots to make them look actually appetizing?

Grant Ashby:
Yeah, so we peeled them and we made sure they were all relatively the same size as possible and then we boiled them to cook them. And then when we were toasting and cooking our zucchini, we actually put them in a pan fry. And so they are pan-fried on the outside and then they're marinated in a gochujang sauce.

Anthony Godfrey:
Wow. It looks, they look delicious. They're glistening there on the plate. Are they heirloom carrots or are they Harmon's carrots?

Grant Ashby:
They're just normal carrots. They're fine and they're rainbow carrots. They just, with the sauce, it loses the color a little bit.

Anthony Godfrey:
Well, no, it looks fantastic. And let's look at the final dish here.

Mackenna York:
Yes. So these are definitely our ugly plates. I mean, our salad fell apart, but it's supposed to be, it's supposed to be in like a really tight circle.

Anthony Godfrey:
I mean, there's some structural issues sometimes with this sort of plating, I guess.

Mackenna York:
But, so this is our vanilla bourbon glaze.

Anthony Godfrey:
This still looks great.

Mackenna York:
Thank you.

Anthony Godfrey:
If you hadn't told me it had collapsed, I would think it was exactly as it should be. Tell me about the dessert here. I love the design there.

Mackenna York:
So this is our chocolate mousse piped around with our strawberry cream. And then this is strawberry curd and under the chocolate mousse on top of the tarte, there's more strawberry curd under there.

Anthony Godfrey:
It actually looks like calligraphy there on the plate almost. It's, that is a lot of delicate drawing and larger dots that get a little bit smaller along to kind of accent that. It looks delicious and it looks gorgeous all at the same time.

Makenna York:
Thank you.

Anthony Godfrey:
If anyone was served any of these dishes, they would take pictures first for sure and then finally decide to eat. That looks so good.

Makenna York:
Thank you.

Anthony Godfrey:
Well, that is very impressive. Tell me about what it's like being in this ProStart program. What do you like most about being in these classes?

Ashlee Brixley:
It's a sense of community. It's definitely a sense of home. But on top of that, it really just advances your techniques. I wasn't gonna be going into culinary until about a year ago. So I've truly started square one with this program and now I'm here competing with the best in my class.

Mackenna York:
I think it really just brings everybody together and it puts you in like a field if you weren't sure if you were interested in culinary, like she wasn't sure. It really shows you all of the fun that it can be, all of the excitement that you can have in it.

Keyon:
I just like being here and talking to people 'cause in most classes you have to keep your mouth shut but I just love talking to people so much. And in this class, it's just a lot of communication and you have time to talk between your networks and everything so.

Anthony Godfrey:
Lots of interaction, love it.

Grant Ashby:
I think the teamwork comes into a big play because it really, even though most classes do involve it, it's more of a smaller amount of people. So you get to really personally connect with everybody and you work as a team and you can create these dishes like we all did today. It's just something cool to see that even professional chefs do today.

Anthony Godfrey:
Fantastic, well, you've all done extremely well and it's very exciting to see the final product. In addition to culinary, we also have the management category in which students have competed. So tell me about your competition today. It looks like a menu here and some marketing going on.

Chase:
Yeah, so in our management portion of the competition, we do a lot of technical work and inventing a new concept for a restaurant. So our restaurant idea was Savannah Roots, which is an African-based restaurant that not only gives back to the community but serves very affordable food for families that otherwise can't really afford it.

Anthony Godfrey:
What a cool concept and tell everyone your name and what school you're from.

Chase:
I'm Chase and I'm from Herriman.

Anthony Godfrey:
Chase from Herriman. So tell us about what the competition looks like. I love this idea. It connects to community. It's something unique. What gave you this idea and then what does the competition look like?

Chase:
Yeah, so the competition, unlike the culinary team where everybody's watching, we're in a small room. So it's a lot of--

Anthony Godfrey:
In a booth. In a numbered booth.

Chase:
Yeah, in a numbered booth. So it's really intense and one-on-one with the judges and we really try to get our point across in what we're aiming for in our restaurant and what our goals are. Our idea with this--

Anthony Godfrey:
That's the laminated poster that you hear that he's been holding up this whole time and it looks great. You've got the great colors going and the map.

Chase:
Yeah.

Anthony Godfrey:
Mapped out restaurant, everything. What's your favorite African dish?

Chase:
Probably our peri-peri chicken that we have on our menu.

Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah.

Chase:
It is ridiculously good and it's like, it's a nice mix between fresh citrus flavors and spicy chicken and it's just amazing.

Anthony Godfrey:
I've had peri-peri chicken, it is delicious.

Chase:
Yes.

Anthony Godfrey:
And I'm sure yours is very, very good.

