Alison Murray:
How do you know how many kids here? And I’m like, we ask them. There’s not some magical data out there. They’re like, if it’s self-reported, how do you know it’s true? It’s like, well, we have to trust.

Antonia Guzmán:
But you know what I think of, What you reminded me of, and I don’t even know how it connects too, is that the kids are also aware of what we’re doing. We also tell them this is what we’re hoping to accomplish. We want you all to have all these doors of opportunity open and this is what we’re doing. So you need to tell us what we can do also and improve on.

Alec Patton:
This is High Tech High Unboxed. I’m Alec Patton. And those were the voices of Alison Murray, a Social Sciences teacher at International Studies Learning Center in South Gate, California. And Antonia Guzman, who teaches English Language Arts at the same school. In this episode, Alison and Antonia are interviewed by Garett Brownlee Plantz, an Improvement Coach at the Center for Research and Equity and Innovation at the High Tech High Graduate School of Education. Garett wanted to interview them to find out how their school achieved its extraordinary 100% FAFSA completion rate. FAFSA stands for the Free Application For Federal Student Aid. Students need to submit it to qualify for federal financial aid, but it’s also a requirement for most state level and even school specific scholarships. So for a lot of students it can make the difference between being able to afford college and not. That means a 100% FAFSA completion rate is a big deal. I’ll leave you with Garett, Antonia and Alison to find out how they did it.

Garett Brownlee Plantz:
Hello, Antonia. Hello, Alison. I am so excited to talk with you today. Not only because I get to work with you through our college access network called CARPE, but because of the amazing results you all have been able to get from International Studies Learning Center, which is in LA Unified. So just to like share with people who maybe don’t know you by name, you all have been on the leadership board in California for the last three years getting a 100% of your students to fill out financial aid for us.

Alison Murray:
Yay!

Antonia Guzmán:
Yay!

Garett Brownlee Plantz:
Yay! That’s right. Which is an enormous feat and you’ve been a part of our improvement network and so we just really want to understand what you’ve learned about that. But first, before we get into that, would you mind sharing who you are and a couple identity markers that have helped inform your work?

Alison Murray:
My name’s Alison Murray and I am a teacher at International Studies Learning Center in South Gate, California. I teach history and AVID and I think being a part of AVID is where I sparked this interest in college going culture. And then we got invited to join the network and here we are.

Antonia Guzmán:
Well, I’m Antonia Guzman and I’m also at International Studies Learning Center. I teach English, 12th grade at the AP classes, both English lit and English language. And the reason for my work or the reason why I feel like I do what I do is I am a child of immigrants. My first language is Spanish. And in my students I see a lot of like the qualities and the struggles that I went through when I was going to school. I actually teach in the same area that I grew up. I purposely did that. I felt like I needed to come back because along the way I felt I had a few teachers that really believed and supported my journey to getting to college, being that I was the first in my family to do so, my taking on that journey.
Like I had the support of my parents, but they didn’t know how exactly to support me. And I was, I think very lucky that I found some teachers at school that did provide me with that and I felt that I had to do the same. Like I had a responsibility for my community to come back and do the same for kids who again, have parents that want them to succeed, but then how do you do this? How do you navigate this very confusing college journey when you don’t have any experience doing so?

Garett Brownlee Plantz:
I’m curious if we could bring a student into this conversation and if you can share maybe a student in ISLC, which is what International Studies Learning Center, we call it for short, who’s really been positively impacted by the college access work you’ve been doing. Can you think of something that’s coming to mind or someone?

Alison Murray:
We’ve been talking about Aaron.

Antonia Guzmán:
Yes.

Alison Murray:
Aaron is a 12th grader who at the beginning of this year, we knew he was four-year eligible. He met all his A through Gs, but he said he did not want to apply to a four year. His sister was going to a two year and that was his path. And then we convinced him, we coaxed him into, well, let’s just fill out the Cal State app. Like what do you got to lose? We just want you to have choices. So we’ll fill it out. You have the fee waiver and we’ll just see what happens. And so he was accepted. He’s going to Dominguez Hills and we are thrilled for him.

Antonia Guzmán:
He mentioned in the senior survey how he’s happy he took on that … He had made that decision because I think he was just pretty set that he was going to go to a two year. And so it was just amazing to see that. He realizes too how he has true potential. He can do it. He just needed that extra push.

Alison Murray:
Like it goes with what we’ve been talking about and sharing with the seniors is having choices, having doors that open and that in the spring they want to have choices, and places they can go and things they can do. And when they don’t apply and they already make that decision, they’re limiting themselves.

