Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
Educators usually have another educator that they can say like this teacher really inspired me or really believed in me-

Rodrigo Arancibia:
Sure.

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
… I didn’t have that space.

Alec Patton:
This is High Tech High Unboxed, I’m Alec Patton, and today it’s my great pleasure to introduce a guest episode from one of my favorite podcasts, The Educated Guess podcast produced by Cesar Fernandez, Rodrigo Arancibia and Ed Nuñez. And just a heads up, like all Educated Guess episodes, this one contains some strong language. With that said, I’ll let Cesar and Rodrigo explain what it’s all about.

Cesar Fernandez:
I mean, it’s just a chance for us as educators to tell our stories, that’s how it started, you know? A bunch of equipment in a garage and let’s give it a shot. And slowly, it’s kind of just morphed into this like anyone who’s a game changer in communities and schools, we want to capture their story and their insight.

Rodrigo Arancibia:
Yeah, particularly like the people, the unsung folks, the people who aren’t typically recognized. These are the basketball coaches, the expanded learning professionals, the community organizers, the activists. We want to hear those stories, because those are the ones that typically make the biggest impact, but often go the least recognized.

Alec Patton:
Yeah, and I know that like Rodrigo, you were real incognito about who Cesar is last time we recorded this, but Cesar, I’ll let you introduce yourself however you see fit.

Cesar Fernandez:
I am a father, a husband, an educator of 22 years, most of it in a secondary district here in San Diego, and I’m a math teacher.

Alec Patton:
And Rodrigo, who are you?

Rodrigo Arancibia:
Yeah, so Rodrigo Arancibia. I am the co-director for the CARPE College Access Network that’s housed in a graduate school, High Tech High, but after school practitioner at heart and teacher and thoughtful listener, so I’m trying to make it so it’s all ambiguous so that people just don’t necessarily pin me down all the time, you know?

Cesar Fernandez:
What that means is Rodrigo hasn’t seen the inside of a classroom for like a decade.

Rodrigo Arancibia:
Exactly, or it just means I’ve been looking at the classroom in a different way, friend.

Cesar Fernandez:
Okay-

Rodrigo Arancibia:
Piece of shit Ceez, I love it, welcome to come strong!

Cesar Fernandez:
Good morning Unboxed!

Rodrigo Arancibia:
Good morning Unboxed.

Alec Patton:
All right, so on this episode, you guys had Adriana Lepe-Ramirez on, the principal of Escondido High School. Why did you guys want to talk to her?

Cesar Fernandez:
Go ahead and start that one off, Rodrigo.

Rodrigo Arancibia:
Sure, yeah. When we talked to Adriana, she’s a part of the CARPE College Access Network as one of our network schools and she’s been doing a lot of thoughtful work and she has a history and a background in doing some of the College Access work, but what we noticed and to listening to her story and learning her story, we noticed that it was a lot of the things that happened outside the classroom that were particularly impactful. So, we wanted to highlight that story as one of our leaders who’s making significant changes in her sector, in her school, in her community, and so that was kind of the initial component. Ceez, was there anything else that you found particularly interesting in hearing her story?

Cesar Fernandez:
Well, in hearing her story, yes, but I mean, Rodrigo and I run in so many different circles that sometimes he’ll just bring somebody to the podcast and I’ll just cold interview them, right? I won’t have the time to research them, so he says, “Hey, we’re going to interview this principal from up north,” I look her up a little bit, I’m like, “Wow, Latina, great story, principal of a big high school,” and I’m like, “Hell yeah, let’s do it.” But the most amazing part is obviously hearing her story, her bio.

There were times when I go emotional hearing her struggles as a single mom while trying to get her education. Just, it brought back a lot for me and me growing up with my mother and always… Or not always, but sometimes feeling like it was just us. Adriana brought all that back out in me, so to hear her story and then to hear what she’s also doing as a principal, it was a powerful episode.

Alec Patton:
Here’s Cesar and Rodrigo’s interview with Dr. Adriana Lepe-Ramirez.

Intro Music:
(singing).

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
It’s fine, I’m here now.

Rodrigo Arancibia:
Thank you La Reina del Norte, Adriana Lepe-Ramirez. Can I first introduce you to like some of the guests that are on the Zoom call with you?

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
For sure.

Rodrigo Arancibia:
Sweet. So, I have Cesar Fernandez, the co-host and… Actually, the host of The Educated Guess podcast. Cesar Fernandez is an employee of a district down here in the south county that shall remain nameless.

Cesar Fernandez:
I’ll give you a hint. District in distress.

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
Wow.

Rodrigo Arancibia:
Yikes.

Also on the phone, we have our executive producer, Katie Yording, also known as Miss K on the phone joining us. This is going to be an experiment between the graduate school, our publication, Unboxed and then the podcast that Cesar and I… Mostly Cesar has been running for the last three years now, The Educated Guess podcast. And so, the way that we’ve run podcasts before were super, super informal. We just want to get to know people on a human level or the origin stories of amazing educators and then just have honest conversations because a lot of what we hear and a lot of what we see in education is padded down by this sanitization of the truth. And so, we want to kind of get away from that and just have a real conversation. So, I’m going to probably cuss, it’s likely Cesar doesn’t know any other words that “fuck that,” but tell me a little bit about where you grew up, where you’re from and what your educational experience was like growing up. What was that like for you?