Chase:
Yes.

Anthony Godfrey:
So you said that it's one-on-one and you're there with the judge in the small booth. But tell me, what exactly are you judged on? What are the aspects of the competition that they evaluate?

Chase:
So we go through a number of judging series, ranging from our concept to critical thinking. It's pretty rigorous in the aspect that it's technical and every single detail counts. So we go through a number of times back and forth at making sure we understand what these questions are that these judges are going to be asking us. My team actually had two judges that had absolutely nothing wrong to say with our--

Anthony Godfrey:
Really?

Chase:
–with our poster and everything.

Anthony Godfrey:
Two judges with no suggestion?

Chase:
They had no suggestions, no critiques, and they absolutely loved everything.

Anthony Godfrey:
That's fantastic. Okay, I wanna ask you all what's next? Is this a hobby where people always want you to cook for family events? Or is this more of a career that takes you beyond your ProStart program?

Makenna York:
So for me, it's definitely both. I do get asked to cook for different family events and stuff, but I'm also going to culinary school after high school so that I can continue on with ProStart and continue on with cooking.

Ashlee Brixley:
I will also be going to culinary school in order to continue my chef's journey.

Grant Ashby:
Yeah, I will be attending culinary school. I definitely see this as a career and a path of life for myself.

Keyon:
This is just a little hobby I have inside. My family doesn't even ask me to cook most of the time and I'm just kinda here in ProStart.

Anthony Godfrey:
You must have some good cooks around in your family.

Keyon:
My father is a restaurant owner, so.

Anthony Godfrey:
Oh, okay, well then you're covered.

Chase:
Well, with the skills I've learned, I definitely wanna take it higher and make a career out of what I've learned here today.

Anthony Godfrey:
I love it, it's so exciting. However you choose to use these skills, it's something you won't forget, I'm sure, being a part of this. All of you have great careers, great hobbies ahead of you, whatever you choose. So thank you very much for letting me be part of things today. This is so impressive and you guys all, like I said, have great things ahead of you, so thank you.

Students:
Thank you.

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Anthony Godfrey:
Thanks for joining us on another episode of the Supercast. Remember, education is the most important thing you will do today. We'll see you out there.

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Anthony Godfrey:
What do you guys love about playing D&D?

Ethan Sabin:
I just love the versatility of it. It can help you have friends that can do these kinds of things with you...That can build friendships anyway.

Anthony Godfrey:
Kind of the opposite of being on your phone.

Shadow Tillman:
I mean, it's more stimulating to your brain. There's a lot of creativity and improv in it.

Anthony Godfrey:
Hello and welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. It is a fast-growing club at Riverton High School where students are using their imagination, relying on teamwork and increasing their storytelling skills in a unique way.

On this episode of the Supercast, we meet members of the Dungeons & Dragons Club at Riverton High. It's a club where students are bonding over their love of exploring fantasy worlds, defeating evil creatures and finding treasure in a game where critical thinking and creative minds are key to success.

We're here at Riverton High School, after school, talking with members of the Dungeons & Dragons Club here. Introduce yourselves and tell me a little bit about yourself.

Ethan Sabin:
So I'm Ethan Sabin. I'm the president of the D&D Club here at Riverton High School. I don't know. I've been playing D&D for about a decade.

Shadow Tillman:
I'm Shadow Tillman. I'm also a member of D&D Club. I haven't been playing as long as he has, but it's still quite a while.

Anthony Godfrey:
Tell me about the origins of the D&D Club. Has it been around for a while or when did it start?

Ethan Sabin:
So I'd say that the D&D Club, as far as I know, it's been going on for a little while. However, the previous teacher that was supporting the club recently left and moved to, I believe, a job in BYU-Idaho, and so we had to find a new advisor. And it's almost like it restarted the club, but it's been going for a little while.

Anthony Godfrey:
And for those who don't know about Dungeons & Dragons, explain what a role-playing game is and what Dungeons & Dragons involves specifically.

Ethan Sabin:
So D&D is a tabletop role-playing game where basically you create your own character and it's very customizable from several different specifications and stuff. You play your character running through a story, and you have a character or a person known as the Dungeon Master that writes the story and that controls fate, and runs you through the story using the character you've created.

Anthony Godfrey:
So they create the adventure and then they guide you through the adventure and one of the ways that fate or luck come into play is by using dice. So tell me the role that dice play, so to speak, in Dungeons & Dragons.

Ethan Sabin:
Dice, they're definitely a major role of D&D. You use them to create your abilities, scores, and the things that you use to determine how your character is what they are. And then you can also use them any time that you want to make an ability check. So for example, any time you're trying to track someone or scale a wall or shoot a bow, for example, you'd make an attack roll or a different roll with one of the dice and if you roll low, you usually fail. If you roll high, then you might succeed.

