Ep. 10: CEO Mariama Shaheed on How Leaders Can Build More Inclusive Organizations
In this episode, Darren Reinke chats with Mariama Shaheed, Founder and CEO of Global Prep Academy. Mariama discusses misconceptions about charter schools, how Global Prep is using their values to attract top talent and align with their students, and why inclusivity is critical to achieving success as an organization, regardless of industry.
Global Prep Academy is a dual language charter school in Indianapolis, Indiana that connects students from diverse linguistic backgrounds and educates them together in a highly rigorous, engaging and nurturing environment. Their mission is to develop compassionate global leaders through a rigorous education program that focuses on hands-on, cultural and Spanish immersion learning opportunities.
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SHOW NOTES
What Makes Charter Schools Unique [1:10]
The Benefits of Charter Schools [2:07]
Common Misconceptions about Charter Schools [4:01]
The Inspiration for Starting Global Prep [5:25]
Why Immersion is the Best Way to Learn a New Language [6:25]
The Importance of Being Clear on Your Values [8:30]
How Global Prep Finds Talent Aligned with Their Values [10:26]
What You Can Do to Make Your Mission Come to Life [12:40]
How Global Prep is Aligning Students With Their Values [14:30]
The Unique Challenges Facing Global Prep [15:04]
How to Prevent Burn Out [16:43]
Global Prep's Next Steps [12:25]
Embracing Students' Growth and Overcoming Their Challenges [21:01]
How Global Prep Navigates the Different Needs of its Students [24:04]
How Global Prep Uses Data to Promote Inclusivity [26:00]
Advice for Leaders Trying to Create More Inclusive Organizations [27:32]
The Future of Education [29:49]
Where to Find More Information about Global Prep [32:55]
SHOW LINKS
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PODCAST TRANSCRIPT
Darren Reinke: Welcome to The Savage Leader Podcast, where I interview leaders from all walks of life so that you can walk away with tips to apply to your life and your career. But this isn't your traditional leadership podcast because I believe that leadership tips come from successful entrepreneurs and business executives, of course. Still, they also come from unexpected places, like Navy SEALs, successful professional athletes, sports coaches, musicians, entertainers, and more. So let's dive right into today's episode; my hope is you walk away with something tangible that you can apply immediately to your life in your career. Today's guest on The Savage Leader Podcast is Mariama Shaheed. Mariama is the founder and CEO of Global Preparatory Academy, the first bilingual charter school in Indiana. Mariama, thanks for coming on the show today.
Mariama Shaheed: Thank you so much for having me, Darren.
WHAT MAKES CHARTER SCHOOLS UNIQUE [1:10]
Darren Reinke: I know, there's a lot of knowledge and articles about charter schools, but what is a Charter School? And what makes it different from other public schools?
Mariama Shaheed: Yeah, well, thank you. Great question, I get that question a lot. And a charter school, I think most importantly, is a public school. So as a public school, I was a traditional educator in a traditional district that so many people are more familiar with, but a charter school in the way that it's different, we're still funded by the state, we still follow the state and federal guidelines, when it comes to public education, we still give the state tests that are required. And the difference is that we have a separate board that governs the school. And we're able to make local decisions, for example, the length of the school day, the length of the school year, and programmatically what we offer, so our school is a bilingual school. And we're able to have that innovative design because we are an independently run public charter school.
Darren Reinke: So what are some of the benefits and obviously, you can have that independent curriculum, but also you have the benefits of being a public school. But what are some benefits of being a charter school?
THE BENEFITS OF CHARTER SCHOOLS [2:07]
Mariama Shaheed: I think there are lots of benefits having come from a district and then going into the charter space, what attracted me was really that autonomy around the things that make a school work and not having so much bureaucratic red tape. So one of the examples I'll share with you is, when we first opened five years ago, we saw that a lot of our children were struggling with reading. And so, we were able to set up tutoring after school within a week. And I think about in a district, it would have taken so many different steps and people to say, okay, and how do we pay people to do it. But within a charter school, we're able to make those decisions based on what our community needs on a dime, and move it pretty quickly. So, the bureaucratic red tape disappears, and we can make change a lot more quickly.
