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Welcome to the Exceptional Educators Podcast by FrenalyticsEDU — where innovation meets inclusion in education!
Each episode features candid conversations with district leaders, school leaders, classroom changemakers, EdTech founders, and executives — all dedicated to transforming learning for each student, especially our learners with unique abilities.
With a focus on extraordinary educators and the exceptional students they serve, we explore the latest in special education, accessible technology, and inclusive leadership. Whether you’re shaping special education policy, pioneering new EdTech tools, or looking to grow your impact in the classroom, this podcast is your front-row seat to the future of inclusive education.
Listen. Learn. Lead. Be Exceptional. 🎙️
Welcome to the Exceptional Educators Podcast by FrenalyticsEDU, where innovation meets inclusion and education. I'm your co host, Antonia Ellis.
Matt Giovanniello:I'm Matt Giovanello, the CEO and co founder of Frenalytics. At Frenalytics, we put special education and English language learners front and center. Our award winning FrenalyticsEDU platform helps streamline progress monitoring, improve communication and compliance, and offers truly personalized learning to your students of all abilities.
Antonayah Ellis:Each episode of our podcast features candid conversations with district and school leaders, classroom changemakers, ed tech founders, and industry executives, all dedicated to transforming learning for each student, especially our learners with unique abilities. With focus on extraordinary educators and the exceptional students they serve, we explore the latest in special education, accessible technology, and inclusive leadership. In this episode, Exceptional Educators is exceptionally thrilled to welcome Doctor. Georgeanne Warnock, the proud superintendent of Carroll Independent School District in Texas, just East of Dallas. With over twenty five years in education, Doctor.
Antonayah Ellis:Warnock has led her district through transformational change, earning statewide recognition for academic growth, teacher retention, and inclusive innovation. Welcome to the podcast, Doctor. Warnock. We're so happy to have you here.
Georgeanne Warnock:Thank you. I'm excited to be here.
Antonayah Ellis:So we'd like to start off with a question. What is your why? What has brought you to education and what keeps you here?
Georgeanne Warnock:I was the little kid that was like setting up the stuffed animals to teach, you know, make a classroom. I loved books. As a little child, I actually stumbled across a box of old books from my childhood, and I had made, like, old school library checkout cards and like stapled them into my book. I guess I had this little vision that I was gonna have a little library operating out of my house as a seven year old or something. So I always had this idea that I wanted to be a teacher and just to believe that that's the profession that really makes a difference and impacts every profession.
Georgeanne Warnock:There's not a doctor, an engineer, a scientist without a teacher. And then as I had the chance to come into the classroom, I just had ideas that I thought could expand beyond the walls of my classroom, could have a larger impact, but I never wanted to be a school administrator and had some wise mentors and encouraged me to move into administration. And from there, I really like tuned my why around this idea that I believe that public education is the bedrock of our democracy, of our economy. The world will go, our city, our state, our nation will go the way that public education goes. And so I feel like it's incredibly important, the work that we get to do for the children in our community to prepare them for a future that's unknown.
Georgeanne Warnock:So, I mean, that's really my why.
Matt Giovanniello:I love that backstory, Georgeanne. You have since redefined the role of a school and a district administrator and the superintendent position that you now hold. You are TikTok famous for being not only the subbing superintendent, but also just being so immensely proud that you can't hold it in about the successes of your district since you've taken over its tenure. So tell us a little bit about how you think about the role and responsibilities of your school superintendency because the previous definition you didn't identify with. So instead of avoiding it completely, you just rewrote it.
Matt Giovanniello:So tell us about what that experience was like and what it looks like to be a superintendent in your shoes present day.
Georgeanne Warnock:I feel like I just know how to be myself. So that's the only me I know how to be. And all of that kind of really started during COVID. And I had just started Antero ISD January 2020. And of course, you know, the world shut down that March.
Georgeanne Warnock:And I told I reached out to our communications director and I said, I think we need to send out a video to our community, letting them know where we are and that it's gonna be okay. And she said, great. So I am on the porch at a cabin in Oklahoma because it was spring break. And I just like, the Blair Witch Project, like, shaky, you know, filmed selfie filmed the wrong way. Like, you're supposed to film it, you know, horizontally.