Anthony Godfrey:
And if you are a certain type of character, then you have certain abilities that make it more likely that you'll be successful trying something.

Ethan Sabin:
For example, a fighter would be better at using a bow or sword than, say, a wizard would. And so because they're proficient in these items, they gain pluses to their rolls. So for example, if they rolled a 17, then they might have a plus 3 and so it would be a 20 rather than just a 17.

Anthony Godfrey:
So the plus 3 means because you're who you are, whatever damage you do, we're going to add to it just on the basis of the fact that you're a fighter as opposed to a wizard.

Ethan Sabin:
Yeah.

Anthony Godfrey:
Okay, what you just described... Oh, Shadow, go ahead.

Shadow Tillman:
Additionally, those modifiers are decided by the rolls that you get at the beginning when you first make your character. So you might be like a fighter who's skilled at fighting but about nothing else.

Anthony Godfrey:
And I think that's an important point, Shadow, is that you don't just get to decide at the beginning, "Well, I'm really good at this, and I'm really good at that, and I'm good at everything." You have to roll when you're creating the character to determine exactly what your strengths are. Is that still correct?

Shadow Tillman:
Yes.

Ethan Sabin:
I think that there are a little bit of things that you can choose. So for example, when you're creating a character, you can choose what class you want to be, which is like the specialization, and then you can also choose which skills you're proficient in. So there is some choice to it, but there are other things that you have to work for.

Anthony Godfrey:
Just give me a general description of the club. I know there are lots of clubs here at Riverton. How many people are there? What are the officers and how often do you meet?

Ethan Sabin:
So our club is one of the larger clubs at the school. We meet every single week on Mondays from 2.30 to 4. Our club has around 50 members. Not everyone comes every week and some of the players do it on different days, but we've got around 37 or so active members. And in terms of leadership roles, it's really just the president, and then we have the vice president this year. And it's an election basically at the beginning of the school year.

Anthony Godfrey:
What do you guys love about playing D&D?

Ethan Sabin:
I just love the versatility of it. Obviously, it's fun to play, but then it can also help you have friends that can do these kinds of things with you, or that can build friendships anyway. And then you can also create stories. You can go through those stories with your friends. You can create your own character and stuff from scratch.

Anthony Godfrey:
How about you Shadow?
Shadow Tillman:
I would say that there's a lot of creativity and improv in it. So that there's never a time where you're feeling bored or left out. Everyone's involved, or at least everyone's supposed to be.

Anthony Godfrey:
There are lots of worries these days about people not, and youth in particular, not interacting with each other, being on their phones, being on screens. This seems like a really good antidote to that. It's in person, there's a great connection with each other, high creativity, and like you said, Shadow, everyone's involved, everyone has a chance to interact. Would you agree that this is kind of the opposite of being on your phone?

Ethan Sabin:
For sure. It's more stimulating to your brain. You actually have to do some sort of problem-solving stuff. You have to be creative on some of the things that you have to do.

Shadow Tillman:
There's a lot of problems that will come up, and your goal is to solve those problems. So there's a lot of puzzle-solving and things that will actually get you to think.

Anthony Godfrey:
Tell me about the club. Does it make it easier to find people to play Dungeons and Dragons with, and do you have closer friendships as a result?

Ethan Sabin:
I think that in some ways it's easier to do it in a club, because when you're in a club, you basically make time to do it at a certain time every single week, and so it's more in a set time, and it makes it happen. Whereas if you sometimes just do it at your home with your friends just whenever you can, it generally gets put on the back burner and isn't really something that happens all that much.

Shadow Tillman:
Also, the club makes it a lot easier to find a group, at least the way Ethan did it the first day, made it easier.

Anthony Godfrey:
What you just described is exactly what everyone is supposed to do, and that set aside scheduled time to really do things that connect you with other people and really give you joy in your week. So I love that you've got this club going and that you found another advisor.

Student:
Good, that's 20.

Student:
10. You get a 10.

Anthony Godfrey:
So we're talking now with Mac, who is the advisor for Dungeons and Dragons. Tell me, how did they drag you into doing this?

Mac Hansen:
I don't know. Before this, I didn't really play Dungeons and Dragons. I listened to a lot of podcasts and stuff about it, mostly for the comedy of it all, and they somehow sensed that I'm a super nerd, and so they said, "Hey, we think you would have fun doing this." I was like, "Insulting, but yes, I would. Let's do it."

Anthony Godfrey:
Nerd-recognized nerd, you know?