Garett Brownlee Plantz:
Yeah, it’s really hard to plant that seed ahead of time. And so I really appreciate you bringing Aaron into this conversation and just the ability that you have had to individualize this work for each young person and understanding what choices they might need to hear and when they need to hear it. I know you all have been a part of the CARPE improvement community here for a while. And for those of you who don’t know, CARPE is just a shorthand way of saying schools who are focused on increasing access and completion of college for Black, Latinx, indigenous and low-income students in Southern California using continuous improvement. And I know you all have been doing this and are leaders really in our network in doing so. But how was being a part of this network shifted your thinking and what do you do differently as being a part of this work?

Antonia Guzmán:
I think originally when I started teaching at the high school, I felt like I was doing this work on my own. Like I knew that counselors were meeting with students, but I didn’t know the extent to what conversations were happening in those offices. And at times I think not knowing, I felt like, wow, I’m the only one that’s like pushing them to go to school or it’s up to me to go ahead and put something together. And it just was very overwhelming work because there’s so much to do. So being part of the network not only brought important people on our campus to come together and work together collaboratively and something that we’re all passionate about and making sure that our students have all resources available to them.
But it also brought us together with other like-minded people where we’ve gone ahead and shared and learned so much that we’ve taken back to our school. Like a lot of the things that we do, it’s like the seed is planted here and then we go and execute them at school. And it’s because of the time and the people that we get to collaborate with here, not just the people at our school, but just everybody from all the schools that are part of the CARPE network. So I think part of some of our spreadsheet where we keep all our data, it has evolved over the years and it’s like the way it is because of the conversations that we had with people here at CARPE. It’s our little baby.

Alison Murray:
I was thinking when you asked the question about what’s shifted my thinking is like anyone on a school campus can do this work. It’s not just the counselors. You don’t need some specialized training. I thought maybe I wasn’t qualified to help them do this work. And what I’ve learned is that you just have to get your hands dirty and like fill the application out with them, fill out the FAFSA with the kids, and you learn as you go along. And the kids need an adult that’s going to hold their hand through it and that believes in them. It’s going to help them find the answers.

Antonia Guzmán:
It’s a scary process.

Alison Murray:
It is.

Antonia Guzmán:
And I think sometimes teachers or adults feel like, I don’t know how to do this either. And they stay away.

Alison Murray:
Right. Exactly.

Antonia Guzmán:
Even though we haven’t done it in a while, we know how to navigate those kinds of systems so we can be of great help even if we haven’t done it in a while. So how do you then go back and not only the people that are part of the group itself, but how do you go in and help your teachers and other staff members kind of grow that mindset like we’re all here to help the kids get to that goal. And it’s not just up to us, four or five people. It should be that we’re all taking part in this journey and helping our students, and we all could do it, don’t be scared.

Alison Murray:
Well, I think that’s like the whole idea of CARPE, right? It takes a team to do the work. It can’t just be a couple people on campus. Like there has to be a team.

Garett Brownlee Plantz:
You all have seemed to embody what we call maybe team excellence, but really what you’re talking about is seeing the system of support for young people and utilizing every lever that you have. And certainly that’s not easy when people don’t think that that’s the lane that they’re supposed to be in. And so I’m curious how you’ve been able to cultivate, or what conditions have you tried to lay to make that team work and understand their roles? And if you’ve had struggles, how have you gotten through them?

Antonia Guzmán:
I think this year or in last year, I think one of the greatest help in developing our team has been that we’re meeting weekly. Like you cannot develop a team if you’re not meeting consistently and I think that’s helped tremendously. We make it a priority that we meet every Wednesday and that we meet during the school day. That’s big too because we have so many other things that we’re involved in until we have to make the time, just like we make the time for the kids to fill out their applications during the school day, it’s like, how can we find the time to meet during the school day.

Alison Murray:
And then create the matrix where Antonia and I have the same conference period so that we can have that meeting every Wednesday. And I think with the team roles we were talking about that we have clear roles, but we are all like equal members of the team. There isn’t like this feeling that there’s one person who’s really in charge and that some of us can kind of kick back or like that person will handle it. I feel like this year we’ve really gotten to a place where every member of the team contributes equally.