Georgeanne Warnock:I filmed it vertically. And I sent her the video just and I look back and laugh at that video now because, I mean, I was like, we're gonna close for for a week and everything's gonna be okay. Like, little did we know what was coming. So I sent it to her and her initial reaction was, oh my, how do I tell my new boss that this is a no? I mean, she had the vision of polished, you know you know, lighting and camera and in a suit, definitely not in a ball cap on a porch and, you know, filming myself.
Georgeanne Warnock:And she she says, you know, to me later, you know, how do how am I going to have this conversation with her? And then she watched it and she's like, no, this is exactly what people need to see because it was real. It connected. You know, there was competency in the message, but also just a humanness about it. So that really started a series of I mean, we would do Facebook lives, just updating our community in a video series every week, even if there was nothing new to report, just letting them know, hey, we're still, you know, progressing here.
Georgeanne Warnock:This is what we're checking in on. And then I got on TikTok during the pandemic like every good person did because, you know, that's what we all did. And, really to troll my children who are teenagers at the time. And, I just fell down this rabbit hole of educators and their responses and what was happening to our profession and how people felt at the time. And I just felt really called to, as a leader, to voice a response to that.
Georgeanne Warnock:That was one of encouragement uplifting. And so that's how I got into that and kind of redefining that role a little bit. And I think that it's okay to be yourself in a way that's competent, that connects with your community and to use this very powerful tool for social media. I think a lot of times it's used for evil. But if there are ways that we can use it for good and to connect with people like that's the beautiful part of it.
Georgeanne Warnock:And so, have tried to lean into that.
Antonayah Ellis:I am also a TikToker on occasion. And you know, I started during COVID too, being stuck in the house. When I started teaching, my kids somehow started finding me on TikTok. I feel like it really helped with our, our connection. And so I really applaud teachers, especially today who are putting themselves on social media and giving those girl talks online, those same conversations that they would have with their girls in person.
Antonayah Ellis:They're making small videos And it's just so special to the kids because I feel like it's such an easy way to reach them in their environment, meeting kids where they are. I think TikTok is the perfect platform. And then eventually it became like parents too, meeting parents where they are. Cause they're doom scrolling most of the time in their free time too. So it's like, how cool is it when you have a family conference and the mom is like, I see you on TikTok and wow, that craft that you did with your kids this past weekend was so cool.
Antonayah Ellis:I wanna try it with my kids. So I'm just interested when parents started seeing you on TikTok or kids started seeing you on TikTok, what kind of feedback were you getting? Was it more positive, negative?
Georgeanne Warnock:Oh, it's been it's been positive. I've had some foibles into like, I'm I'm not a super, you know, expert user by any stretch of the imagination. So, I mean, I and some of the kids have made fun of, like, when I've had, you know, boo boos, like, accidentally, like, clicked a button and some, like, co joined with some crazy host. I'm like, how do how do I get this person off of here? And, you know, so that got I got some laughs from some of the high school kids on that.
Georgeanne Warnock:You know, they'll ask, Hey, we can do a TikTok after our advisory meeting or whatever. But I think really, you know, the community, I really am It's all about positive, you know, things for the profession or great things that are happening in our school district. So that's just, I think, been a positive thing.
Matt Giovanniello:I think you're using it, Georgeanne, in a number of really unique ways. Yes. You're using it to be fun, to be relatable, information out in a way that's faster than it otherwise would be, and to connect with an audience that otherwise not be reading letters or watching videos that you're pushing through via email or whatever it might be. Some of those mediums are to foster family engagement, to increase that transparency, and to just get the word out of, like, these are all the amazing initiatives that you're doing at your district. Every district has a dream to increase their level of engagement in that way.
Matt Giovanniello:For those who are just starting their kind of exposure to social media, what lessons did you learn in building out this presence that you might be able to share to say like, here's what I did along the way that you can easily replicate or copy?