Darren Reinke: So it almost feels like sometimes these well established companies will launch an innovation. So, they'll start a new division, like a company within a company, to break out of some of those old rules and bureaucracy. So, they can be more agile. And in your case, which is delivering on the needs of the students,
Mariama Shaheed: of course. And I think the other thing, too, is just being able to hire teachers that fit the mission that we're trying to achieve. And that also we were able to pay our teachers and have bonuses and salary schedules and structures that are different from the district. So one of the things we do is every time our teachers work outside of their contracted hours, we pay them stipends. When teachers work in our summer school, we pay 750 to $1,000 a week, things like that, that districts just don't do. But we're able to do those things in response to what we hear from our teachers and our other stakeholders. Yeah,
Darren Reinke: I mean, I appreciate personally learning about some of those differences because you hear so much in the media about these charter schools versus public schools and some of the differences of opinion. But on that note, what are some common misperceptions about charter schools?
COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT CHARTER SCHOOLS [4:01]
Mariama Shaheed: Oh, my goodness, so many. One is that we're not a public school that parents have to take a test to get in, or there's some type of barrier to entry. And as a public school, you just can't have that. And so, you know, I always say Public Charter School, whenever I say charter school, so people are very clear that this is not privatized at all. The other thing is that I hear people say that we get to pick the best kids, and we get to kick kids out if they don't fit our model. And that's just not the case. You know, as a public school, you know, there's still a due process, there's still a process for entry. And once a child arrives at our school, it's up to us to care for that child. One of the things people think is that charter schools don't have special needs students. Oh, we have special needs students. You know, we have students who are in life skills programming, that aren't on a diploma track and are learning basic life skills. And then we have children who have severe emotional disabilities, but if they can come to our school, it's our job to educate them just like any other public school.
Darren Reinke: I appreciate the clarification there because there's so much that's out there. But just to change gears a little bit, just if you can rewind the tape a little bit, take me back to the launch of global prep. What was the impetus to start a charter school but also a bilingual charter school in downtown Indianapolis?
The Inspiration for Starting Global Prep [5:25]
Mariama Shaheed: Oh, gosh, it feels like it was forever ago. But then it also feels like just yesterday. The reason why I started global prep was that I was a traditionally trained educator who always wanted to be an educator. But then, even as I became an assistant principal and a principal, I started to see things in my own district and my own school that I led that didn't align with what I wanted for my own child. And so, I wanted her and all kids to have access to a school where, you know, we didn't just focus on the academics, but we also focused on the development of the whole child. And so, when I was seeking out those types of schools for my child, I didn't see the kind of school that I wanted. And so, I knew that developing something is what was kind of churning inside of me. But then the other piece for me from the bilingual side was, you know, one of the best gifts I ever gave myself was the gift of bilingualism, and by literacy, and like so many people, I studied Spanish, in high school and in college, and then I had my first Spanish-speaking child, and I couldn't put a sentence together. Okay, hold on, how do you study a language for seven years, but you can't speak the language. And so having that disappointment really, that at this point, and this level of commitment, I don't have the language.
WHY IMMERSION IS THE BEST WAY TO LEARN A NEW LANGUAGE [6:25]
Mariama Shaheed: I was changed by, you know, my first immersion trip, where I was a teacher and I sent myself away to Cuernavaca, Mexico for six weeks, and I lived language and culture, I lived with a family, I never saw another black face like mine for the entire six weeks, completely isolating. But I came back and I was speaking. And so, those things that I learned in a classroom came together through immersion. And so that value for immersion that I had personally, I saw immediately impact the school where I worked. Whenever I would speak in Spanish, my Spanish-speaking students and families would look like oh, my gosh, how do you know this? And then whenever I would speak in Spanish, my black families would be like, Oh, hold on, I want to learn this, too. And how can I have this for my child? So, I saw this same desire that I have for my own children, my own child exists with other people's kids too. And that's what really drove me to take two years in a fellowship to develop a bilingual school that would serve largely African American and Spanish-speaking students. It was a two-year process and I visited a lot of schools across the country that were bilingual. And I didn't see this demographic reflected, you don't see a lot of black faces in bilingual education. And I knew how it impacted me as an African American. And I saw the desire in my Indianapolis community, which is what pushed me to open global prep and bring together a team of people who shared that same passion for the opportunity gap, being close to a bilingual school.
THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING CLEAR ON YOUR VALUES [8:30]
Darren Reinke: Yeah, so remarkable. And I'm just so impressed with what you've been able to do, and to help some of these kids, just to create a new experience and new opportunities for them through this school. Well, also adding that bilingualism, as you mentioned, so I know you yourself, the school is very much mission-driven. How did you go about just creating that so that you had this vision for the experience you wanted for your daughter, and for these kids? And you talked about just you know, meeting these kids, it's very personal. How did you go about taking those or creating those values, and taking that mission, actually putting it into practice to build a school that's been quite successful?
Mariama Shaheed: You know, I think it really comes from deep beliefs that I had, personally, for what I wanted. And so, I think along the way, we've refined this process of really articulating the vision and mission because, quite honestly, I think that was one of our biggest gaps. As we opened the school, it was like, Yeah, you know, this feeling, you know, how we treat people well, but like really codifying and defining how the values and the mission live has been work that's been really challenging for us. I will say that as a part of our interview process, we've gotten really clear about what those values are, for example, inclusivity, being global-minded, being compassionate, it lives in our mission statement, but it also lives in the values of the people that we hire. So, we've gotten really clear about if compassion matters. How do we interview for compassion? How do we make sure that the people that we bring in can live the mission at the highest level? If inclusivity really matters? What is it that we're looking for in previous experience, and even response to interview questions and performance tasks, to make sure that you don't just like the idea of African American and Latino students learning alongside one another, but you see yourself as a change agent for making this possible. And it's been the hardest work, honestly, in this whole process. Because it's so foundational. You know that the mission is what is the foundation for where everything lives?
HOW GLOBAL PREP FINDS TALENT ALIGNED WITH THEIR VALUES [10:26]
Darren Reinke: Is it such a great point to try to find and create that alignment? And obviously, recruiting is a great way to do that. But how do you actually put that into practice? Because I know, so many companies, their challenge with that, as well as, hey, we've got these values that just live in the founding team or in the founder and your case, but how do you actually go about recruiting and hiring and asking those right questions to make sure you have that alignment around inclusivity. And around being global-minded and the other values that you mentioned,
Mariama Shaheed: I'll be honest, it's a work in progress. And so, if 10 is where we're trying to be, I think we're seven on the way to that. But one of the things that we've adjusted, and our process is really going slow to go fast. So for example, you know, we have eight openings right now at the school. And we could fill those eight openings really quickly. But we have a slow process. Now that includes pre-work, where we get at the values, we pick out the values by sending some pre work questions. But then when we bring our potential candidates in, we don't bring them in if they really don't fit the values Mark first. And so by doing that, when they come in, then we're able to ask more poignant questions that dig in deeper to the values because sometimes people can answer the right questions in one space. But we really keep checking in on the values and that mission fit. Before we go any further. Within that, we also move to performance tasks to see you say you believe in global mindedness. Now, here's a task where you put that to the test. And so then they have to complete that performance task. And as the last step, they meet with our team members, and our team members, our teachers, our founding team are the last set of eyes on our potential hires. And so, they are the ones that are looking for that final eye. Are you a cultural admission fit? And I think because we focus on mission, mission, mission, and cultural fit, throughout the entire process, we've done a much better job of bringing in people who actually deeply connect with the mission personally, not just to get a job, but to get this job with this community and this team.
GLOBAL PREP’S NEXT STEPS [12:25]
Darren Reinke: So how else do you do that? Because I know so many organizations talk about being mission-driven, it's easy to say you're mission-driven, but to be really mission-driven, that's tough. And to really thread that and infuse that just out into the organization. So, how do you go about doing that? I mean, any advice you'd have for leaders who have a very discreet mission, whether it's to transform the lives of customers, or in your case to help these kids like, what some specific advice you can give, in terms of how do you make that mission come to life within the people at your organization.
