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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 Friendlytics edu, where innovation meets inclusion in education. I'm your co host, Matt Giovanello, the CEO and co founder of Friendlytics. At Friendlytics, we put special education and English language learners front and center. Our award winning Friendlytics edu platform helps streamline progress monitoring, improve communication and compliance, and offers truly personalized learning to your students of all abilities. Each episode of our podcast features candid conversations with district and school leaders, classroom change makers, ed tech founders, and industry executives, all dedicated to transforming learning for each student, especially our learners with unique abilities.
Matt Giovanniello:With a 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 Steve Iglesias, the Chief Officer of Innovation at Matterbrickle Academy, a tuition free public charter school in Miami, Florida, offering a complete college prep program and curriculum for its students. From robotics and AI to eSports and biomedical engineering, Steven is a trailblazer in educational innovation and technology, we can't wait to hear about all the ways they've incorporated that at Brickell and your district's past. Steve, welcome this morning. Thanks for joining us.
Steve Iglesias:Matt, what an intro, man. Thank you. I appreciate all the kind words.
Matt Giovanniello:All right. Let's kick things off. Our opening question that we ask all of our guests is, what is your why? You don't come originally from the world of education, but you've been here quite a while. So what brought you here?
Matt Giovanniello:What's keeping here? And what's getting you excited for the years to come?
Steve Iglesias:So that's a great question. You know, for me, I think coming from the perspective that I that I come from, for me, this becomes this has become personal. And I I started in education by accident in 2009. My best friend and I own the baseball academy, and he got the job at Dural Academy prep. And three days before school starts, he calls me and tells me, they're looking for a golf coach.
Steve Iglesias:Why don't you come coach golf and coach baseball with us? And I said, yeah. I'll do that. And, you know, three days before school started, they didn't have any teaching positions available. So they hired me as a security guard and a and a baseball coach.
Steve Iglesias:Like, three months into my role, was helping my boss at the time, which he's the principal now at the school. And he tells me, hey. You seem to have a little bit of common sense. Why don't you think about becoming an administrator? And I was like, you know what?
Steve Iglesias:I kinda like this. Let me let me jump in there. I got into the classroom the next year and and stayed in the classroom for a little bit, doing every odd loose classroom class that they needed. You know, then became an administrator, dean of discipline, head of security, head of operations. I ran the six facilities in a school with 4,200 kids.
Steve Iglesias:And then in 2017, I was just bored. I wanted to get the heck out of education. It felt like Groundhog Day. I was a senior every single every single year. And I was reading a book by Peter Diamandis called Bold, and it's talking about the future.
Steve Iglesias:It's talking about aerial taxing, biomedical engineering, how we're gonna live longer with longevity, AI, robotics. And I'm like, man, kids need to, like, learn about this stuff. This is pretty cool. And so, you know, I kinda just dove into this world and realized, man, what a real what a passion I had for it. And I was like, how was I held back from this?
Steve Iglesias:When I was in middle and high school, I was actually pushed away from technology because, you know, I didn't have the right math scores. And, and so for me, it's been about building these programs to expose these kid not only to expose these kids, but to help find kinda find myself in middle school and high school to expose and give the experiences of everything that's happening in the real world with technology.
Matt Giovanniello:It's a shame to hear how you didn't have such access and opportunities when you were a student, but you're not willing to settle for that status quo for this next generation of students. So it's 2025. You clearly weren't bored enough in 2017 to jump entirely, and we're all really grateful, especially all the students in the Miami area who are benefiting from you sticking to this and joining Matter of Brinkle because I think the opportunities that you're offering students there are unmatched. I'm really excited to get into that in a little bit, but first, let's unpack a little bit more your original coaching experience. I'm interested in knowing how those early roles you spoke about shaped and changed the way that you now lead and connect with your students present day in your current CIO role.