Georgeanne Warnock:Well, I have looked at it really, I mean, my target audience when I started that, it was something separate and aside from the school district. And so those things have kind of merged. The sole purpose was I want to inspire educators. And I also was getting great ideas from other educators on the platform. And so really saw it as a space of like little micro professional development.
Georgeanne Warnock:And so if we could share great ideas about things that were happening in our school district and highlight that, and then somebody else could take that and use it in their school district. I mean, we are the best, you know, beggars, borrowers, and steelers, you know, of ideas. Like, that's how we all operate. And so really, I think that would be my advice is like, what is something you're doing in your school district or at your campus or in your leadership role that's unique that you think, hey, this is something that would be easily able to replicate somewhere else. And this idea that someone could take and make it their own.
Georgeanne Warnock:Like one of the things that we've shared that it's so fun just to see like a fingerprint in other places, but we launched this dudes at the door. And so it is twice a month, men in our community come out and they fist bump, high five, just celebrate kids as they walk into school in the morning at our middle school and a high school. And all of that grew out of a need in our community and a really tragic event that happened. We gathered community people around together to say like, how can we have men showing up in our young men's lives? We think that's really important.
Georgeanne Warnock:It was a community generated idea. And now twice a month, we've got anywhere from 10 to 27 men. I think 20 seven's been our largest crowd that show up and just welcome kids. Well, we start sharing that. And then now I have other superintendents that'll send me videos like, hey, we started our own dudes at the door.
Georgeanne Warnock:You know, this was on the news in San Antonio because they came out to film the program that we started based on what you guys were doing. And so that's fun. So I would say looking for those little unique things you're doing that someone else take and make their own is, I think, a benefit.
Matt Giovanniello:I think so too. And let's get into a couple of the other unique programs and initiatives happening in the district that you brag about as you should on TikTok. TikTok. You regularly go into classrooms and become a substitute teacher for a day. That's incredibly rare for a superintendent to take on, especially for a district of over 5,000 students.
Matt Giovanniello:So I want to hear more about that. And also, you have been this big proponent of successfully implementing a four day school week. So we want to hear a little bit more about what those pieces look like, how those got off the ground, and what gets you so excited to talk about them?
Georgeanne Warnock:So during the pandemic, really for that, like 2122 school year, even 'twenty two, 'twenty three, we had massive sub shortages. I mean, we could not get people to come and sub. And so that was really a time where I took all of the time that I would normally be out on campuses visiting with principals and being in classrooms and just converted all of that to being in classrooms to substitute teach. That really opened my eyes to a lot of things in our system that we needed to improve. The need for that is not as great anymore.
Georgeanne Warnock:And so I am not as regular subbing in the classroom. I'm still on campuses every week and I do make an intention to go and cover some classes periodically during the year. So I think though, I learned so much from that. Really, we made a lot of improvements in our district because of it. One of the things that grew out of that was just our teachers saying, I don't have time to plan.
Georgeanne Warnock:I'm covering classes. You know, every minute of the day is full. And so during the pandemic, we asked our community, would you be open to us going to a four and a half day week where we could just have Fridays that our teachers could plan and have time to prep for the next week because of all the sub short, you know, all of that. And the community was great about it. And then our teacher said, Is there any way we could look at really just going four days a week and what could that look like?
Georgeanne Warnock:We historically had had very high teacher turnover rate. We had a high number of uncertified educators in community. And so we started looking at it. I had talked to our board of trustees and just said, you know, we're never gonna move the needle academically until we can recruit retain great teachers and have them stay. If we're turning over teachers every year, we're never going to be able to move the needle for kids.
Georgeanne Warnock:And so, we did a lot of research. We spent about two years serving the community and they would say, yeah, well, that would be okay, but we would need help with childcare. We have a lot of food insecurity in our community, so we would need to be able to address those needs. So we came back with the next survey. All right, if we've got a plan for childcare on Fridays, if we have a plan for, you know, meeting food needs, then what do we think?