WHAT CAN YOU DO TO MAKE YOUR MISSION COME TO LIFE [12:40]
Mariama Shaheed: So what we're working on doing is taking our values that come right from our mission, then really pulling down those values. And within every single department, we take every single value to unpack, what does this mean in this department? So, compassion? If you are at the front desk? How is compassion defined at the level of excellence of the organization? If you're a classroom teacher, how's compassion defined at that level? If you're an instructional assistant, and if you're in the cafeteria, how do we define these values within your role? So then we begin to operationalize what those values mean, and how they should live. And that's taking some time. And it's the work that we're currently doing because we want to get really clear. So that that way, as we give feedback, and we work with one another, we're clear about what excellence looks like, as a relates to the values,
Darren Reinke: I guess, so important is I think, so many organizations take a one size fits all to a number of things, but especially talk about the values and the values are gonna, they're gonna look and feel different, just within different cultures, within different cultures of different companies, within different teams within different roles and gets really important to that you get down to that level of granularity that you define that. So, what else like what else do you do to really bring that mission to life within, within your teachers, even just for the students? I'm just curious how that actually looks for the students, is almost like you think about a mission-driven company and how they apply that to impact their customers.
HOW GLOBAL PREP IS ALIGNING STUDENTS WITH THEIR VALUES [14:30]
Mariama Shaheed: Yeah, well, and I think that that's our first step is getting it right amongst our team. Because if we don't have it clean and crisp amongst our team, we can't have it live with our students. And we're not there yet. In terms of how these values translate to our students. That's the work that we're doing. But it's got to start with the team. And one of the things if I think about, it's like the Pro and the con, is being overly ambitious. And so like I tend to try to take everything at one time, but I've learned from my mistakes over the years, like okay, get really solid, about step one before you go to step two. And our step one is making sure the values live amongst the team that then support the students and the families and the other stakeholders.
THE UNIQUE CHALLENGES FACING GLOBAL PREP [15:04]
Darren Reinke: So just even a little bit of a different question is, I know, charter schools have some unique set of challenges. So, what are some of those different challenges? Whether you're comparing yourself to the other public schools or even your private schools? Like what are some of those unique challenges that you face?
Mariama Shaheed: I think one of the biggest challenges for single site and small charter networks is just scale. So, you know, I think about larger districts, there's a central office that takes care of the business so that the school just works on the education piece. Well, when you're a single site, charter school, you are the district you are the school, you are the everything in one spot, which means that, you know, we have to be careful not to burn out team members because many of us wear three different hats. And I think about it in a district, you would wear one hat, in a charter school, you wear multiple hats, but where we are, is really looking at which hats are necessary. Where do we need to bring in additional team members? And then how do we keep our team from burning out because as a small team, you don't want people to burn out, and they're only here for a few years, and then you're cycling in and starting over. So, burnout is something we're really careful of right now, especially in this pandemic, where everyone's tired, but especially this founding team that's been together for five years, are exhausted. But we've got many more decades to go.
Darren Reinke: Yeah, and it feels like in a lot of ways, the parallel is the life of a startup, you know, people wearing many hats, especially in the early days, before there's enough funding to just build out different departments. But also just the burnout in surviving past that burnout, I mean, a five-year sprint, essentially, that's a heck of a long sprint, and I'm tired after a couple of laps on the track. But what are some things that you do to actually try to prevent some of that burnout, to help people to persevere and continue?
HOW TO PREVENT BURN OUT [16:43]
Mariama Shaheed: Well, I think we've gotten better with this over time, and a lot of it has honestly happened because of the turnover, you know, when you have multiple people leaving the job in the middle of the year, which means there's a class of kids without a teacher, you gotta stop and step back and look at doing things differently. A few of the things we started doing within our early years was we put some limits around the work hours. So for example, you know, we don't do emails from 6 PM to 6 AM. So like, that's a no-no in the organization. Because we have a lot of type-A personalities. I mean, work all night long, me included, I was sending emails at midnight and 2 AM in those first couple of years. But that's the wrong example, to present to the organization, and it doesn't sustain people. So, we have a no email 6 PM to 6 AM rule. And we also don't do weekend emails to help preserve people's time outside of the office, when we do shut down, for example, right now, we're on spring break, we have building access denied for several days of that break, as well as no emails for several days of that break. Again, give people permission to step off the wheel, and just take care of yourself and your family and all those things that come to the side. We found this year though, with the pandemic, we're having to do even more to take care of our team on the front line. So one of the things we're working through is how do we have wellness Wednesdays that persist, even after this pandemic, Wednesdays we dedicate to some type of wellness practice. So last week, we had chair massages that were available to staff, meditation, prayer, any of those types of things, we're trying to create a really diverse mix of activities, to promote wellness. So people don't feel bad taking care of themselves. But they see the expectation that we have as an organization that you take care of these kids, but you got to take care of yourself.