Steve Iglesias:Well, you know, for me, sports, I credit a lot to my days of not only playing, but coaching and leadership in in in coaching baseball. You know, the the byproducts that you get from learning to compete and playing a sport, the discipline, the teamwork, the leadership, the learning how to fail. As a matter of fact, one of the one of the things I think we're missing most in education today is teaching kids resilience. You know, we're moving to sun such uncertain times that we need to fail forward, and we need to make it okay and create environments, simulated environments, replicating the real world where kids can fail. Because the reality is we don't know what the future is gonna look like, but we know that to we have to innovate.
Steve Iglesias:We have to fail forward. And that means that we're gonna have to try some things that are not gonna work. And it's okay, and we just need to move forward and figure figure some of these things out. So for me, even to what I do today, I I I kinda lead in the same style and fashion with the same frameworks that I had when I was a coach, when I was coaching baseball. And it was just, you know, there to serve, there to, model, a way forward for the students.
Matt Giovanniello:I love that phrase, fell forward. It echoes a sentiment that one of our guests who is the, emeritus chief academic officer at a school district in the complete opposite end of the East Coast all the way upstate in New York shared with us on one of our podcast episodes from last season, Kelly Carpenter, where she said students need the exposure and the experience to fail more often. And she was making that in the context of especially her elementary and her middle school students. By the time we're talking about the high school students you work with, that exposure needs to be there. Otherwise, it's gonna be so unfamiliar that, in my opinion, least, they'll be petrified, and they won't take those risks, and they'll never know what the positive benefits could be.
Matt Giovanniello:So it's it's really cool that you're cultivating that experience. Let's get a little bit into what Matabrinkle looks like present day. I know you've been there about, five years. The school has been there about five years as well, and there are a lot of really cool opportunities that you're offering your students there. So first, go into more detail for us about what's available in the world of esports, in the world of in the world of biomedical engineering.
Matt Giovanniello:You've been hinting at those. What do those programs look like? And then we'll get into how does that help students in their in their twenty first century prep?
Steve Iglesias:Sure. So, Matterbreaker has been around for about forty years. I actually started here in August. I I was at Doral Academy prep for over sixteen years, and we built tons of tech programs in there from robotics and engineering to computer science, biomedical engineering, and cybersecurity and AI. You know, one of the one of the things that I see in education in k 12, particularly, is with a lot of these electives and project based programs, we kinda lead with competing.
Steve Iglesias:And so, for example, you take robotics, and the whole culmination of a robotics program is to get kids to compete and play games. You know, back in 2017 when I kinda dove into this world, if you ask anybody in the k 12 space, what technology is robotics? It's the only thing we know how to say. And so I went to my first robotics competition, and I came back, and I said, this is this is really cool, but what if we can actually teach kids how to use technology to solve a real world problem? And that kinda became the crux around everything that we started to do implementing these programs.
Steve Iglesias:And Doral Academy was a monster. 4200 kids on one campus. So we we had a a wide variety of programs. Matabrickle is a different little bit different of a situation. It's a thousand students with a tech and entrepreneurship focus.
Steve Iglesias:And so every kid, grade six through 12, their elective courses focus on entrepreneurship or tech. And so in sixth grade, they take a business course, in sixth grade, they take a robotics or coding course, and they continue down those pathways all the way through their senior year. So if we wanna start with the entrepreneurship program, that program actually culminates once you get to your sophomore junior year, you go for, you become part of the Food Lab, which is a student driven storefront within the cafeteria, then they completely run nuts to bolts everything from market research to what types of products students wanna purchase there in the cafeteria to vendor management and relationships to creating software where they're actually helping the business run more efficient. Last year, for the first year, they were they were actually very profitable. And so this year, one of the things that we're gonna add, they actually they actually are in the process of white labeling their own coffee brand.
Steve Iglesias:And they're gonna sell it to schools around the country. So the next step of that is our venture capital firm. We're gonna get students that have gone through that process to do the actual business operation side. And we're gonna start a venture capital firm and start looking for problems in the community using the profits from the food lab to now start investing in in different companies around the community. Ultimately, the ultimate goal of that, I think, is gonna be from our tech program where we start doing innovations and proof of concepts within the the robotics and computer science fields is to have students start backing now.
Steve Iglesias:The investment capital firm start backing some of these projects and see if we can bring them to life.