Georgeanne Warnock:And so that was a, you know, pretty solid. I think we end up about 82%, 85% saying, Yes, let's try it. And so, we asked our board of trustees to pilot it. We had a 400% increase in our number of applicants. Our certified teaching staff, I mean, shot through the roof, some hard to fill jobs that we hadn't had applicants for.
Georgeanne Warnock:You know, we had multiple applicants. And then we've been able to really retain our staff, which has been just a blessing. And so, we're seeing dividends pay off academically because of that. We also have, you know, the teacher shortage is a national crisis. And so, being able as we're recruiting teachers, growing our own teachers, we've also been able to have time on the Fridays that our staff is here, more time for professional development.
Georgeanne Warnock:And so it's been a really great thing for us. We're in our third year. We've seen academic gains each year since we implemented that and the pilot ends this year that I feel like our board will continue it going forward. So it's been a really beautiful thing.
Antonayah Ellis:So kids are only attending school four days a week and teachers are coming on Fridays to prep, plan. So our
Georgeanne Warnock:in in Texas, students are required to attend seventy five thousand six hundred minutes of instruction. So we lengthen the school day Monday through Thursday, so by about forty five minutes so that we meet that seventy five thousand six hundred minutes of instruction. Teachers and staff come one Friday a month. That one Friday a month is ninety minutes of district led professional development, ninety minutes of campus led, you know, meetings or professional development, and then the rest of the time by 11:30 through the rest of the day that belongs to the teacher to work in their classroom, do what they need to do. The rest of the Fridays belong to the teacher.
Georgeanne Warnock:I mean, they're they're at home. But there's just something different about, like, watching the Today Show, having a cup of coffee, coming in at ten in a ball cap and, you know, no makeup and working for a few hours and then going home. And it's just or working from home, you know? So it lets teachers do that. Teachers like, I come up on Friday and I get so much done in three or four hours and then I'm able to have the rest of my weekend and be prepped for the next week.
Georgeanne Warnock:So it's flexible them.
Antonayah Ellis:I just, I feel like that is the ultimate reward. I taught second grade for a year. I taught fifth grade for four years, two different districts. It, it makes sense why you guys have, and hopefully it will be passed for long term, because teachers I'm sure feel valued, appreciated. Their time just seems to be more sacred And the time that they're putting in seems to be, you know, something that they're actually working for.
Antonayah Ellis:They're not just sitting and time is passing by while they're going through multiple PDs or they're rushing through PLCs. So I really just admire that. If I were in that area, I would wanna work for your district because that is just amazing. I feel like things can get done in four days. So I just love this whole ideology of the four day school week.
Antonayah Ellis:Think that's awesome.
Georgeanne Warnock:Thanks. And we you know, and we've been able to set up structures to support families that need it on Fridays. So, I mean, it's it's it's working for our community. It wouldn't work in every community, but it's working for us.
Matt Giovanniello:Georgeanne, as we're thinking about the huge successes of this four day school week pilot, which it's one thing to introduce flexibility as a reward and as a way to incentivize more applicants, teacher retention, teacher growth throughout the district, but it's amazing to also see the second order effects of student academic outcomes increasing as well. It's it it seems like it's bucking the trend and is kind of counterintuitive, but you're watching it play out to be the reality in your district, which is fascinating. You're also working within a district and leading a district that's quite diverse by most definitions. You have 5,000 students outside of a major urban city. You have about sixty five percent of students considered at risk for dropping out of the K-twelve school system.
Matt Giovanniello:About eighty percent are You economically have a pretty typical special education population, a higher than average multilingual learner population. These are really tough challenges to try and juggle, especially when you're doing systems changes at such drastic scale as you have been. So walk us through a little bit some of the considerations maybe that you and your board, your executive teams have been discussing over these past few years as you're making such giant structural changes and thinking about how to recruit educators and administrators to support all of these really diverse populations. What was going through your heads during these times?