Mac Hansen:
That's exactly what happened. Well, it's funny because I had three different groups, separate from each other, without knowing that each other were coming to talk to me, come to ask if I would do it.

Anthony Godfrey:
So you give off nerd energy in ways you didn't even realize.

Mac Hansen:
Apparently yeah. I don't even try.

Anthony Godfrey:
Well, I love that you're helping support them. What have you noticed in the interactions? What did they seem to be getting out of being part of the D&D club?

Mac Hansen:
A chance to be more social with people within similar interests. It's the same as what some kids get for football or basketball. They're playing a game together with people who have the same interests, and so they come and they get in their separate groups and they play their campaign for an hour and a half, and they're just having a good time.

Anthony Godfrey:
I think it's fantastic, and I love the level of creativity, the personal interaction, and really the engagement that pulls away from a lot of other things that try to get our attention these days.

Mac Hansen:
I play too. When I'm here, I'm not just sitting on the side. I'm in Ethan's campaign. I told him, "If I'm going to be there, I'm going to play."

Anthony Godfrey:
I love that.

Mac Hansen:
We're all just interacting and the phones are away, which is awesome, the computers are away, and we just have dice and a book.

Anthony Godfrey:
Thank you for providing this for students. I think it's really fantastic.

Mac Hansen:
It's provided entertainment for me as well. Stay with us. When we come back more with the Riverton High School Dungeons & Dragons Club.

Never miss an episode of The Supercast by liking and subscribing on your favorite podcasting platform. Find transcripts for this episode and others at supercast.jordandistrict.org.

Break:
In Jordan School District, we like to support students in and outside the classroom along with their families. That's where the Jordan Family Education Center comes in, offering support services and a wide variety of classes for students and their families, free of charge. You can take a class called Blues Busters for children feeling sad or worried. Just Breathe is a class that helps students reduce stress. Or how about a class that supports parents in helping their children make and keep good friends. There are also support groups and free counseling, all provided by Jordan School District school psychologists, counselors, and school psychology interns. To find out how you can benefit from free family support services offered by the Jordan Family Education Center, call 801-565-7442 or visit guidance.jordandistrict.org.

Anthony Godfrey:
You have a character sheet here. Oh, okay. Just as you take this out and unfold it, this honestly reminds me of the old character sheets. It really does. This is not far off. Okay, let's take a look. Let's take a look. So, talk me through this character. Whose character is this? What's the name?

Ethan Sabin:
So, one of my characters is running an artificer, a fairy, artificer for one of my campaigns that I'm running on Thursday. So, not for the club, but for something else.

Anthony Godfrey:
So, fairy is the race?

Ethan Sabin:
Fairy is the race–

Anthony Godfrey:
Artificer is?

Ethan Sabin:
Artificer is the class.

Anthony Godfrey:
Okay, and what does that mean if they're an artificer?

Ethan Sabin:
So, an artificer is basically someone who imbues item with magic to just create magical items, and so they have a lot of versatility because of the different abilities that they can give to these items. And they're also spellcasters, so they can cast a lot of spells along with the magic that they're also using.

Anthony Godfrey:
Now, explain to me, Shadow, how alignment works. Tell me about alignment. It's interesting because lawful good, that combination, it's the same combination that was used back in the 1900s when I was playing D&D. And actually, back in the past, we used to think, "Oh, you know what? That person's kind of chaotic neutral." Anyway, in real life, sometimes you would assign alignment to people. Tell me about alignment. Describe how that works.

Shadow Tillman:
So, alignment is basically the way your character reacts to things. There's two parts of alignment. There's good and evil. So, good and evil is pretty self-explanatory. And then, between all of those, there's neutral, where it doesn't really affect things all that much. Basically, you follow what you believe in for most neutral things, or if you're lawful neutral, you're going to follow the law, but not really lean towards good or evil.

Anthony Godfrey:
So, it's a combination of either lawful or chaotic and good or evil, right?

Ethan Sabin:
Yeah, so there's lawful neutral.

Anthony Godfrey:
And then, neutral is thrown in there as well, just in case.

Ethan Sabin:
Yeah, so there's lawful neutral, chaotic, then good neutral, evil. And so, you can have combinations such as chaotic good, which might mean you do whatever it takes for the good. Whereas, you might have one like a chaotic evil, which is—or sorry— chaotic evil, where it's just you want to cause chaos and destruction. You might have something like lawful evil, which is kind of like politicians, really, where they're like saying within the laws for the most part, but not for good reasons.

Anthony Godfrey:
I'm going to leave that as your quote. But there is a tendency when you learn about these alignments to think about people in real life and think, "Are you chaotic neutral or chaotic good?" So, yeah, that's very interesting that it has stayed the same all these years.