Matt Giovanniello:This is sick. It's unlike anything I've heard of at the k twelve level. In some universities, especially private ones, I was fortunate enough to go through an undergrad program where I minored in entrepreneurship. And even at my school back in the tie back in the day, there wasn't any sort of VC arm. There wasn't any sort of that real world experience that your students are accessing as early as middle school.
Matt Giovanniello:More recently, there are other universities, particularly in the Boston area and others that I know have these VC style arms to expose students while they're still in their studies to help them figure out whether that real world experience is right for them. But I love that you're doing that at such an early pivotal vulnerable stage that students know what career paths they might wanna be going into and what they might not. And while you don't have all the answers, the the landscape of 20 century occupations has changed drastically even over the past five years, let alone ten and twenty. And so it's really cool to see how your staff and how your programming is reflective of that. That gets me into a related question about your beliefs in future ready schools and how they compare to what most public k 12 schools have to offer right now.
Matt Giovanniello:Not as a slight to them per se, but the philosophy is already different. So let's let's get into that a little bit. How do you see kind of the traditional model of k 12 public education maybe falling a little bit short? Or maybe more positively, how could they be inspired to do more of the work that you're doing so students are better equipped for college, but more importantly, career after they graduate?
Steve Iglesias:Yeah. I think this is super important. You know, there's a stat by Dell that led a lot of the work that we did that said over 80% of the jobs these kids are gonna have in the next ten years, they don't even exist today. And to me, when I first saw that, I was like, that's scary. Like, we're we're we're living in a world where we don't know where we're headed.
Steve Iglesias:How do we start preparing these kids? There's there's two main problems. Number one is we're battling a system that's not promoting readiness for the future for them. Right? It just it takes too long.
Steve Iglesias:Going through it is it's not equipping them with the skills necessary. And and I think you're getting the private sector saying that. I think there's you know, companies are reaching out saying, we're waiting four years for these kids, and then they're not ready. We gotta retrain them by the time they get out. And then the second one, I think, is a purpose issue.
Steve Iglesias:I was listening to a podcast with Palmer Luckey and Peter Diamandis, and they were talking about how we always tell kids that they gotta follow their passions and follow their dreams. And Palmer turns to Peter, he's like, but what if I have really crappy passions?
Matt Giovanniello:Crappy passions, untenable passions, or passions that don't sustain, like, a lifetime of of financial success. Like, if if you're not gonna be able to support yourself and your family over the years, as much as your passion is amazing, it's it maybe not be necessarily a practical one.
Steve Iglesias:I think where we go wrong is it's like we try to teach kids how to play baseball from a book. Instead of let's get a bat, let's get a ball, and let's go out there and learn. And and that's kind of the the key to creating these experiences, getting them the equipment that's needed, creating the spaces that simulate that real world for them to to fail forward.
Matt Giovanniello:Exactly. I think it's the learning by doing piece and having that hands on exposure to students. For many of these soft but also hard skills, it's proving increasingly necessary to have that available to them in order to learn it the right way instead of from maybe a more traditional brick and mortar textbook, so to speak. Practically speaking, Steve, if a district or a school leader is listening to this and they're saying, okay. I get it.
Matt Giovanniello:I get it. You sold me on the need to maybe more future ready proof my school, especially at the middle and high school years, but they don't necessarily know where to start or they think they're facing headwinds or anticipate facing headwinds, what did you go through as you built these out across your charter networks that might be good inspiration on either where they can start or where they can continue to offer these programs and services? So,
Steve Iglesias:you know, I think if you look at my experience and and and I think it should bring hope. Right? Because I was a baseball coach. I didn't know anything about technology. I didn't know how to code.
Steve Iglesias:I didn't know anything about engineering. I I just dove in. And I and I simply looked at what was happening in the real world, and I just started bringing it down to their level. I started looking at what was happening with robotics. I started looking at what was happening in the biomedical engineering space, read some books, you know, went on, found the kind of like who are the key innovators and leaders in those spaces, and then simply started bringing that down to the middle and high school level, curating experiences that simulated those things.