Georgeanne Warnock:So the first thing was that we we struggled to have a guaranteed and viable curriculum in place when we started here. So really, the the first place the first thing is that we've gotta recruit and retain great leaders, you know, because I believe, you know, geography, leadership, and money. You gotta have two out of the three to have somebody stay. So I'll drive a little farther to work for a great leader where I'm making a decent living. You know, I'll make a little bit less if I'm working for an amazing principal and, you know, but if if I don't, the leadership is just so critical.
Georgeanne Warnock:So we've gotta really get great leaders on board and then we've got to work to have the best compensation that we possibly can in the strained financial situation with our public schools. And then we've got to have a guaranteed viable curriculum. We have to guarantee a great first teach for every child. And then what are we doing to support? We, like you said, we're over 30% of our students are emergent bilingual students that are by far primary language is Spanish.
Georgeanne Warnock:And, we didn't have a bilingual program in place when I started here as superintendent. And so, you know, we are growing that up. We started with pre K kindergarten, first, second, we're up to third grade now. So making sure that students have that. How can we use technology to the benefit of our language learners?
Georgeanne Warnock:So we're piloting some of the translation headsets right now, for students, putting Google Translate ability in place with iPads for kids that are not in a bilingual classroom, but that are new to our school system. So just thinking about what's every resource we can put in place. We're always looking to improve. We had a big focus on how do we have guaranteed and viable curriculum? What is our tier one model?
Georgeanne Warnock:What does that look like? And then what does our tier two look like? And so that's been our big focus this year is how are we setting a wildly important goal around every child growing? And then how are we, tracking that, being accountable to it as a leadership team? And so that's some of the big work that we've been doing around meeting like really diverse needs.
Georgeanne Warnock:We have a great team and I just love like everybody's focus is what's good for for the kids in our community. So it's it's awesome. Starting with our board. It it like a fun fact, all seven of our board members are graduates of Terrell ISD. And so they've all walked these halls and it is so powerful to have a board leadership that is a 100% about what's good for kids and what's good for the community.
Georgeanne Warnock:It really makes a difference.
Matt Giovanniello:That's awesome and so necessary. And it sounds like that's one of the ways that you are building a district culture that ensures that both staff, admins, your school board, and the community at large sees students in these subpopulations as assets rather than either deficits or like a financial drain because the reality is it tends to cost significantly more to staff and to educate students in these subpopulations, but it is such a necessity. It is not only morally right, it's important, and they are quite an asset to communities when they are educated and supported and grown in a bright way. What else have you done in that regard to making sure that these subpopulations are not only treated equally, but also uplifted in the wake of their really diverse needs?
Georgeanne Warnock:It starts with our mission. And I just have to say this when talking about our board. When you come in, let's take a look at our vision and mission and make sure, like, is this really, you know, you do your strategic planning, is setting goals to get behind the community. It was really important to them. And so I wanted to just read the just the first phrase of our mission is that the mission of Terrell ISD, a diverse community rooted in connection, is to provide an exceptional learning experience.
Georgeanne Warnock:And a board, you know, as we wordsmithed and talked about what was really important to them, they like we have to have that, you know, diversity is a strength and it's an important part of our community. And I think that we we do that by focusing on on all of our children as individuals, you know, and lifting them up and making sure we have, you know, at school, we call it win time. It's what I need, you know, what I need. And how do we use technology to personalize for kids. There's some really amazing tools that we've been able to bring in that equip teachers to be able, you know, you've got, that's a huge task when you have 22 children that all need something different sitting in front of you.
Georgeanne Warnock:So, we use technology to help with that through some different programs that we've brought in to meet the needs of those emergent bilingual students and for our students that differently, that learn differently, and what we can do to support them.
Antonayah Ellis:I can't help but to acknowledge what a warm approach you have for what most people would see as challenges or just hurdles and trying to bring people together or trying to get a mission under one accord. So we haven't interviewed a female superintendent. What is it like being a woman in power? What, and again, you're gentle, not even gentle, but your warmer approach. I can just feel it in your mission statement and just in your approach and doing different What is that like being?