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
All right. Well, I grew up in east LA. It’s a little town called El Sereno. High poverty, a lot of large Latino population. Most of us were Mexican or what we thought was Mexican, so like a Mexican Salvadorean, or…

Rodrigo Arancibia:
Yeah.

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
You know because everybody’s Mexican. I can’t say that I had a great experience and I think sometimes that’s a big challenge where educators usually have another educator that they can say this teacher really inspired me or really believed in me-

Rodrigo Arancibia:
Sure.

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
… I didn’t have that space. I saw that space live in my sister and my brother’s journey, but it didn’t necessarily live in mine. I’m the youngest of three, so my older brother and sister were super like uber smart and like captain of the football team and I just wasn’t ready to try that hard, so… And to be honest-

Rodrigo Arancibia:
Just to be real, huh?

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
Yeah, so especially going into middle school and high school, the teachers would get really excited to hear that another Lepe was coming into their classroom and-

Rodrigo Arancibia:
Yeah.

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
… yeah, I had to make it real clear that they’re not going to get that same Lepe experience with me.

Rodrigo Arancibia:
I love it.

Cesar Fernandez:
Was it the eyeliner that let them know?

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
You know, it might have been. It might have been. So, like most of my friends, we kind of jumped from one year to the next without any real guidance, without any real direction and my senior year was probably the first time we spoke to a college and career tech or councilor and the conversation was kind of like, “Well, what community college do you want to go to?” And I said, “Well, what do you mean what community college do I want to go to? I want to go to Cal State LA,” because that was the local CSU in my community and she laughed at me and she was like, “No, I’m serious. What community college do you want to go to?” And I said, “Rio Hondo.”

I just didn’t realize that there were courses that I had to take and there was pathways that I needed to be on in order for me to get to Cal State LA. I had decent grades, I had Cs and better, but my friends and I, we just didn’t know and so, the majority of us ended up either at East LA College and I went to Rio Hondo Community College.

Cesar Fernandez:
And so this is a typical story that we hear with educators. You know, they didn’t really have that rich experience in their formative years, but there had to have been a moment where you kind of turn that corner and it sounds like it was in community college, right? Maybe there was a professor that inspired you or maybe it was just the experience of being with others in community college where you said, “Hey, I got to make this move and I got to get to that four year and do such and such.” When was that moment for you?

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
Honestly, that moment came for me when I got pregnant with my son and realized I needed to figure out my life because I was having a baby.

Rodrigo Arancibia:
How old were you?

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
I was 18 when I got pregnant.

Cesar Fernandez:
Wow

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
So, again, I wasn’t the best student, so it wasn’t like I left my high school just really prepared for much, you know? I remember walking into high school classes and there was notes written on every chalk board that lined every wall and we spent 50 minutes just copying the notes, and that was class.

Rodrigo Arancibia:
Dang.

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
So when I got to school and I struggled and I didn’t know some of the basic stuff that I probably should have known, I did have professors say, “College isn’t for everybody, Adriana, you just might want to rethink this.”

Rodrigo Arancibia:
Piece of shit.

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
Yeah-

Rodrigo Arancibia:
Goddam.

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
No, it was amazing. It was amazing. My self-esteem was great, really high at that point. I did fall in love with history. Like I fell in love with the subject and I fell in love with the way some of my teachers talked about it which made it so just relatable and understandable and it was the way they taught me history that made me fall in love with it that led me to decide to major in… Or at least get a minor in history and major in social science. But to say somebody really like inspired me, I don’t think I had that, my friend.

Rodrigo Arancibia:
Dang.

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
I knew I wanted to work with at risk kids. That was my jam, that’s what I wanted to do. I wanted to work with kids who represented my group of friends that didn’t have the same opportunities that I had and ended up in jail or ended up dropping out or ended up just not making it and they didn’t make it because they didn’t have the supports that they needed and the spaces where they should have felt most safe. And so that’s what I wanted to do, but I didn’t know what that looked like. Like I didn’t know it was going to look like becoming a teacher and eventually moving into being an administrator. I just knew I wanted to work with that population.

Rodrigo Arancibia:
Was there a particular moment where you’re like, “Yo, I got to do this,” like this is it for me? Because I know that we’re going to hop into your after school story because that’s super important to the podcast, it’s super important to me and my origin story, but was there a particular moment in which you realized like this is the population I need to work with?

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
I think it’s just always been there. Like I lost my first friend to gang violence in middle school, you know? Like I could look back at my first grade class pictures and see little Robert de Leon, who was super sweet and a friend who didn’t even make it to the ninth grade and the boys that I graduated sixth grade with, I can’t even remember graduating high school with them. Like I think they either moved away or they went to jail or they went to continuation schools.
We were a small school. We were two class, two sixth grade classes and I don’t remember any of the boys from my sixth grade class graduating high school with me.

Rodrigo Arancibia:
Wow.

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
You know what I mean?

Rodrigo Arancibia:
Yeah.

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
So, I knew that this was the space that I wanted to live in and work with that population, with the population that I grew up with.

Rodrigo Arancibia:
How does after school came into your world?

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
So, I got pregnant. I was 18. I needed to work. Well, I was pregnant and I was a single mom, so my son’s dad left shortly after I got pregnant, so I had to work and I started working as an instructional aid at an elementary school. And I think that was when I fell in love with teaching, is watching the teachers like spark that excitement for learning and the creativity that they were able to use in everything that they did whether it was teaching reading or math, everything was creative and engaging and the kids where just so excited to learn. And I think that’s what made me fall in love with the teaching aspect.