Antonia Guzmán:
And I think we understand our strengths too. I know when we’re doing something, we’re like, wait and so on. If we’re going to put a presentation together, it’s like, we know that … Antonia, don’t you have something that you’ve already done regarding that. Yes, I do, or Pilar is really good at speaking to this student or that student and so she will be in charge of that. And so I think we’ve gotten to know each other’s strengths that we can use those to our advantage. And when we’re planning it just becomes more efficient because we understand each other’s strengths as well. And we’re, I think, pretty open too and feel comfortable with one another. And I think we also feel comfortable being vulnerable, which is a big deal I think when it comes to working with other people that hey, I don’t know how to do that. And if somebody can help me do it, or if somebody else wants to take it, I’m not sure how to do it. I think that’s important as well.

Garett Brownlee Plantz:
Yeah, I think none of that happens by accident. And so I’m curious about some of those systems that you’ve been able to put in place that have really reinforced this trust building, this vulnerability, and really this tenacity towards getting every single student access to choice. And so what are you seeing as you look back over your time the last few years around, what are some of the highest leverage systems work that you’ve been able to implement and sustain? And how did you do it?

Alison Murray:
I would start with our tracker. So we have a Google Sheet with all the seniors and we track the data. So originally when we joined the network, because we’re a part of this massive school district, LA Unified, there was no data sharing agreement. And so we had to track our own data. So while the other network schools, like there were data people here at CARPE that were tracking and collecting the data and sharing the data, we had to do all the work ourselves. So it’s just a messy spreadsheet where we have all the seniors, and we started at the beginning of the year by saying, okay, who is eligible for a four year? And we start sorting the kids. We print out their transcripts, we color code them, we flag them, and then every week it’s going back to the tracker and looking at what’s going on with this kid who’s going to talk to him or I’ve already talked to that child so many times, somebody else needs to approach him.

Antonia Guzmán:
Yes. I mean, that’s key, every meeting. Every meeting, we look at that tracker. And ever so often we start a new tab, somebody start a new tab. Like when we’re going to track the conversations that we’ve had when we were looking at decision day and making sure that all students had been talked to and that we had made sure that every student had made a decision before May 1st. So in case there were any issues, concerns, we can address them. So that was part of our conversation. And the tracker was big, that’s where we kept all our notes to see who had talked to who. And if somebody else …

Alison Murray:
And who was going through the cracks. Who gotten to a four year, but we don’t know what their decision is or they’re not. And they didn’t come to the community college application fest we had.

Antonia Guzmán:
And so now we started one for community college too. So make sure that we talked to them before the end of the year, make sure that they’ve completed their application and they’re in the process of either going to orientation or signing up for classes already. So that’s big. It’s our key.

Garett Brownlee Plantz:
So how do you get, because you all have about what? How many people are on your CARPE team?

Alison Murray:
It’s five.

Antonia Guzmán:
Five.

Garett Brownlee Plantz:
And so how do you get five people to not just see a tool but actually use it so they have a conversation with a student and then they actually go and do something and track it? How do you actually get that follow through? I think that’s a really hard piece in a school day to follow through on.

Alison Murray:
I think it took time. It took time for us all to have ownership. I think that our counselors on the team, they have the district that has demands on them and expects them to put things in the district database system. So they saw the tracker as like double work. Like why am I … And they were doing a lot of paper and pen where we’re like we need it to go into the tracker. So how do we like merge all of these things? So it didn’t happen immediately?

Antonia Guzmán:
Right. No, it didn’t.

Alison Murray:
At all.

Antonia Guzmán:
Shift happened. I think when they realized we’re helping them get to all the students, it’s hard for them to get to all the students. And so I think part of it was like, wait, but I’m tracking this information here, but I can’t help if I don’t know what’s going on. And so I think when they realized like we’re actually all working together. We’re all trying to get to the same thing. We all have the same goal. And part of it is like also constantly reminding one another that this is a common goal, not just as a group, but as a school, right? And so I think that is key because I think even right now, I think our work has been around too like making sure that it doesn’t just become work that our CARPE team is doing, but how do we include now the rest of our staff in sharing the work? I think that’s where we’re moving now.

Alison Murray:
And I think in the early years of the network like the data tracker was sort of like owned by our data lead and so we didn’t touch it because we didn’t want to mess with any of the rows or the columns. And now like it doesn’t work when it’s just one person. We all have to …

Antonia Guzmán:
It’s okay. Yeah.

Alison Murray:
… get our hands in there.

Antonia Guzmán:
We all have access and we all can go ahead and add to it. And yeah.

Alison Murray:
And then when we mess it up, we say I messed up. How do we fix it?