Steve Iglesias:So for example, with our robotics program, we're about two, three years away, if not sooner, from mass adoption of humanoid robotics in our homes. And so one of the things that we're trying to do from a perspective of, well, you know, humanoid robotics is pretty cool. We're gonna have a few walking around the school here shortly to inspire kids to go into these fields, but also to learn the kind of the programming languages that we're gonna need to code them and to get them to think about how to use these technologies to solve problems around our community.
Matt Giovanniello:That's fascinating. It seems simple, but I think it's an important reminder that if we have a network of public education run by the experts who went through school, they have their teaching, they have their certifications, their master's, their doctorate. But this kind of outside perspective from those who may have not started their career in education, such as yourself, and are able to think just a little bit differently, I think that could be the key unlock here. I think that both are critically important to come together. I don't think we can have one without the other, but that goes both ways.
Matt Giovanniello:Meaning that this outside, you know, industry level experience, for lack of a better phrase, might be the critical component to say, hey. Here's how we could think about retrofitting or outfitting or rebuilding or building from scratch our middle school, but more importantly, school experiences for students reflective of the twenty first century, skills that they're gonna need in order to be successful in this this next wave of jobs that we don't even know what they're gonna be yet.
Steve Iglesias:Yeah. I mean, I think we just gotta shift a a mindset from us being thinking we're still the gatekeepers of information. Information is everywhere. You can learn how to code in Python on YouTube. You can learn how to fix your toilet on YouTube or across the Internet.
Steve Iglesias:Right? It's about what are the experiences that we're tailoring for these kids that they couldn't get anywhere else. Right? What are the the the spaces that we're providing that is replicating kind of like a TV production room that's looks like the same look and feel to if you go into a a a television studio. It's the same equipment.
Steve Iglesias:Is it the same are they the same resources? Those are the types of experiences that I think we need to start.
Matt Giovanniello:I agree. And you're reminding me of a point you made prior, Steve, where the real world experiences of running your shops on campus from students and then turning those profits into a way that you can invest in other types of community based ideas is really, really novel. You were telling me before we started the episode how you're using these new AI tools like Loveable, like like Replit, and others for students to not only get coding experience, but to actually build these tools in house that they use every single day to carry out their operations. So let's get into that a little bit more. Let students learn, one, the art of coding and the world of coding.
Matt Giovanniello:And two, how did you introduce these tools? They're relatively new. And how did you train them to build an app, for example, on Lovable that allows them to manage inventory in this example to run their operations successfully?
Steve Iglesias:That's a great question. A lot of times, I think we're fearful to bring in something new because we're not experts in it. But the reality is that all this is moving so fast that there aren't too many experts at these things. Right? And so, again, we want to train kids to think about how they can use technology to solve a real world problem.
Steve Iglesias:So with a lot of these no code friendly tools and I'm not I'm not advocating for like like, I don't believe what a lot of the CEOs are saying that we don't need programmers anymore that, you know, the the the coding skills or and developers are gonna be obsolete. I I disagree with that totally. I think we're gonna need more computer scientists, more developers than ever before. But just to get them thinking about the barrier to entry is very minimal now, I can use the program like Lovable, like Google AI Studio, and now I can build an app that solves this problem that we're having in the food lab with inventory. And so we're in the we're in the process of doing that now.
Steve Iglesias:Do I know how to do that? No. Do the kids know how to do it? No. But we're gonna figure it out.
Steve Iglesias:Information is everywhere. We just have to kind of get them thinking like that to go ahead and solve that problem. In a week from now, two weeks from now, are we gonna under kind of understand it? Not not fully, but we're gonna be better at it.
Matt Giovanniello:I think just being a little more fearless about adopting technology that you don't understand yourself is the key unlock here that I'm listening to because these students are hungry. They're hearing about it. They might even be using outside of school hours. And so to be able to bring it into the confines of your building for the benefit of the school, but more importantly, for the benefit of their own knowledge and growth is critical. And I just love hearing that example.
Matt Giovanniello:It's it's so cool to think that that's happening present day in schools here.