Cesar Fernandez:
It sounds like you had a really good experience of being an IA, so I mean, the teachers you worked with obviously were amazing. I mean, I know that it was my experience as an IA that really turned me on to be an educator. So, that honestly was the catalyst for you wanting to be in the classroom also?

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
Yeah, I think that was the biggest indicator that this is where I wanted to be, was watching how they literally changed kids.

Cesar Fernandez:
Wow.

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
Does that make sense?

Rodrigo Arancibia:
Absolutely-

Cesar Fernandez:
Yes.

Rodrigo Arancibia:
… 100%. On this podcast, it makes sense. There are some places that it doesn’t make sense.

Cesar Fernandez:
That’s what we want, every adult on campus to be able to do.

Rodrigo Arancibia:
Absolutely.

Cesar Fernandez:
Yeah.

Rodrigo Arancibia:
Wait, and so you’re an instructional aid and then, again… I’m sorry, I’m trying to get… Harping on the after school stuff, but I’m curious-

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
So, I had a pretty amazing principal at that elementary school. I was working at Sierra Park ELementary in El Sereno and the principal at the time was part of that after school program, like the movement that was starting, LA’s Best. I mean again, at this point, I was already a single mom, I already had my son, and I needed a job, so he… My principal was in charge of several schools in that area. There were like regional supervisors, if you will, and so there was a position that was open at [inaudible] Elementary School. I went, I applied, I interviewed, I got it and I was their drill team coach.

Rodrigo Arancibia:
So, the real question is did you have the flags or the shields? What was your-

Cesar Fernandez:
Yeah.

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
It was all arms.

Rodrigo Arancibia:
All right, I’ll take it, I’ll take it, arms. Love it. And how long were you in the after school space?

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
Oh, I was in after school for maybe like six or seven years.

Cesar Fernandez:
Wow.

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
Yeah. I went from drill teach, we ran like homework club, I worked anywhere from like the kinder kids to the sixth grades kids. Eventually I became a coordinator. I went back to the site where I was an instructional aid and I was their after school coordinator-

Rodrigo Arancibia:
Love it.

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
… so I coordinated… Yes, it was great. I coordinated the beyond the bell-

Rodrigo Arancibia:
Yeah

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
Yeah, so the east youth services and the LA’s Best. And I absolutely loved that space.

Rodrigo Arancibia:
That’s awesome, dude. So now it’s confirmed a couple things for me, that you are probably one of my favorite administrators because you have that much cred. I mean, not too many people have that much after school cred, so that’s pretty awesome and-

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
Was it the drill team?

Rodrigo Arancibia:
It was the drill team it’s because you didn’t have shields or flags, it was arms, that’s straight up, that’s it. You got cred that way. And then I definitely want to invite you up to BOOST this year, one of the best conferences for after school or expanded learning practitioners. We would love for you to go and we’ll pick up your registration for being a guest on the podcast. Thank you so much.

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
Oh, I’d love to go. I haven’t been yet.

Rodrigo Arancibia:
Oh, you have not? It’s great. I think you’re going to really enjoy, especially with the background that you have as… Again, one of the things I like telling people because… You’ve seen education through all these different lenses, as an instructional aid, as the after school practitioner, as a teacher, as an administrator, as all those different things make you a pretty informed and a pretty aware administrator, you know what I mean? And so, I don’t know that too many people have had that experience.

What’s weird is we’re starting to see a lot of younger administrators spend like two years in a classroom, go get their admin credential, finish the five years and then all of a sudden like they become APs and shit like that. They don’t necessarily have all the lived experience or the wisdom that someone like you might have, you know what I’m saying? So there’s something to be said about that, so thank you.

Cesar Fernandez:
So, give us your catalog of work in education as a teacher and administrator. What schools have you taught at? What schools have you been an AP? Obviously we know you’re a principal, but give us the whole catalog.

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
Okay, well I started teaching at a charter school. It’s not the charter schools the way you would imagine the charter schools, like you’re having a choice school if you will. I work at a charter school called Soledad Enrichment Action. It was out of LACOE, Las Angeles County Office of Education, and what we did was we serviced all at risk kids. So, the students that came to SEA were the students that were just getting out of JCCS, so they were kids that had already been expelled Fromm LA Unified and there was really nowhere else for them to go. They spend time in jail or LA Unified kicked them out, they kicked them out of their continuation schools and this was kind of their last chance.
Well, so just to explain, there’s 18 different classrooms. It’s 1 school with 18 classrooms all over LA County, so they were from like North Hills to Pomona and everything in between. So, is started working in the Crenshaw area. That was my first classroom and that was back when you were allowed to teach under an emergency credential, but they were quickly coming through with the no child left behind, and they were only allowing teachers who had a full credentials to teach. So within a couple years, I lost my classroom because I hadn’t cleared my credential.

So, I was in the credential program, but I hadn’t finished, so then they moved me into special ed because special ed had a year… They gave them a year grace period so you could still work under an emergency for sped, so I worked in special ed for the resource kids within the same school system. So, I worked at the south central site, I still kept my Crenshaw site, I worked at North Hills. It was North Hills and there was one more school, I can’t think of… Anyway, out by North Hills area, Northridge area.

I did that for a year and then when I got my full credential, then I went to the South Gate site. I worked at South Gate for a few years and after a few of my kids passed, it was really rough and I decided to make the leap into admin and I was hired was an assistant principal through the Alliance for College Ready Public Schools, so very different charter and the exciting part though, was that I was able to open a school site in Watts

Rodrigo Arancibia:
Oh, right on.