Antonia Guzmán:
So we open it during the meeting, everybody, we wait until everybody has it open. We’re like, okay, everybody open this meeting. Okay, do we have to …

Alison Murray:
What tab are you on? I’m on this tab. I’m on the college decision tab.

Antonia Guzmán:
Did everybody add everything they needed to add? Okay. I met with so-and-so I didn’t add it. Okay, add it right now. So it’s just making it like a very live document. It’s present at every meeting and it guides every meeting. I think that’s been key.

Garett Brownlee Plantz:
These kind of foundational tools, practices, processes, sometimes we call them protocols, that way so we can structure some, not just adult learning, but facilitate meetings so that those things can actually happen. I think is a big part of the continuous improvement process in terms of identifying the system, what’s not working in the system, and how do we actually improve it that there makes actual more students have equitable outcomes. And so as a learning team, how have you been able to utilize this idea of improvement within those structures?

Antonia Guzmán:
Well, it goes back to I think being like reflective and being vulnerable. We make sure, now that we look at our data after, especially like let’s say we just had an app fest and we ask the kids to complete a survey. So I think in the past it was, we knew we needed to do a survey just because everybody does a survey, and then kind of what happened to the survey? Like will you just leave it behind and forget about it. And you go on with your day, your week, your month, and that was it. And so I think now we look at the survey and I think our meetings have made it, so we do have the time and we have the practice where we’re looking at the data and we’re looking at, okay, so what are they saying? We think we did an amazing job at doing this than in the other, but then maybe the students didn’t feel the same way.
Or maybe they did, like what works and what doesn’t. It’s not until we look at those surveys, and I think we’ve done a really good job, especially this year at really making that tool part of the process and reflecting and thinking back of, okay, so let’s revisit that idea. Did it work? Did it not? Scratch it off. No, let’s add this other thing based on not only what we’re experiencing and seeing, but also then who we’re trying to impact, which is the kids, right? And so their voice and these systems have become part of the whole process. So now we just had the senior survey, right? And we’re looking at that data and we’re looking at their ideas, like what worked and what didn’t, what ideas they have for us on improving for next year. And so we already are coming up with ideas for next year. I think that is what the whole continuous improvement does for us. It allows us to really look at and reflect on what’s working and what’s not, and then work from there.

Alison Murray:
I think like what information do we have and what information do we need, right? Like being very clear on what we’re collecting. When you said like the survey, just even looking at some of the college pathway surveys, we’re like, what do we really need to know out of the gate at the beginning, first day of school, right? And what information do we not, so why are we collecting things from the kids and making them fill things out when we’re not looking at that data and what information? And just doing the senior exit survey, there was a question about first gen and we’re like, we’ve never even tracked that. Why are we not asking that question …

Antonia Guzmán:
We kind of know it informally. Yeah.

Alison Murray:
… in August? Yes, we make assumptions, but we don’t have numbers. We can’t say we have 108 seniors and we know that only eight of them have a parent that went to college.

Antonia Guzmán:
Then the other question is living on campus, like we didn’t ask that in the survey.

Alison Murray:
And we don’t know.

Antonia Guzmán:
Right. So I told her, so I had to do like this informal survey, like who’s living on campus because then they have a different need altogether.

Alison Murray:
Yeah.

Garett Brownlee Plantz:
Sure.

Alison Murray:
So yeah. We’re constantly like writing down …

Antonia Guzmán:
Things like that. Like remember this, we have to ask when we …

Garett Brownlee Plantz:
Yeah.

Antonia Guzmán:
Yeah. And that too, like keeping really good notes on everything that we have a continuous agenda, like agenda where we use the same agenda for every meeting. So we just add the new one, and then while we’re at the meeting, we just either Alison and myself are taking notes on what we’re discussing, so that way we come back, like what did we say last week? Wait a second. And we go back to those notes referred to them often, because we might come up with these great ideas, but if we don’t write them down.

Alison Murray:
Yeah, that’s right.

Garett Brownlee Plantz:
We need our own trackers. I hear you.

Alison Murray:
How do you know how many kids here? And I’m like, we ask them. There’s not some magical data out there. They’re like, but how do you know? If it’s self-reported, how do you know it’s true?

Antonia Guzmán:
Yeah.

Alison Murray:
It’s like, well. We have to trust.