Darren Reinke: Yeah, I think that's so important. I just love that you're not only looking at what's happening in this challenging time but also moving forward. Because wellness, self-care, you know, I think about it as we need to take care of ourselves as leaders so that we can show up for our teams more effectively. So if we don't, we're going to show up burnout, we're going to perhaps just grind them a little bit too hard. And we're going to burn out our staff. So, I love that you're thinking about not just a one-time, process or program, but this is something that's gonna persist into the future.
Mariama Shaheed: Well, that comes from lessons learned over the last five years, you know, I think in a panic, we would do this thing or that thing. We're like, hold on. We're beyond the startup point. And yeah, there are some startup pains, but we're going to have to start having some continual things people can count on as it pertains to working at Global Prep Academy.
Darren Reinke: What are the next steps for global prep? I mean, she talked about the values and the mission and infused that into the students as far as step two, but what does the future hold for global prep?
Mariama Shaheed: You know, the future for global prep? There are so many things that we're looking at, but again, my upside and downside are being too ambitious. So, my first level next step is for us to really look at all the measures and how we consider ourselves and really look at our success. You know, as schools anyone who works in public education knows that, you know, there is This important Northstar, which has student proficiency, and students being ready to get to and through college.
EMBRACING STUDENTS’ GROWTH AND OVERCOMING THEIR CHALLENGES [21:01]
Mariama Shaheed: And that is a deep belief that we have for ourselves as a school. I mean, that's the purpose of education. But we also want to look at all the other ways we celebrate achievement that's beyond just proficiency scores. And so, we're really looking to dig into our mission and our values. What are the other things that we celebrate as an organization? And how do we build a culture of celebration into what we do all of the time because I think if all we're looking at our test scores, especially in an urban struggling school, you can feel unsuccessful every single day. And nobody wants to play for the losing team. No one wants to go to school. That's a losing team. But there are lots of measures we can take to see success. And we're working on really defining that as an organization.
Darren Reinke: So can you take me a little bit closer in terms of the school because I had the opportunity to actually see the kids in action, I think during one of the classes or breaks, and it's so incredible what you're doing. Tell me a little bit about the students. Some of the challenges they face are some of the growth that you're seeing within them and some of the benefits that you're seeing as well.
Mariama Shaheed: So you know, we have pre-K to grade six students, and we'll eventually be going up next year, we're adding seventh grade, and then we'll have eighth grade, we serve about 650 students, and of the 650, about 75%, qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. And I share that because you know, if we think about the challenges that impact poverty, and students of poverty, we see some of those things. So, some of them housing insecurity, food insecurity, and really families being stretched to the limit. We have a lot of single-parent families, where mom has three and four children, three at our school, and sometimes two at another school. So, we're really working through societal challenges. At the same time, we're working through education. About 50% of our students are native Spanish speakers, and they speak Spanish at the home. But that doesn't mean that they read and write, which is why our program is focused on not just kids speaking Spanish but also reading and writing. Let's see, about 40% of our students are African American as well. So, we have a nice mix of students and families. So, I think one of the things I'm most proud of at global prep is we have a very diverse student body, and very diverse staff, our staff represents 17 different countries. And so, you know, even coming to you know, you think of an urban school, you don't think of having teachers from all over the world. But that's the experience that our children have. And they don't just have Spanish-speaking teachers from Mexico, they have Spanish-speaking teachers from Venezuela, and Mexico and Cuba, and Puerto Rico. So, this nice tapestry of language and culture is what our students are immersed in. And so, what we already see is that our bilingual program has grown all the way up to sixth grade, we already see that diversity of our students and our staff continue to be one of the brightest spots for our organization. And we see increased enrollment every single year. So, when we first came to the school five years ago, I didn't talk about this before. It was a chronically failing school and an underperforming school. So, there were about 450 students. And we have maintained 650 students since we started. And so, that's huge. It means that people didn't leave the school when a new operator came in. It meant that not only did people stay, but they brought more people. And that's something that we're really proud of. And I think it's because of the team that we have that the mission lives inside of. It's not just the Mariama show. It's what we all believe, and it's how we all show up for our kids and for our families.