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
So we were able to build it pretty much from the ground up, from the curriculum to hiring the teachers, to looking at our space and creating a learning environment for the students that we were bringing on board. So, that was exciting, but still… I mean, it was exciting and I was working with a population that I loved and giving them just experiences and ensuring that they were going to maintain an A to G pathway, but the opportunity to become an assistant principal at a comprehensive high school out in Riverside opened up, so I went from Watts to Menifee and I worked as an assistant principal for Paloma Valley High School, so that was a little different.

Cesar Fernandez:
Ew, Riverside, ew. I cannot-

Rodrigo Arancibia:
No, when you said Menifee, both Cesar and I looked at each other with a big ass eyes open like…

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
Yeah.

Rodrigo Arancibia:
Yeah, that must have been a change.

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
A little bit, yeah. It’s a little bit of a culture shock.

Rodrigo Arancibia:
To say the least.

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
To say the least

Rodrigo Arancibia:
To say the least, exactly, yeah.

Cesar Fernandez:
My comadre teachers elementary in Menifee and I remember her commenting that there were discussions in the teachers’ lounge about why Cesar Chavez day was a holiday and I was just like, “Whoa, where do you live?” So yeah, Menifee, I know it.

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
Yes-

Cesar Fernandez:
And how long were you trapped out there?

Rodrigo Arancibia:
We mean “residing” out there?

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
So, I was at Paloma for about three years and then I transferred… Within the same school district, I transferred to Perris High School.

Rodrigo Arancibia:
Oh, right on.

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
So I was at Perris High School for about six years.

Rodrigo Arancibia:
Right on.

Cesar Fernandez:
And were there some differences between Paloma and Perris? I know Perris is a little more grimy, but I don’t know Paloma that well.

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
There were some significant differences. Perris High School had… Their full student body were students of color, so there were Latino and African-American students. There kids were absolutely amazing, a lot of poverty in that area, in Menifee. I think when I was there, it was about like 60% white, 40% Latino, more affluent neighborhood, so a population that I wasn’t necessarily accustom to coming from the background where I taught and even moving into an assistant principal position, working in Watts

Rodrigo Arancibia:
That’s what I’m curious about, man, because that transition already and given everything else being equal, the transition from teacher to administrator is tough, but given the culture shock, how much more difficult was that making the transition from being a teacher to an administrator?

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
That was probably the hardest for me. I think as a teacher and working in the spaces that I worked in, we were able to have very just frank conversations, you know? We were able to argue and we were able to show our passion with loud voices and animated… You know, with a little more animation?

Rodrigo Arancibia:
Yeah.

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
That wasn’t necessary appreciated when I moved over to Menifee.

Rodrigo Arancibia:
I like how you’re being super diplomatic on all these responses.

Cesar Fernandez:
Right.

Rodrigo Arancibia:
I’m like super impressed. I think we need to do another version with at least a bottle of wine, a glass of wine or something, man, because-

Cesar Fernandez:
[foreign language 00:27:22] went to Heritage High School and to be honest, it seemed like a high school that you would see on a WB show or something like that, you know what I mean? It didn’t seem real to me from my high school experience or my teaching experience at all, so I know Menifee a little bit, I know Perris a little bit too because I have family there, so… So, you dealt with some change, period.

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
Yeah. So there was some serious change and Heritage, within that district, Heritage is kind of in the middle, right? It has a little bit of Paloma Valley, a little bit of Perris, so it kind of sits more in the middle. You’re going to have kids that… I mean, I guess that’s the best way I could describe it, right? Paloma Valley’s usually are more affluent, they have probably… Well, at least at that time, they had the least amount of kids of color. Heritage had a little more. They were a little more Latino, but still had a strong white population and then Perris, I mean, if you’d see a white kid, it was like a unicorn, right? You’re like, “Wow, we do have white kids,” like, “There he is,” right? Or you’d think they were lost like, “Hey, buddy-

Cesar Fernandez:
Got it.

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
… you’re looking for the office?”

Cesar Fernandez:
And so how does the opportunity open up for you to come down south to Escondido?

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
I had been an assistant principal for almost a decade and there some changes in the district and I figured this is my time. I think for a long time you doubt yourself and you think you need to learn more or get more experience in certain areas, and I looked and Escondido really had the demographics that I was looking for, it had the history that I was used to in working out in Perris and just looking at the school and reading about it, it just really felt like home and I knew that was where I wanted to be. So I applied and I was lucky enough to get it. Now I’m officially the first person of color in 120 some odd years to call myself the principal.

Rodrigo Arancibia:
I was going to say, I’m super curious, like day one boss lady walks in, Latina principal, first time ever, what are you thinking when you’re walking in the first day and you got the keys?

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
Holy shit.

Rodrigo Arancibia:
Yup. Yeah, you ain’t lying, huh? Because everything is your responsibility, from the trash to every kid, to every parent, everything is your responsibility, huh?

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
Yeah, from the Roundup they use to kill the weeds to you know…

Cesar Fernandez:
And did you have anybody that was already working here or some kind of support system here in Escondido? Somebody who kind of waved you in?

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
I came in really not knowing anybody.

Cesar Fernandez:
Wow.