Antonia Guzmán:
But you know what I think of, I think [inaudible 00:23:34] … What you reminded me of, and I don’t even know how it connects too, is that the kids are also aware of what we’re doing. Like we also tell them this is what we’re hoping to accomplish. We want you all to have all these doors of opportunity open and this is what we’re doing. So you need to tell us what we can do also and improve on. And one of the things that we saw on the survey this year, more than any other, the year is them thanking CARPE. They’re like, thank you, CARPE. Or our school’s doing great, CARPE is doing this, that, and that’s language that I didn’t see before. So it’s taken a while to get to where we’re at now, but the kids now are aware that we’re part of CARPE and they know what it is. So we’re happy about that.

Garett Brownlee Plantz:
Yeah, I’m happy about that too. I’m happy about the special things that are happening at ISLC, the light that is shining there and the real authentic partnership, the attunement you have with the young people in your classrooms, in your building, and the way you just genuinely love and care for them. And each other is really like that’s the thing you want to bottle up trackers and routines and data. Those are all exceptional practices and they only work on the foundation of that kind of love and care. And so I want to just thank you for the work that you do and how you do it and how you show up for each other. And I also want to give you the last word like if there’s anything you think if you’re wanting to inspire people new or on their journey, or things that now, what’s a piece of advice you would share?

Alison Murray:
I mean I think you just have to jump into the work and you don’t have to pretend that you are some type of expert. Like every year when we sit down to the college application or the FAFSA, there’s a voice in my head that says, I don’t know how to fill out the FAFSA. I can’t do this. I can’t help them. And then I calm myself down and I read the directions each step at a time with the child. And that’s really what they need is like a literate adult who is going to read through these government forms and be there for them. So it’s like anybody can do this work, you just got to jump in.

Antonia Guzmán:
I was going to say that too, take the risk, like just go for it. But the other thing is that we have to remember too, that we’re working with students and that they are still kids. They are waiting for our guidance and help, and they’re navigating a system that’s so complicated. So we have to also remember that because I think sometimes I hear people saying, well, if they really want to go to college, then they’ll find the time to seek for the help or show up after school and go to these workshops or go online and do this, that and the other. But I don’t know what’s going on at home, and I don’t know what, and sometimes I think because they’re fearful, kids do this all the time, they’ll avoid it as much as they can because they don’t know it. I’m thinking right now with their portal, sometimes they see something in their portal and they don’t recognize what it is so they’ll ignore it.
And I’m like, it’s not going to go away. If you ignore it, your acceptance might, you know. It’s like, pay attention to it. But that’s their kids, right? And so we have to remember to have that open mind and make the space the open and safe space at school so they can go ahead and explore that with us with guidance and care. And regardless of what background the child comes from, whether they’ve been doing a great job at keeping up with their A through Gs or not, that you’re offering that same opportunity and help to every child, to everyone. And then you don’t know what kind of impact you’re going to have or what kind of change you’re going to make if you don’t just take the hand of that child that needs it so that’s what I would say. Make the time at school to give them that help they need.

Alison Murray:
And …

Antonia Guzmán:
School day. Yeah.

Alison Murray:
… within the instructional day. That was a huge aha in the first year. It was like, wait, we could pull them out of their classes and pull them all into the multipurpose room and have them fill out their application. Wow. That was like, we couldn’t get our head around that. We’re like, are we allowed to do that?

Antonia Guzmán:
And for that too, like your staff needs to understand. So you need to make them part of the entire process. And if they’re not going to help, go ahead and hold the child’s hand through the process, then they need to step to the side and let you do it.

Alison Murray:
Get out of the way.

Antonia Guzmán:
Step to the side and let me do it. But for that, I think for it to create that culture, you need to also make them part of the celebration. We did this because all of you, whether you like one-on-one sat with a child or encouraged a child to do something, or whether you just allowed me to pull them out of your class, you had some part in the success. So I think that’s a big step that we need to just include all our stuff and the success that we have to continue that work.

Garett Brownlee Plantz:
Thank you both for including us in your success …

Antonia Guzmán:
Thank you all.

Garett Brownlee Plantz:
… and your story and for your time.

Antonia Guzmán:
Thank you.

Garett Brownlee Plantz:
They sure love you.

Alison Murray:
[inaudible 00:29:05] Thank you.

Alec Patton:
High Tech High Unboxed is hosted by me, Alec Patton. This episode was edited by Brent Spirnak. Our theme music is by brother Herschel. Huge thanks to Alison Murray, Antonia Guzman, and Garett Brownlee Plantz for this conversation. You can find links to lots more stuff about college access and continuous improvement in our show notes. Thanks for listening.