Pulling dice out of the case that is carefully organized with four-sided, eight-sided, six-sided—no, let's see.

Ethan Sabin:
Yeah, that's correct.

Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah, right, six-sided, and then is that 12-sided?

Ethan Sabin:
So, there's two 10-sided dice, and they're— So, one of them is just the 10-sided dice, which has one through 10. And then there's another one that has 10 through 100 in sets of 10s, so like 10, 20, 30.

Anthony Godfrey:
So, if you're doing a percentage.

Ethan Sabin:
So, percentage, yeah.

Ethan Sabin:
So, when you roll it that way, you could get—if you roll both of them together, you might get like 83 or 27 or numbers like that.

Anthony Godfrey:
So, one is the 10s and one is the one's column?

Ethan Sabin:
Exactly, yeah.

Shadow Tillman:
It's a way to roll anything from one to 100 without having a dice that has 100 sides.

Ethan Sabin:
Exactly, yeah.

Anthony Godfrey:
And these are the 20-sided dice, my favorite.

Ethan Sabin:
Yeah, the most commonly used ones.

Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah, the 20-sided is really something. And when you get a 20, it's weird. Holding the—I haven't rolled a 20-sided dice for a long time.

Ethan Sabin:
Pretty short time, so probably around three hours or three and a half hours.

Anthony Godfrey:
Okay, great. So, if somebody wants to play Dungeons and Dragons, where do they start?

Ethan Sabin:
Our Riverton Library has a copy of the Player's Handbook and a bunch of the different books. I would just recommend reading through the Player's Handbook to kind of get a bit of a grasp on the different rules and the different kinds of characters that you can create. And then, after that, maybe go to your local game store. Like, we've got one pretty close that does D&D. And you can find a group with maybe just your friends or some people that are already part of those, like, clubs and stuff.

Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah. Ethan, Shadow, thank you very much for talking with me. And if you ever need someone else on the campaign, let me know. I'll stop by. And, you know, I'm lawful good in alignment, so I'll be a real addition to the team.

Thanks for joining us on another episode of the Supercast. Remember, education is the most important thing you'll do today. We'll see you out there.

(upbeat music)

Megan Dotson:
We found out that one of our little family members wasn't going to be able to come with us anymore. I immediately started just surfing the internet.

Anthony Godfrey:
It's a way to still feel like he’s somehow a part of things.

Marcela:
Oh, absolutely.

Anthony Godfrey:
Why do you think they want to call you a superhero?

Lucas:
Because I’m going through something so hard.

Marcela:
We didn't ask her to prepare plans. We didn't ask her to do anything. We just said, "Hey, he relapsed."

Anthony Godfrey:
Hello and welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. We all know that teachers care deeply for their students.

On this episode of the Supercast, we visit Megan Dotson's third grade class at Antelope Canyon Elementary School to find out what she is doing to support one of her beloved students battling cancer. Hear how her caring heart is lifting not just Lucas, who has leukemia, but the entire class in the process. She launched the “Smile Like Lucas” campaign and is providing opportunities for students that they will never forget.

We're at Antelope Canyon today talking with Lucas. Lucas, thanks for taking a few minutes to talk with me. I see “Smile Like Lucas” everywhere I look. I see shirts. I see sweatshirts. I see it written up on the whiteboard. Why are we smiling like Lucas today?

Lucas:
We just invented it and I really liked the idea. Even the idea of a monkey in the chair.

Anthony Godfrey:
Tell me about the monkey in the chair.

Lucas:
It came with a book, and it shows whenever you're not there, the monkey will be there, and it will be like wearing the exact same outfit as you. Except it will be wearing its own shirt, I think. It came with its own shirt, except we put on a little one like me.

Anthony Godfrey:
So is the monkey wearing a “Smile Like Lucas” shirt? And for those listening who don't know, why can't you be here sometimes?

Lucas:
Because I have hospital appointments and I have to stay in the hospital. And sometimes I might have to stay in there for maybe a month.

Anthony Godfrey:
I hear that you really love school. Is that right? What do you love most about school?

Lucas:
Spending time with the class and Miss Dotson.

Anthony Godfrey:
Tell me about your teacher. What has your teacher done that has made it such a great place to be?

Lucas:
We made Lucas Friday, the monkey in the chair. Well, really everything.

Anthony Godfrey:
What's Lucas Friday?

Lucas:
Lucas Friday. It's where everybody wears their “Smile like Lucas” shirt and then they come to school with it. Unless if your school doesn't do it. So then they come and it's short day so we do mostly fun things.