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
I can’t say I didn’t have support. I think my name came up as a candidate because the JDP, our doctoral program through UCSD and Cal State San Marcos has a strong presence in this area, so I think when my dissertation chair knew that I was applying, she reached out to some folks and so, I was given an interview. So I did have support, and I had people that I knew I can talk to, I just didn’t know anybody. It wasn’t like I already had a friend within the district. I think-

Cesar Fernandez:
No, but I think it goes to show that your work locally actually like put your name out there on its own, right? You know what I mean?

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
Right.

Cesar Fernandez:
That’s a good thing. That’s a beautiful thing.

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
It was a leap of faith, right? Because no one knows me. No one knows me out here. Like they don’t know what I’ve done, they don’t know my history and you know… Like I have to build that from scratch because it’s not like oh, I knew her when she was in the classroom and she was badass, or I worked with her within this other space, or we did drill team together. Like no one knows…

Rodrigo Arancibia:
Well, yeah, she coached my daughter in drill team, right? She’s cool.

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
Right. Yeah, even at that, it’s not like oh, my son had her as a teacher. Like people are literally learning me from now, like from here in my present day. There’s no history to say she has been or what I have done or things that I’ve accomplished prior to being in this space. But I think I quickly learned my colleagues, my friend Dr. [Pasas 00:32:40] has been just absolutely a rockstar with me and helping me network and meet some fine folks like my friend Rodrigo here.

Cesar Fernandez:
So one thing I do want to ask you about is I am totally familiar with the young mother going into education. That was my mom, pregnant at 18… Well, actually having me at 18 and having to take me to college with her. I’m curious that at this point, when you become principal, how far along is your son into his education and how did your experience kind of shape your vision for what he was doing at school?

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
I think it was very similar, right? I had him at 19. Got pregnant at 18, had him at 19, but he spent a lot of nights at school with me. I’ve always said that he should have gotten his BA along with me-

Rodrigo Arancibia:
I’ve been there.

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
Yes, but I think because I worked so much and if I wasn’t working, I was going to school, I think I put a lot of pressure on him and when we moved out here, when we moved out to Riverside, we kind of settled in in Murrieta and you have to remember, my son comes from east LA where they’re putting their money together to buy a can of soda from the ice cream truck to being in a space where kids have three or four Gatorades in their backpack, you know? So-

Cesar Fernandez:
It’s real.

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
Yeah, I don’t think that he felt like he fit in. I think he dealt with a lot of racism and I think he ate a lot of it for my sake because he knew that I was living out my dream. Like this was my path, so I think he stayed quiet through a lot of like just real ugly stuff. Like teachers saying things to him, campus supervisors telling him like this is America, you need to speak English, people calling him like a beaner, a cherry picker, so-

Cesar Fernandez:
Wow.

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
Yeah, he had a really rough time in that space, so he rebelled a little bit, refused to be A through G, fought me tooth and nail. His councilor at his particular school didn’t help either. Yeah, just kind of like well, he doesn’t want to. And I said, “What do you mean he doesn’t want to? He doesn’t get to decide,” and I just think his councilor was also the councilor for the athletes, so if you weren’t going to a D1 school on a full scholarship, they didn’t care about you. I think they saw a little brown bean walk into their office with gauges in his ears and they knew he was going to be a piece of shit and they let him give up on himself.

Rodrigo Arancibia:
Damn.

Cesar Fernandez:
Damn.

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
You know?

Cesar Fernandez:
Damn, man.

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
They didn’t believe in him and what he can do and my son needed more than just me to be his cheerleader and nobody else was cheering for him. You know, like your mom can say you’re amazing and you’re super smart until she’s blue in the face, but if you hear it from somebody else, it means something and I don’t think there was anybody there to tell him how amazing he was. So, the boy struggled a little bit. He moved to LA with my parents, went to East LA College and the boy ended up on the Dean’s list-

Cesar Fernandez:
There we go.

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
You know, so it’s not that he wasn’t smart, I think he was just defeated in high school, but he’s killing it at community college, he’s just passing all of his classes, he loves school, he wanted to be a high school councilor. He took sociology and absolutely fell in love with it, so now he wants to be a sociology professor.

Cesar Fernandez:
Love it.

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
He’s getting ready to graduate I think at the end of this semester and then he’s transferring to, hopefully, to UCR to finish up his degree.

Rodrigo Arancibia:
Man, so-

Cesar Fernandez:
That’s a tough story. That’s a tough story-

Rodrigo Arancibia:
Yeah.

Cesar Fernandez:
… and really when it comes-

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
I know, I got through it without crying-

Rodrigo Arancibia:
I know, I was proud of you, sis, because that’s hard.

Cesar Fernandez:
Fam, I got to tell you, I’m looking over at Rodrigo and I rub my eye at him-

Rodrigo Arancibia:
A couple times.

Cesar Fernandez:
… because I was like damn-

Rodrigo Arancibia:
That’s it. So, the gems that you learned raising your son, that obviously influences how you lead your school, you know what I mean?

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
For sure.

Rodrigo Arancibia:
How are you communicating that when you’re talking to your team or what… I want to know more about like how you communicate that message because people got to feel it. I know they feel it. We felt it on the other side to hear the story, but like how do you communicate that, man?