Darren Reinke: Yeah, definitely such a gift. And just it's neat to see how you've spread that mission as obviously the initial evangelist of the school, but actually how it lives and breathes within the staff. But you mentioned something interesting in terms of you having a huge array of diversity, whether it's I think you said 17 Different countries that are represented among your staff, these different populations of kids, and how do you go about meeting the needs of the different students at different people? Because I think it's a challenge that other organizations face as well as you have just whether it's personality, diversity, just, you know, other different ways of just different needs. How do you go about managing that and serving all these people in different ways?
HOW GLOBAL PREP NAVIGATES THE DIFFERENT NEEDS OF ITS STUDENTS [24:04]
Mariama Shaheed: Well, I think part of it is remaining open to what you know, and what you don't know. So, you know, as you know, I'm an African American woman, I was raised and reared in a monolingual school. And while I learned Spanish as a second language, there's a whole lot different in Latin countries when it comes to education. So one of the first lessons that I got within the first year of opening the school was that the leadership table better be inclusive because if it's not inclusive, then it doesn't really tap into the diversity that exists in the staff. So, it can't be that the Leaders are all native English speakers, but the staff is native Spanish speaking and English speaking. So, I have a deep belief that inclusivity has to live. It's one of our core values, but it also lives within leadership. And so, what it means is, as a leader, I have to be prepared to be called out by my team, when things that I do are marching down this monolingual, even Eurocentric view because that's how I was raised. And so by having diversity at the table, and having differences of thought, and allowing people, regardless of whether I'm CEO or not, if you believe differently, you better speak up because you represent the change that the school has to have. And so, we are certainly not there. But I know that we're on the right track because the table of leadership don't all look like me, and doesn't all talk like me.
Darren Reinke: Now, a great example. And just I love the idea of just being open and inclusive, and making sure that the leadership team represents the different wants and needs of the people in the school. But what else beyond just making sure that the right people have a seat at the table, like what else do you do to make sure that all of those voices are heard, and that you truly are living up to that value of inclusivity.
HOW GLOBAL PREP USES DATA TO PROMOTE INCLUSIVITY [26:00]
Mariama Shaheed: You know, the other thing that we're starting to do a better job of is really looking at the data that we have from all different sorts as it relates to our work. So disaggregating the data deeply when it comes to suspensions and expulsions to see if we have 50% of the students being native Spanish speaking, then the data in suspension should reflect that as well. If we have a diverse staff, where we've got 40% of our teachers are native Spanish speakers, then the leadership table should reflect that as well. So, we're getting we're doing a much better job of digging into the data and tracking the data to see that are we more than just lip service, but our actions are they living in a way that shows up in our data, we looked at the same thing when we had our mid-year data for our student proficiency. You know, we saw too many African American children who are not proficient in reading right now. Now, it reflects more than 40% of the population of kids who are not at level. So, where we have these inequities, and these disparities and are in these discrepancies in our data, it means that we have to look at our practices to make sure that we're the best meeting the needs of the people, and the students, and the staff that is a part of our community.
ADVICE TO LEADERS TRYING TO CREATE MORE INCLUSIVE ORGANIZATIONS [27:32]
Darren Reinke: Appreciate that level of detail and just bring people in terms of the day life of the students and in what you're doing on a day-to-day basis. But what advice would you have to other leaders who are trying to create more inclusive more open organizations, any tips or suggestions you might provide?
Mariama Shaheed: I think a couple, the one is always listening to team members. So, I really value what those on the frontlines have to say, and their thoughts and opinions of things. One of the things that I think I do differently than I did in the first couple of years, is before something new rolls out, I'll talk to teacher assistants, and I'll talk to first-year teachers and even 10-year teachers to get their thoughts and opinions. And I think it sends a message that every voice matters and that I want to hear from everybody. And I especially celebrate people who have a different opinion than mine. Because I want to really be demonstrative about the importance of diversity of thought, not just diversity in the way we look at the way we speak, but diverse thinking is to be celebrated. And I think many times leaders, especially the higher you get, you have more people around you that want to stay with you. So, they agree with you. But that doesn't really move the organization forward. And so being intentional about bringing even people at lower levels, if you will, within the organization to give input and thought and value is a way to keep that feedback loop going. That goes deeper than just the leadership table.
Darren Reinke: And what a great way of modeling that inclusivity is not just saying hey, it's got to be the leadership team. But it's really all levels of an organization, from the rank and file to the most senior leader. So yeah, great example.