Anthony Godfrey:
Mostly fun things. And have you noticed that people smile like Lucas, like the shirt says? Do they? So I see your t-shirt and the sweatshirt and lots of other things as I walk into school that says “Smile Like Lucas” and it's got a big smile with lots of teeth and the blue glasses. Are the blue glasses kind of how people know you? Have you had the blue glasses for a long time?

Lucas:
There's even a ribbon.

Anthony Godfrey:
Oh yes, look at the orange ribbon. I didn't see the orange ribbon. What does the orange ribbon mean?

Lucas:
It's the symbol of my leukemia.

Anthony Godfrey:
So it's a symbol of your leukemia. And because of the leukemia you have to miss class sometimes, right? Hospital visits, doctor visits, and how long have you had to be out before?

Lucas;
Two weeks.

Anthony Godfrey:
Two weeks?

Lucas:
One time I had to be out for a pretty long time. I don't remember how long but it was more than a month.

Anthony Godfrey:
And there's a monkey that takes your place. Is that right? And his name is?

Lucas:
George.

Anthony Godfrey:
George. Is he curious at all? Okay, good. I thought he might be.

We're talking now with Lucas' mom, Marcela. Tell us a little bit about what the support from the school has meant.

Marcela:
It's been incredible. So he has always been a very social kid. He thrives in having those interactions with his friends. And when he first was diagnosed, he was out of school for about ten and a half months. We did a lot of online classes, which were helpful, but we could see that his emotional well-being wasn't like, it wasn't being taken care of as well as we wanted it to be.

It wasn't until he came back, he came into third grade, and we got Miss Dotson involved, and we had the nurse and the counselor, and they were all really helping him thrive because he would say that he was very lonely even when he was here. He would come out to Miss Dotson and give her a hug and say, "I'm just really lonely." And then all of these other activities that we're having, the monkey, the pictures, the letters that he gets every week. I mean we get pictures every day, "Hey, we're wearing his shirt today. It's not Lucas Friday but we're wearing it." And it makes him feel like people are there. Even if he can't see them and he can't hang out with them, people are there for him. And it's made a huge impact on his well-being emotionally.

The other thing that I will say is that we notice that when he is in a good mood or in a good emotional state, he recovers from the chemo or the procedures a lot quicker than when he's sad or feeling a little bit depressed. So it's there. We see it. We see it every day.

Anthony Godfrey:
So it lifts his spirits, but it also improves the medical outcomes and his physical health.

Marcela:
Absolutely.

Anthony Godfrey:
When you said the diagnosis was about how long ago?

Marcela:
So he was first diagnosed in June of 2023, and then he relapsed and they found it in January of 2025.

Anthony Godfrey:
The relapse is very recent.

Marcela:
Yeah. January 6th.

Anthony Godfrey:
Is that when all of the super Lucas and the “Smile like Lucas” started out?

Marcela:
Yeah. There were a lot of things that were happening before, but the relapse was like when we, it was like a lot more because we knew his treatment last time allowed for him to somehow interact here and there. Not very often. It would go weeks before he could see people. But this time around, he's heading in for a bone marrow transplant. He's going to have radiation which he didn't have before, and the chemotherapy that he'll be given will be very, very harsh. So he will actually have to be out of school for a full year and not just out of school like we'll have to fully quarantine. His immune system will not be back to normal for at least two years and any little virus could kill him. So we have to take a lot of measures. So I think once we found out how serious this relapse was, that's when we're like we need to be there for him. We need to help him and he has handled it like a champ because he knows he has an army.

Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah. It's pretty remarkable to see all of the support and is today the last day before he prepares for all of that.

Marcela:
Yes. So today will be the last day he is at school because tomorrow he has a procedure to change his port. He has an internal so it's an inserted port on his chest, but they need a different line for the bone marrow transplant. So he gets that tomorrow. So he'll be out all day and then he starts cranial radiation on Wednesday and he'll be admitted to the hospital on Friday.

Anthony Godfrey:
We'll be wishing him the very best.

Marcela:
Thank you. We appreciate that.

Anthony Godfrey:
George the monkey will have his work cut out for him.

Marcela:
Absolutely. We love getting the pictures of George the monkey playing the parachute, or going to recess, or at lunch. He loves it.

Anthony Godfrey:
Well.

Lucas:
That's how I put him in the parachute and you guys launched him. I tried to catch him but he would just keep going into the parachute. He's like “No, I'm not going anywhere”.

Megan Dotson:
He's talking about a time that we took the monkey to PE and put him in the middle of like the traditional school parachute and we launched him in the air and he says he just doesn't feel really right about launching George into the air like that.

Anthony Godfrey:
Well.

Lucas:
I'm like, doesn’t that hurt?

Marcela:
Would you like to be launched?