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
Honestly, I think from the onset, from the moment I walked on to this campus, my message was always about all kids. Like not just the kids that show up every day, not just the kids that want to do the work, but all kids. You know, the kid that’s getting high in the bathroom, the kid that’s just making poor choices. We’re about all kids and all kids being successful. And I think it was a little overwhelming for some folks, right? Like it seemed really unrealistic, but I think at the core, the teachers, they get it. Like they know yes, we have to be about all kids and making sure that the practices that we implement and the rules that we roll out are really equitable and we’re not creating those systematic barriers that keep kids from being successful. And I’m not saying we’re prefect, but we’re always open to conversation and poking holes and really using different lenses to see how we’re impacting our kids. Does that make sense?

Rodrigo Arancibia:
Yeah, no, totally. And it’s fucking awesome hearing it from like a school leader who’s actually lived through it and now is sharing it, you know what I mean? And the manner in which we share things is important. Like two real kind of interesting questions I guess, in terms of like what’s been the biggest learning between first stepping foot on Escondido’s campus to like joining CARPE and then from CARPE to now? Are there two different learnings? Is there one learning? I’m curious if there was any difference in joining the network, but also I know for a fact that there was tons of stuff that you gleaned from just being the principal for the first time at Escondido, so I want to honor that too.

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
I think some of the biggest learning from being a part of the network was just really understanding and… Just understanding that sometimes my team needs to hear it from a different space, right? So it doesn’t have to come from me and I don’t have to “como te dire,” I think it was a lot of the things that I was asking to happen, it was just that I was asking to happen and giving examples of what I would like to see. But being a part of the network really gave them a space to make it their own, make it their own ideas, make it their own journey versus we’re doing something that the principal wants us to do.

And that was huge. That was a big like you need to get out of your damn, you need to step back and let your people do what they want to do the way they need to get it done so that they could own it and they can love it and they can live it every day.

Rodrigo Arancibia:
How did you know that was the huge piece? Like was there a singular point that you remember where you’re like, “Ah, that’s the one,” or has it just been an accumulation of like little wins here and there?

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
Honestly, I think I saw it when we were in the interview process to be a part of CARPE because… Right, honestly because the things that we were being asked and some of the data that we had to collect kind of made people a little more curious about what we’re doing and then the interview process allowed people the space to kind of share about themselves and what their passion is and how they support kids. And it became something that we knew we wanted to be a part of and it really happened, like it really gained that momentum after our first convening. Like after the first time we met together and we had that team space and we were planning things out, I think it just got exciting, right? And they were able to own a lot of the movement moving forward.

So then my role then just became supporter like yes, what do you need to get it done? Absolutely. You know? It’s no longer pushing like do this and do this and we should do this and how about we do this? Now it’s them saying, “Oh, can we do this? Can we do that? Can we have a space to make this happen?” And then I just get to be like, “Yes, done, let’s do it,” right?

Rodrigo Arancibia:
Remove barriers and remove obstacles and let them do their thing, right?

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
Absolutely. Absolutely, what do you need to make this happen, you know? What’s the big picture? Like how do you want to live this out? What’s in your way? And let me remove that for you.

Rodrigo Arancibia:
I love it, fucking love it.

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
And it’s just been amazing the work that they’ve done and this is a team of councilors that have worked together for a decade.

Cesar Fernandez:
Wow.

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
And the work that they’ve really been able to do collectively is… I mean, well you see our numbers. It’s amazing.

Rodrigo Arancibia:
Yeah, I’m not going to be over here counting all the numbers, but you guys are definitely leading the pack and-

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
Well, we’re 72 kids away from hitting our goal, just saying.

Rodrigo Arancibia:
And I bet you those are 72 kids that probably have already submitted something via like the mail, so it’s going to show up in the next four weeks.

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
Yeah.

Rodrigo Arancibia:
But you know, I appreciate you bringing up the interview process and thank you for that, because I do remember that interview process pretty vividly in the… Do you remember the question that was like kind of everybody kind of asked the question and I don’t know if everybody was totally ready for that question and it was the second time I asked it knowing that I was walking into that because you guys had had, I don’t know, one or two incidents with just outright racism on campus, right? With the student body or something and so, the way that they handled the question was fucking awesome, but the question I asked was like this community has a history of institutional racism, how do you guys plan on addressing that? And again, I don’t know that anybody was-

Cesar Fernandez:
Ready for that.

Rodrigo Arancibia:
… ready for that question, but you guys all were no, we’re taking steps… We’re addressing it, we knew this was an issue, bah-bah-bah-bah-bah and this just kind of sped up the process. And it was super refreshing to hear just Adriana really kind of take it head on. Like I don’t remember you really kind of backing off. I don’t know, can you speak a little bit to how leaders can get out of the way of their teams a little bit more? Or what do you think that mechanism is though, Adriana? Like is it fear that keeps people so on top of their team or what is it that… Because that’s also a big piece of just stepping out of the way and letting people do their thing, right?

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
And like I said and like I mentioned before, I’d already had conversations with like my admin team with respect to some of the things I would like to see happen so that we could remove barriers… Remove those barriers that keep our students from filing for financial aid. So, I think when we came into the CARPE space and the team time, I may have like given suggestions like hey, what if we did something like this? Again, using our PSAT right? Where all of our 10th and 11th grade students are taking the PSAT instead of letting the seniors stay home and sleep, like why don’t we bring them in and really kick off our FAFSA application, right?