Steve Iglesias:Thank you, man. I I look. I I there's one more example that I think kind of this is what kinda showed me that that framework. We start at Doral Academy. We were one of the first ones to start a social media program.
Steve Iglesias:Everybody has the TV production to report the news. We wanted to start a social media. We we saw that that was the future. This was, like, ten years ago. Doral Academy got an Instagram, had a a a Facebook, had a Twitter.
Steve Iglesias:They ended up having their own podcast, student run. And so we purchased the equipment for them to do the podcast, and the principal comes into the room, and he's like, well, who's gonna show them how to use that? And I'm like, they're gonna figure it out. And within seven days, the students went online. They looked at all the stuff.
Steve Iglesias:They connected. They were the ones that connected all the equipment, the computer, the soundboard, the every found the platform that we were gonna use to record the episodes and and all that stuff, and we didn't know any of that stuff.
Matt Giovanniello:I have a related question for you, Steve. You're on a podcast about exceptional learners, whether that takes the form of students in special education, those who we consider to be multilingual learners, students in a more traditional academic or even behavioral scenario might be a little bit behind or or struggling for a myriad of reasons. I'd love for you to reflect a little bit on the work that you and your teams are doing to ensure that these innovation and technology initiatives, including the ones that we're speaking of here today, but also other ones that we're not going to have the opportunity to to spotlight, are also inclusive or serving those students who fit those definitions, who are MLLs, are in special education, or who might otherwise be struggling academically?
Steve Iglesias:Well, you know, I think at at the beginning, you're finding the the champions that want to push this forward, but you're doing it with a lens and a paradigm of how can how can we help the everyone. And so there's no I don't think there's, like, a perfect answer to this yet. I think we're still trying to figure this out, but we're doing it as as a community. One of the first things I started when we when we came here is an AI teacher task force. We're starting a a student teacher student AI task force where they're, you know, tasked with the responsibility of going out there, finding out information to see how we can help all learners.
Steve Iglesias:And they're bringing their perspective. The teachers are bringing their perspective. The leaders are bringing their perspective. And in a perfect world, I think what this looks like at the end of the year is we're having the students teach the teachers of how to use AI for them. And and and, you know, one thing I wanna point out is, you know, there is no one size fits all model for this.
Steve Iglesias:As we're figuring this out, as we're moving forward, we're gonna find out that, you know, this works better for this group. This works better for that group. And I think that's that's how we make it all inclusive.
Matt Giovanniello:True. You're reminding me of one of our very first episodes on this podcast ever where we invited Arden Phillips. He was a recent high school graduate. He has autism, as he says, severe ADHD, and dyslexia as his diagnosis, which made traditional school extremely challenging for him in his public high school and public schooling through k twelve in Georgia. And he was reflecting how thanks to these AI innovations and the fact that people are more accepting of them now, he uses even the simplest of tools like ChatGPT to his advantage because writing was really challenging.
Matt Giovanniello:Picking up on typos was an exhausting endeavor, and now he's able to shortcut that, you know, 90 something percent, get his point across more eloquently, and he and nobody's none the wiser that he is relying on these tools to help him accomplish his end goal and not get caught up in the kind of the how along the way. So I need a little bit of that because I suspect as you explore this a little bit more on the inclusivity side, that students who do have these challenges, whether they even present them or not, whether your staff are even aware of them or not, are going to use a lot of these tools to their advantage. And, you know, if there's a struggle in math, then these AI tools might help them uncover their strengths and build up those those areas of deficit along the way. Or if students similar to Arden have really a hard time with communication, these AI tools or their ability to channel their knowledge or what they want to be saying into building out an inventory software for the food court might be a a really great way to kind of spotlight that in a little more traditional academic setting.
Matt Giovanniello:So I think it's it's cool that these opportunities are there, and it will probably come to light even more so over the next couple of years is my guess.