Anthony Godfrey:
You know I'm not surprised that you're looking out for George, making sure that he's okay too. Does it make you as a family feel more connected to the school, getting the pictures of George? I'm sure that for Lucas it's a way to still feel like he's somehow a part of things.

Marcela:
Oh absolutely. I think obviously he's missing out on part of it, right? He's not here, but being able to see what the class is up to when he's not, because he's– One thing that I love about Ms. Dotson is we didn't ask her to prepare a plan. We didn't ask her to do anything. We just said, “Hey, he relapsed,” and that was a huge burden that she lifted. The fact that we didn't have to say “Hey, is there any way we can set up Zoom calls” or think about how we were going to keep him up to speed with school. She did it all. She gave us a schedule, and she said “I'm going to have it on whether he joins or not. It'll be on. If he doesn't feel well, that's fine, we'll catch him up.” And that was just as a family, we were worrying about all of these other things that we had to do. His medication, finding a donor, all of it, and to not have to worry about that was just incredible.

So he joins the calls, but then what he considers the fun, like the not school stuff, he doesn't get to be part of that, so getting the pictures of the monkey and the letters that describe all those things, that's just he he loves it. He absolutely loves it.

Anthony Godfrey:
I think it's a great way to keep you connected and you know that people are thinking about you when you're not here.

Stay with us when we come back more with Ms. Dotson and Lucas.

Never miss an episode of the Supercast by liking and subscribing on your favorite podcasting platform. Find transcripts for this episode and others at supercast.jordandistrict.org.

Break:
Hello, I'm Sandy Riesgraf, Director of Communications for Jordan School District, and we want to invite you to connect with us. So many exciting things are happening in your child's school, your neighbor's school, in every school here, every day. Don't miss out on following the fun or simply staying informed when there's important information we need to share. Join us at jordandistrict.org, or follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram @jordandistrict. We can't wait to connect.

Anthony Godfrey:
Ms. Dotson, tell me about what this has been like for you this year.

Megan Dotson:
I feel like my kids mean a lot in this room to me. They're a big deal. Each one of them are a really big deal, and when we found out that one of our little family members wasn't going to be able to come with us anymore, I immediately started just surfing the internet of like what have other teachers, there's got to be another teacher out there doing this.

So I just started looking and this foundation came up and I reached out to Marci and I was like “Hey, what do you think about this?” I needed some more information from her about his case and stuff like that to get it sent to us, and they sent it, and we found really good ways and putting him in our room. Honestly it feels whole again. We're all back together for at least reading and math, and those are our important parts of the day, and the biggest pieces, and he's here with us when he can be. And hearing his voice. He ends up being over the loudspeaker and hearing his voice is so wonderful. He'd been out a couple of days before he got to be back on Zoom with us and they all, I wish I could have known that he was going to speak to show their reaction. There's the biggest smiles in this room because that's what he is to us.

Anthony Godfrey:
So you found the idea for having George on the internet, but you took a lot of initiative to leap into action. Tell me what sparked that for you.

Megan Dotson:
I just knew that we cheer each other on a lot here. My biggest thing is “Can we give so and so a big ‘Oh yeah’” and they all shout ‘oh yeah’ in class pretty often. I needed a way for him to hear his ‘oh yeah’ pretty often because I knew that this wasn't going to be easy. I knew that there was going to be a lot that he was going to do this time.

There's a member in our class that I had heard a rumor that her aunt did t-shirts, and I was like, you know what? I got to figure it out. I sat down to my trusty computer and I came up and I was like, oh, his blue glasses, and then his smile is something that lights up our room so much every day. And I sent Marci the idea and I was like “Oh my, does this fit him? Is this kind of the message we want?” And she's like “Yeah” and so I decided to make a t-shirt for each of the kids in this room to show their support. Not only that, but in his brother's class and his little sister's class they all have the same shirt because they need an army too, not just his class.

Anthony Godfrey:
That’s great. Well, let me give you a big “Oh yeah” for jumping in and doing that. I think that's really tremendous. What do you think the other students in this class and other classes have learned from this experience of really supporting Lucas?

Megan Dotson:
I think I've watched the empathy and each of these little kids grow by a million and a half. Over conferences just the last couple of days, having the parents come in and like, oh my, they just talk about it all the time, how excited they are for Lucas Friday or how they're going to grab an extra of this or whatever at home to put in his mailbox or things like that. Just watching them care for someone else has been really really cool. And then come up with ideas about how we’re doing to, or what we’re going to say, or what they'd like to do to show him love. I encourage that a lot in this room, but I have watched it grow tremendously in the last little bit.