Mariama Shaheed: I got that actually from one of our teachers. So, she was saying, you know, she called me out within a couple of the first couple years of the school, she was like, you know, every time something changes, you know, you're only listening to the leadership team. But there are other people that have thoughts and opinions. And I was like, Well, yeah, there you go. And so by her saying that I immediately shifted to including more thoughts because I wanted her to see the impact of when you speak up, how change can happen.
THE FUTURE OF EDUCATION [29:49]
Darren Reinke: And what a great way of modeling that to be open, you're open to suggestions from your teachers as a way of how you can show up more effectively as a leader and to really bring more of that inclusivity into the organization. Such a beautiful example. So just thinking, I always like to think about aspiration and what we can do better for the community and society. What do you think that opportunity exists for education just to transform the people, just our nation, our world? Like, what do you think the future holds? ideas or suggestions you have for change.
Mariama Shaheed: Oh my god, man, that's a whole other podcast, Darren. I think education. Honestly, this is the upside and downside of the pandemic, I think we can all probably go through a list of things that have been horrible about the pandemic. But there are few things that I've seen as bright spots when it comes to educational opportunities. And I think more people are paying attention than ever to what's happening in schools. Because when schools all shut down, all of a sudden, parents were looking into the classroom. And so, I hear parents asking better questions, and being more engaged than I've ever seen before. And I think now is the time for schools to capitalize on that. Because all the research shows that in order for students to reach their true potential, it's a partnership. Now, when students were at home and the teacher was on the screen, it was clear, it was a partnership. But we have to capitalize on that to continue families and schools working together to support students. The other thing, I think, is that the use of technology and tech literacy, I think is improved not only for students, but also for families because they had to interface with things they never had heard of flip grid, and zoom and Google Classroom and saw all these things, words, we never knew, you know, 18 months ago, we all know it's all part of our not only our vocabulary, but our experience. And so being able to transform these applications, in a way that differentiates support for students who need it, accelerates education for kids who need that enrichment. But having parents right there with us is a big piece. And I saw in the pandemic, too, all this focus on food insecurity. And that was like the first wave when COVID happened. But now I see this focus on the learning loss and really honing in on kids who have been struggling for decades. Now I hear this, this almost battle cry from the community to support students who have long been forgotten, or pushed to the side. Yeah, we see now when kids weren't educated in a traditional sense for 18 months. Yeah, it is a cry in our community. And it doesn't matter what children look like, or their socioeconomic status. If they're American children living in America, we have to do better across the entire nation. And I think people see that now in a way that they did it blinders, you know, before now, blinders are off, and COVID did that.
Darren Reinke: Yeah, I love obviously, you always see the silver lining, but just a great example of us, shining the light on a problem that was always there. But now more people are aware of that, you know, as a parent, and just seeing when the task of educating was partially put on us as parents was a real challenge. You can see how different groups are impacted in different ways. So, now appreciate that example. And definitely something hopefully very positive that will come out of this. I think so. Mariama? So, where can people go to learn more about what you're up to a global prep and potentially get involved,
WHERE TO FIND MORE INFORMATION ABOUT GLOBAL PREP [32:55]
Mariama Shaheed: people can go to our website at WWW.global prep indy.org. And it's a comprehensive website, you can see pictures of our kids and the work that we're doing, as well as donate if you're so inclined. We have a PayPal button, so you can donate there and learn more about our school on our website. We're also active on social media, we have our global prep indy Facebook page. We're on LinkedIn, and we're also on Instagram.
Darren Reinke: Beautiful. So global prepindy.org. There you have it. Yes. Well, Mariama, I know you're an incredibly busy woman and I truly appreciate your time. You're such a gift to the kids in your school and to the community. And just I personally appreciate all the hard work that you're doing. Thanks so much for coming on today.
Mariama Shaheed: Thank you, Darren, I enjoyed it. Thanks for having me.
Darren Reinke: Thanks for listening to today's episode of The Savage Leader Podcast. My hope is you walk away with tactics that you can apply to become a better leader in your life and in your career. If you're looking for additional insight in tactics, be sure to check out my book titled The Savage Leader 13 Principles to Become a Better Leader From The Inside Out. Also, be sure to subscribe to the podcast and I would truly appreciate it if you would leave a review and also rate the podcast. Thanks and see you in the next episode.