Steve Iglesias:Sure. And and and again, like, we all learn in different ways. Another friend of of mine named Omar Delgado, he's at another prestigious private school here in South Florida, and he talks about his personal issues in learning in high school. He went to that private school, and now he's working there. And with the tools that we have available, how he's been able to unlock AI using tools like Notebook LM that can help that all the different types of learners.
Steve Iglesias:For him, he's very audio visual, so he supercharges learning using Notebook LM in all the different ways and avenues that that you can use that tool for that.
Matt Giovanniello:I think it's so cool how Notebook LM is being used in these ways for students and that Google has made that widely available to all districts that are signed up for their workplace for education suite. Because as far as I know, Steve, and challenge me if you've seen other tools that are are more comprehensive, but kind of the the the knowledge window that NotebookLM offers is far more expansive than, say, a ChatGPT. Like, if you're taking a full school year's worth of notes or if you're taking this, you know, book size length set of notes and you're prompting NotebookLM or you're turning it into an audio transcription or you're generating images based off of it, it's far more capable than the context window that something like a ChatGPT out of the box could offer. So it's really cool that, like, those use cases are are ringing true for students and that Google has released it through the software. It's just it seems so much more approachable also than what some alternatives maybe currently look like.
Steve Iglesias:Sure. Sure. I mean, look, I think we need to go from kind of the awareness stage of of what AI is. And I think we as educators, we've grouped AI as everything, and and it's not. AI has different components and different things that it's good for.
Steve Iglesias:And is good for this, and is great for this, and is better for this. And the more we interact with that and get hands on with it, the more we'll be able to see how that works best for for yourself.
Matt Giovanniello:Well, I'm glad you're bringing that up because I have a related question on that. Teachers and administrators even, as you have seen in your career and as you well know, are often fearful of adopting new technologies. What PD, what experiences, what exposure have you been doing at your current charter network and what you've done in times past or what you've seen done in times past to help these teachers and admins overcome that fear? What's the, like, moving past the awareness stage that you just talked about into intrigue and piloting and adoption? What have you done that has seemed to be successful?
Steve Iglesias:Sure. So, you know, when ChadGPT first came out that most states started to banning it to where we are today is we've met we've made tremendous strides forward. And I think one of the biggest mistakes we're making now in in educating teachers and leaders about these different models is we're we're sort of just teaching teachers how to use tools. And those tools are gonna change in the next six months to a year. And so we're gonna be in this vicious cycle, right, of just training teachers how to use these tools.
Steve Iglesias:And and I had a unique experience when I went to FETC this year. Always go to go to that conference, one of the top conferences, I think, on the East Coast. And, you know, I'm walking through vendor aisle, and I put on my administrator hat on. And I'm just walking, and I'm I'm like, man, like, 70% of the companies here now either have a new AI product or they're just an AI company. And I don't know a lot I don't know a lot about technology.
Steve Iglesias:Where do I even begin? And so I I feel like there's a pressure now for these leaders to just make a decision to just do it, and they feel this, like, a a back and forth of struggle. And there's a lot of focus on the teachers in the classroom, the students, but who's focusing on the leaders? And these are the folks making the decisions. And and so kind of like we adopted a growth mindset, how do we adopt an AI mindset?
Steve Iglesias:What are the key frameworks? What are the mindset shifts that need to happen to take us from that awareness to understanding?
Matt Giovanniello:I'm really glad you're bringing that up because I think the mindset shift and developing and cultivating that AI mind is is crucial. What are you seeing in terms of those two statements being at odds with one another? The the push from boards or the push from the community to bring AI into the classroom ASAP stat while still teaching and informing teachers and also leaders of the long term implications of not AI in and of itself, but the way that we're thinking about AI and saying, we're not just gonna take this tool to check off a box in the priority list short term of our community, but here's how we actually embed this into the way that we're instructing and leading our next generation of students long term. Like, how do those two priorities come together? We need something now because we don't have anything around AI, and how do we have a a wider range kind of cultural shift among our teaching staff to embrace AI in everything they do?
Steve Iglesias:I I I think this is the most pressing problem we have today in not only education, but with youth. I was at at a XPRIZE Visioneering event last week, and there was a stat that one of the speakers spoke about that really knocked me off my chair. And it was one in five high school students have already been reported to have an emotional relationship with an AI like large language model.