And they had some questions like what might that look like? And I answered what I thought, but then just kind of stepped back and then they started getting excited and like. “Oh, and we could do this,” and we’re like, “Yeah, you could do that,” you know? And like, “So, what do we do with our freshmen?” And then it’s like, “Well, what conversations might we want to have with freshmen to prepare them or to let them understand what their four year plan is?” Like might that be a space where we can do that, and then you kind of just drop some ideas and then step back and let them get really excited with knowing that they’re going to have like a certain number of hours with the students and it’s all about college. Like that’s a councilor’s jam.
So, I think at least for me, I think my team already had a lot of great ideas that were living in silos, right? Like this councilor has a great idea of what they would want to do and this councilor had a great idea of what they wanted to do, but we never really created a space where they could make those things come to fruition when they’re all working toward one goal.

Rodrigo Arancibia:
That’s crazy, right? And it feels like the work that we’ve been doing helps de-silo a lot of what’s happening on campuses and then it ends up being… Like college access is the initial conversation, right? Like FAFSA completions or whatever or SAT sign ups or whatever that conversation is, but what we’ve noticed is it starts to surface some of these other institutional issues that you guys can totally address if you guys stopped working in silos, right? Like that’s huge and so I think that’s probably one of the biggest learnings that we’ve had as a team, like these practices and these segmentations of things that we do are really kind of agnostic, they’re not solely for college access. They’re also for special ed students or athletes or whatever. Like you can use them in a multitude of ways. Ces, you had a question around…

Cesar Fernandez:
I’m wondering how do you build that trust with teachers to have these discussions to make some of these changes that you want? I know most of the work focuses around councilors, but obviously, obviously, Adriana has to build trust within her teachers too to work not in the silos, so how do you build that trust?

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
Honestly, we used other teachers and it became more of a grassroots movement if you will-

Rodrigo Arancibia:
Right? Who would have thought? Who would have thought us teachers, the teachers will do it, huh? Fuck.

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
Yeah, like we started with AVID obviously because just the experience that AVID has with the whole financial aid and college and that’s their world. And they went out and talked to other teachers that would be interested in supporting and we said okay, and we just started kind of building our teachers based on who wanted to learn more, who wanted to be a part of that process and we sent teachers to trainings. When we do our big kick off to college day, we have a team of teachers that do the financial aid packets with the kids and that’s their regular classroom teachers who just really wanted to be a part of that work and wanted to learn more for the next year, so we got them trained up so they can answer questions and feel more comfortable in that space and we’re just kind of building capacity.

Cesar Fernandez:
And I think that’s something that more principals need to understand and more instructional leaders need to understand is that teachers kind of already have their own networks and it’s like oh, it’s going to be so tough to push out this new… Let’s implement restorative justice. Oh, it’s going to be so tough because we’re going to get pushback. No, there’s actually a cadre of teachers on campus that want to grow that, right?
Yeah, and so you have to trust that there’s already a network for that on campus as opposed to stepping on and saying hey, I know this person does good work, let me bring them in my network. I mean, again, it’s building that trust knowing that those people are already there.

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
And that’s kind of how you build those leaders, right? You build those leaders within that space.

Rodrigo Arancibia:
I’m curious, that’s kind of a good segue into the next component of what I wanted to talked about because I do want to respect your time and we want to kind of-

Cesar Fernandez:
Are we already at an hour or-

Rodrigo Arancibia:
We’re a little bit. We’re close to it, but I want to-

Cesar Fernandez:
Damn, I wanted to ask about does… Does she have an after school program?

Rodrigo Arancibia:
Yeah, at some point we’ll talk about her after school program. Like we will because that’s going to be on the BOOST thing, but we just talked about trust and part of what an extension of… Or an extension of the CARPE work is this CARPE ALEX stuff, right? And ALEX is the Advanced Learning and Experiences Program, right? And so we invited Adriana to come out to Cincinnati Children’s Hospital and STRIVE partnerships in Cincinnati to see kind of both collective impact in action and then also continuous improvement in action through Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. So, she was super integral in being a part of what that learning was like, but something that came out of that experience was like who do we want to be in part of ALEX and if you’re going to be a partner of ALEX or a participant of ALEX, like what should you, in the spirit of Netflix, right? What are the culture norms that you should embody? What should you walk into with?
And I think Adriana does all of them when we send out the culture deck and we’ll share the culture deck online with everybody, but the things that we expect in… Or the things that we look for in our CARPE ALEX team members is like one, this idea of trust, right? Like how do you approach trust. And the next piece was like find and create value, curate the space in the container, develop self and system awareness, practice love and compassion, and then be intentional with your thoughts and your actions, right? And so Adriana does all of those, right? On a daily basis. I’m curious, Adriana, after hearing that list and looking through the slide deck, what pieces do you feel like really speak to you about that stuff or what pieces do you feel are things that every administrator should know or every school leader should be aware of.

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
It’s a big question my friend. I mean, shit.

Rodrigo Arancibia:
Well, again, I just know… And you can just answer it however you want to answer it, just don’t even worry about the slide deck. Like what it that you feel like every school leader should walk about with, man? Because again, I look to you and I see this leader and this quiet leader because it’s crazy how you’re just kind of under the radar, but you’re steadily moving people doing things, right? And I’m just super, super fascinated on how you are able to change the culture of… Or at least influence the culture of a school, so I just want to kind of surface some of that stuff because I know that there’s listeners who are just like I want to work for her, or I want to do the same thing that she’s doing, that’s fucking badass, helps us understand what that looks like.