Georgeanne Warnock:75 to 80% of the teaching force, the education force overall is female and, you know, about one in four of superintendents are. And so, you know, that's a growing number, but it doesn't reflect the the, you know, proportion of the the overall teaching force. I'm the first female superintendent in the hundred and forty plus years of the ISC. Maybe they were stepping out and take on a limb there, you know, taking a chance. I feel like I have a great deal of respect from from the male colleagues that I get to interact with and work with.
Georgeanne Warnock:We have a really great group of superintendents in our region that are all really connected, I'm not sure that gender really plays into it. I think it's incumbent upon us to be kind of leading the way, being a role model for other young women. And at the end of the day, male, female, it doesn't matter. What matters is the job that we're doing for the children that we're serving. And at the end of the day, that's what's really important.
Matt Giovanniello:That's really well said. And as Amel listening to this conversation, you need no favors. You don't need anybody to do a favor for you. A slightly different angle to a similar question. You come in, Doctor.
Matt Giovanniello:Warnock, and you're like, Okay, we got to brand everything. You can see it on your shirt. You can see it in your earrings. You can see it all throughout your background. And I know that there's a really big football game going on in your district this evening.
Matt Giovanniello:Yay. And it's kind of a big deal. You can't hide it too well. But what does that mean for you coming into a district saying, need to throw our tiger branding everywhere? And what significance does that have for school culture and how you're building up the positivity around the district?
Matt Giovanniello:How are you channeling that through branding?
Georgeanne Warnock:We sat with our board, is that where I talked a little bit about the mission vision, and we talked about tiger values that we wanted to establish what's important. We worked on this for like two years and we started with the personal values of our team members. So asking our leadership, like what are things that you value? And I really like kind of leaned into Simon Sinek's work about, you know, your values are verbs. I mean, it should be action statements that are your values.
Georgeanne Warnock:Right? That's how your culture is driven. And so we have our values are tigers. We're gonna treat people right, inspire tiger pride, get better every day. Every day we show up and perform.
Georgeanne Warnock:We reach toward our common goal as a team. We say what we mean, mean what we say, and do what we say. So that's Tigers. And and when we sat with the board, we had the T G E R S, but the I was something that was really important to the board, the Inspire Tiger Pride. And that how we do that, it is about branding.
Georgeanne Warnock:I mean, you see our district social media, when you see anything that's coming, it's very clear rebranded what it looks like. And it does make a difference that when everybody's kind of focused around the visual cues and then the brand about what we stand for is in our values, you know, that we believe in treating people right, getting better every day. That's what it's about. So I think it's critically important to rally the community around and to give people things to be excited about. I mean, there's so many good things.
Georgeanne Warnock:I really believe we say this like great things and minor miracles every day. If you've never been to a pre K on the first day of school and then gone back the next week to see the miracles that have happened, it's like kids learn to, you know, never left their mom's side and all of a sudden can walk in a line, go to the restroom and wash their hands independently, sit at a lunch table, like that's a miracle. Right? We're looking always for things that we can uplift and celebrate the big things like tonight. We've got a big football game.
Georgeanne Warnock:Should we win tonight? And like fingers crossed, we will we will be undefeated district champs, 10 and O for the first time in more than twenty years in our community. Ten years since we've been district champs, but more than twenty years since we've been undefeated. So, I mean, the whole community is rallied around that. But at the same time, we rallied around our band that were area finalists just a few places away from going to state, which was so exciting.
Georgeanne Warnock:Our UIL congressional debate team were sending one of our debaters to state. They just placed this week. So, like, it's lifting up all of those celebrations. Last night, we had a Discover Terrell event, and we are launching all kinds of different choice options for next year for families. We have had one school of choice in our district, a Global Leadership Academy.
Georgeanne Warnock:And so, next year we are launching at every elementary, we'll have a different school within a school choice options for families. So, we're really excited about it. We're launching a STEM Academy at one elementary school, an Arts and Sciences Academy at another. At our third elementary school, we'll be launching a college preparatory academy. We launched a college prep academy at our middle school this year, and then we're exploring P TECH options in a hybrid model for our high school students for next year.