Anthony Godfrey:
It sounds like you had created a classroom that was very supportive long before you knew that Lucas was going to be in this situation. That gave you a lot of a lot of momentum to build on instead of just starting out of nowhere like “Oh wait a minute, we're going to focus on each other for a moment.”

Megan Dotson:
Yeah, I do. I mean, my biggest thing in here and I always, I usually cry at the beginning of the year when I tell them. But I always tell them how important kindness is to my heart. I never want someone to leave this room feeling like they don't matter, that they don't have anyone. I always say that when you get to middle school and you're sitting at the lunch table alone I want you to see someone else that's from Miss Dotson’s class in third grade and like “Hey, I could go sit with them like they were part of my family I know that they'll have me” because we are a family in here.

Anthony Godfrey:
That's remarkable and this is exactly the type of education we're hoping that students receive. One where they feel a part of things, supported, and they learn to support each other as well. You're creating some unforgettable learning experiences here.

Megan Dotson:
Thank you.

Marcela:
I can attest to that because Miss Dotson is actually a legacy teacher for our family. Our oldest had Miss Dotson when he was in fourth grade and around that time we were navigating a diagnosis for ADHD for him, and he was really struggling emotionally. I can tell you what we're seeing with Lucas is not just because Lucas has cancer. Miss Dotsen is this kind of teacher. The teacher that went above and beyond when my child couldn't make friends, when he was moving a lot, and he couldn't figure out why he had so much energy. She almost catered to his needs and we saw the difference in his academic performance once she came into the picture. Once she took over, and it was like “He's not like that. No one is the same. He's not like the rest of the students. We need to pay attention to what he needs.”

Anthony Godfrey:
And that's such a good point. We get into trouble when we think, “Well everyone needs to be this way, that's going to work best for me.” Instead of figuring out how we can best support the needs of the learner. So a legacy teacher I'm going to steal that term. I really like that. So Lucas, how does it feel to be in this class with so many friends that care about you?

Lucas;
Awesome.

Anthony Godfrey:
And I saw you have an orange cape when you came in. Will you go grab that and show me what that's about, Lucas? Oh, with the L and the shield. Oh. And what's all this writing on there?

Lucas:
It’s the other people in my class.

Anthony Godfrey:
Oh nice. That's really cool. That's such great support from other students.

Lucas:
Even I signed it down here.

Anthony Godfrey:
Oh yeah let's see. Well I'm glad you support yourself. Well done Lucas. That's step one. Awesome. I saw you were wearing that when you came in. How long have you had this cape?

Megan Dotson:
Just today right? Why did we choose to do a cape? Can you tell them?

Lucas:
Because they call me a superhero.

Anthony Godfrey:
Why do you think they want to call you a superhero?

Lucas:
Because I'm going through something so hard.

Anthony Godfrey:
You said you're doing a good job with it. What is it like going through something so hard like this Lucas?

Lucas:
Well, leukemia is not that hard because they do this for me. But sometimes I have to do really hard stuff. I used to have to do this thing called virus and they would give me a shot and I'd have to.

Marcela:
And what's your biggest fear?

Lucas:
That.

Marcela:
Needles.

Anthony Godfrey:
Needles of your biggest fear?

Lucas:
Mm hmm.

Marcela:
And what do we do on Thursdays, Lucas?

Lucas:
Um, that's when she comes to visit me at my own house at my house.

Anthony Godfrey:
Oh, she comes to your house on Wednesdays?

Lucas:
Uh huh but.

Marcela:
We do school on Thursday at home.

Lucas:
Mm hmm.

Anthony Godfrey:
Oh.

Lucas:
Mm hmm. And then she'll just come visit me at a hospital whenever.

Anthony Godfrey:
Well, you're uh... I've just met you. Everyone else is used to this and how awesome you are. But I'm crying because I'm so impressed with you. Lucas, you're inspiring students to be at their very best and to learn a lot of lessons about looking out for each other.

Lucas:
Mm hmm.

Anthony Godfrey:
I think that's really cool. You also have a pretty special teacher that's going out of her way to really make sure that she's doing everything she can for you so that makes her pretty special too, doesn't it?

Lucas:
Mm hmm.

Anthony Godfrey:
Thanks for letting me come talk with you, Lucas. It's been really important for me to have a chance to meet you. I heard about you and I really wanted to record this podcast with you, so thanks for taking some time out of your day.

Lucas:
You're welcome.

Anthony Godfrey:
Thank you very much for being such an incredible supporter and for teaching these kids unforgettable lessons in empathy, and that's a gateway to learning everything else. So thank you.

Megan Dotson:
Thank you for coming. I really appreciate it.

Anthony Godfrey:
Thanks for joining us on another episode of the Supercast. Remember, education is the most important thing you will do today. We'll see you out there.