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
Yikes. Horry-smokes. I think just creating a space where people feel comfortable trying something different. People feel comfortable stepping out of the norm and kind of taking that leap of faith or like let’s just try something different because what we’ve been doing isn’t giving us the results that we want, so let’s just step out, let’s try something different and let’s fail forward. And just be able to create that space where it’s okay for it to not be amazing the first time around. And know we’re learning together, right? Like this is new for all of us, we’re all going to learn together, but we’re all going to get better together. I think really just building that safe space and building that trust that everybody’s going to do their part and everybody’s going to pull their weight and we’re all going to give it everything that we have and then we’re going to come back and we’re going to see what we’ve learned and just do better. Does that make sense?

Rodrigo Arancibia:
Fuck yeah. See?

Cesar Fernandez:
What?

Rodrigo Arancibia:
This is what I love. This is what I love. I love having these kind of conversations because these are the conversations that people need to hear, man. Like people need to hear how we care about people, how we lead people in these distressing times, right? Like creating space for people to take challenges, to take risks because it’s not… You’re in a safe space to do that, you know what I mean? That’s important.
Adriana, we’re getting close to time here, but I’m super curious, like do you have any ask for any of the listeners? Like if there’s one thing you can ask every single listener to do, what would that be? Or what do you have… Obviously go check out the website. Your website or your-

Cesar Fernandez:
You got a website?

Rodrigo Arancibia:
… Twitter handle or whatever. Follow her on them Twitters, but what’s the ask? Amiga, what would you like for all of our listeners to do on your behalf?

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
I would ask just to give a little bit of grace, right? We’re all doing the best we can every day and we make mistakes, we’re human, and just give us a little bit of grace. That’s it.

Rodrigo Arancibia:
Why am I getting emotional? Piece of shit. You did it to us, okay, I didn’t think I was going to get emotional. I got emotional twice in this fucking interview, thank you.

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
I got to go vote my friend, so we got to wrap it up-

Rodrigo Arancibia:
I know, I got to get out of here too, so thank you so much, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you so much. Hopefully the next time we have this conversation, it’ll be with a drink in hand. Adriana, I don’t know… Cesar, is there anything else you got, like-

Cesar Fernandez:
No, Adriana, I just really appreciate your time and I hope to meet you in person. You are an amazing educator, bu more importantly, I wish your son good luck on his journey through education because I was your son at one time and so you really hit me with that, and I wish him the best.

Adriana Lepe-Ramirez:
Thank you. Thank you, I appreciate that.

Rodrigo Arancibia:
All right, sis, we love you, we love you, love you, we love you, we love you. Thank you so much. We’ll be in contact and folks, that’s a wrap.

Cesar Fernandez:
Bye-bye.

Rodrigo Arancibia:
The Educated Guess podcast episode whatever whatever whatever.

Alec Patton:
Awesome, man. For people who want to know more about CARPE and what you’re doing, where should they go?

Cesar Fernandez:
Yeah, so you can head up the CARPE website, it’s hthgsc.edu/college and we’ll put the link in the show notes so that you can check it out.

Alec Patton:
And where do people find Educated Guess?

Rodrigo Arancibia:
You can find The Educated Guess podcast at educatedguesspodcast.com or anywhere, any platform where you’re listening to A1 top shelf podcast. So you’re talking Apple, Google, Stitcher, TuneIn, all that.

Alec Patton:
Got it. For people who want to get a feel for the show, what are some good episodes to start with?

Cesar Fernandez:
Well, we got five seasons, so I’ll just run off a few from the most recent season and Don Dumas a former county teacher of the year, coach at Bonita Vista High School, that’s an amazing episode. We interviewed Stephanie Brown who is the new principal of Lincoln High School in San Diego. That was an awesome, awesome episode and then you got to check out a cat over at City College, a math professor, Dr. Rob Rubalcaba, AKA Professor Shadow and the way that he integrates hiphop into his math courses at City College, the dude’s inspiring and so if you give those three episodes a listen, you’ll get a good idea of what we’re about.

Rodrigo Arancibia:
Yeah, conversation with Chris Emdin was dope. There’s a lengthier conversation, but I think it’s worth it, Oscar de la Torre. He’s a board member of Santa Monica, the Santa Monica Malibu Joint Union, that story was freaking awesome too.

Alec Patton:
Is that the one where Malibu tried to secede?

Rodrigo Arancibia:
Yeah, they were right in the middle of like Malibu was trying to take themselves out of the district and so… Again, his story is awesome too, like community members started his own nonprofit as a recording studio and then was asked by the community to become a board member and then became a board member and then has been there and has continued to be there. Oh, Jerry Huidor, he’s a teacher over in Otay Ranch High School AP history teacher, freaking a gem of a human being, man. That was one of the interviews that got me emotional, really got me in touch with my humanity, dude. He’s a great guy.

Alec Patton:
High Tech High Unboxed is written and edited by me, Alec Patton except for guest episodes like this one. So today we say a big thank you to the team at Educated Guess, Cesar Fernandez, Rodrigo Arancibia and Ed Nunez. Their interview with Dr. Adriana Lepe-Ramirez also appears in the latest issue of Unboxed which you can find on our website as hchunboxed.org, that’s H-T-H-U-N-B-O-X-E-D dot O-R-G. And you can order a real hard copy version there too the whole issue is about continuous improvement and it is just packed with goodness. Check the show notes for that Unboxed link. Plus links to CARPE’s website and to those other episodes of Educated Guess that Cesar and Rodrigo just recommended. Our theme music is “Agassi (Into the Spider’s Web)” by Brother Herschel. Thanks for listening.