Matt Giovanniello:Wow. Wow.
Steve Iglesias:That that just completely shocked me.
Matt Giovanniello:Wow.
Steve Iglesias:And if as an educator or a leader, if you don't see that as an alarming, like, red flag, we need to dive into this. And we we can't do it alone. There's a lot of restrictions from data privacy to all sorts of different things. You know, teacher PD and development and human capital capacity. But we need to figure this out, and we need to figure this out quickly.
Steve Iglesias:We need to put the right people in the rooms. We need to get the experts in the rooms to help us with this because we can't do it by ourselves. We need all the help we can get. But if we wanna prepare these students for for the future, for an abundant future, I think as leaders, it is our, it is our responsibility, to move the needle forward and move it quickly.
Matt Giovanniello:That's a fascinating reflection. Steve, I'm really sad because we're at the end of our time for today, but two takeaways from that. First, I think we're seeing some states being more receptive than others, for better or for worse, about influencing policy around mandating, recommending, or otherwise giving license to local districts to decide which tools, what adoptions of AI frameworks to embed within their communities. I think for the states that are doing that, kudos. Think when I did my research last a couple of months ago, we were up to, I believe, 26 or 28 out of the 50 states, but that leaves nearly half our country with no guidance whatsoever at the district level on what their states are permitting or recommending that they do.
Matt Giovanniello:So I think we have a lot more work to do there. It's heading in the right direction, but there's still a giant gap there. For the states that do have it, now it's a little bit up to the districts, I think, based on what I'm reading of these policies because they're often falling short of a mandate or a requirement. Now it's saying, okay. Here are the confines of what we recommend you you operate within.
Matt Giovanniello:You know, here you go. And I think that within the next couple of years, this will be very telling as to how districts respond. Maybe there does need to be something, as you're suggesting, that's more prescriptive and more of a a hard hammer to make sure that we're not missing the mark and letting that boat take off without our students fully embracing the the next gen of technologies that we know they desperately need. That's a really interesting take. I'm glad to share that.
Matt Giovanniello:I have more final question for you as we wrap up today's episode. That question is, what does being an exceptional educator or being an exceptional leader mean to you?
Steve Iglesias:Wow. That's a great question. For for me, it's again, it goes back to my purpose. It goes back to exposing these kids to everything that's happening in the real world. I think there's a real need for it, and I think those of us that are doing it together, need to band together.
Steve Iglesias:You know, one of my biggest success stories is one of my baseball players. He became a doctor, anesthesiologist, and he as a player was one of the more back end bullpen guys that we had. But one of the things one of the most impacts I think I've made, on him, and I didn't even I didn't wasn't even aware till he till he told me. He told me, coach, there's only two things you can control, your attitude and your effort. And that's what you preached.
Steve Iglesias:And him saying that, kinda just the the level of impact that I had on somebody like that is what I do this for. And now with technology, now that I like, I feel like I have more of a purpose, I think it's, something I strive for.
Matt Giovanniello:That's awesome. I think that you've given a ton of examples in today's discussion, Steve, of being that glue, so to speak, to make a very similar analogy of banding together students, teachers, administrators, even policymakers to an extent, and saying like, hey, here's here's kind of the the greater effort that we need to be striving for and achieving, and here's a playbook of how we can actually do it. So instead of, you know, having this lofty goal maybe a little too aspirational or daunting or scary for students and teachers and admins to adopt. So I'm just so fortunate for you lending your voice to today's discussion, Steve. This was certainly thought provoking for me, I I really enjoyed hitting you with some of these hard hitting questions, and I'm just so fortunate you have some awesome things to share with us and all of our guests today.
Matt Giovanniello:So thank you.
Steve Iglesias:Matt, thank you. Thank you. Truly humbled to have me on and look forward to a great future.
Matt Giovanniello:For today's episode, Steve, thank you again for joining us, and for everybody listening to today's episode of the Exceptional Educators Podcast, thank you, and we will catch you at the next one.