Georgeanne Warnock:We've got a robust early college model. So we've got lots of our students that are graduating with twelve or more college hours, earning their associate's degrees. And so we're just looking to continue expanding all of those kinds of choices for parents. You know, the public school is really under attack from external forces in Texas. It's kind of been a tough road for public schools.
Georgeanne Warnock:And so I just keep talking to our team about we're going be Netflix or Blockbuster. So what is it that we want to be? Because I really want us to be the Netflix. And so what are the choices in a market that's changing that we can offer families? No one can compete with the opportunities that come in a public school.
Georgeanne Warnock:There is no place that you can go where you can become a certified welder, get your auto mechanic certification, get an associate's degree, learn to play the tuba. It's a remarkable opportunity buffet of choices that we offer, but how we communicate that, share that, and then keep adding choices that respond to what families today want is, I think, really important. So, we're excited about the things that are coming in our school district and our families were too, judging from our attendance and the excitement that we had at our big event last night when we kind of unveiled all of the programs.
Antonayah Ellis:I think that's beautiful. I went to high school in Texas and San Antonio, and the only thing that we were excited about was sports. Football, football, football, football, football.
Georgeanne Warnock:I mean, we should be just as excited about our kids that are showing their goats and their heifers and, you know, getting the major scholarship dollars from those opportunities and a growing program there, as we are about the great success that our Tigers are having on the football field.
Matt Giovanniello:That's absolutely right. I love that outlook. And it's another yet another way that you're supporting all of your students, especially with their unique needs, but also unique Things are so different now than they were ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty five years ago. And it's amazing to see all of the ways that you're very creatively and innovatively supporting these kids, especially in the wake of some of the attacks that you brought up, especially in a state like Texas. It's amazing to see that you're leading the charge and just not, you know, sitting on your hands and saying, know, woe is me.
Matt Giovanniello:That's not an option.
Georgeanne Warnock:Well, and as we're thinking about like preparing kids for a future that we don't know what it's going to look like, we have been very intentional. Like we've looked at job forecasting within 60 miles of our community for the next ten years, wage earning, because I mean, we want every child to have access to a good wage earning job, and then student interest. And we've kind of overlaid those pieces to decide, like, what are the things we need to bring here to move forward as options and opportunities for kids.
Matt Giovanniello:That's beautiful. So well put, and I think the focus is exactly right on gearing students up for the next generation of jobs and opportunities without even necessarily knowing what they are. We can expose to what we have now and then train on skills both soft and hard to prepare them for what's next because you and I don't have those answers. We certainly won't for at least a little while, but we need to prepare kids for the next generation nonetheless. So I'm really grateful for your outlook on that and the fact that you're instilling that belief in your admins as well.
Matt Giovanniello:Incredibly important. Doctor. Warnock, I wanted to wrap up today's recording with one last question for you. What does being an exceptional educator or being an exceptional leader mean to you?
Georgeanne Warnock:I think being an exceptional leader is in the viewpoint of the people that you serve. I think I would want people that I lead to say that we have a vision, that we are improving every day, that we have what we need to do, the work that we're doing, that we are valued and that we are cared for. And if the people that I have the privilege to work alongside said that about me, then I would say that that would be exceptional.
Matt Giovanniello:Doctor. Warnock, I imagine if Antonia and I marched ourselves over to Terrell, me on a flight, Antonia on a drive, that all of your admins and all of your teachers would say yes to those pieces. And for that, that makes And you the fact that you're doing it both ways also makes all of your teams exceptional too, and makes your students exceptional. So for all of the investments and for the leadership and your very innovative and unique mindset, Thank you for your service. I hope that this episode and everything that you put out on social media and beyond serves as an inspiration for others to do better and to learn exactly how to do better for our next generation of students.
Matt Giovanniello:Thank you.
Georgeanne Warnock:Oh, thank you. It's been a joy. Thanks for having me.
Antonayah Ellis:And go Tigers. Go Tigers. For
Matt Giovanniello:everybody listening to today's episode of the Exceptional Educators Podcast, thank you again for joining us. We will catch you at the next one.