Now y'all know, when we do questions from subscribers, we have a lot of fun with it because y'all always bring out so many different great points and perspectives, stuff that I wasn't thinking about, stuff that a lot of other people weren't thinking about and we just have a really good time. But for this episode of Questions From Self, I couldn't just keep the good time all to myself. I had to share it out. And bringing on the fellas from Lunch Break Hot Take was so nice that I had to do it twice. So they'll be joining me to help break some of these questions down, help answer some of these questions so you can hear their point of view and their perspective on how they feel about you guys' questions. Now, what questions from subscribers is, of course, is a series where you can ask any NFL question you want to and we answer it in a video like this. Now, for the Team Keep It Clean patrons, the patrons, if you wanna send a question, you wanna participate in this, you can send your question directly on Patreon. And for anybody that wants to become a Team Keep It Clean patron, you can go to patreon.com slash engraving fits. I love y'all. And if you don't wanna do that, which is fine, you already know. If you wanna participate in questions from subscribers, you can send an email to teamkeepitclean at gmail.com. Y'all, we have some fire questions as always. We have some thought provoking questions as always. So as always, let's do it. Yeah, this feels like a dream. You too, Team Keep It Clean. You see my boy, he like got him made it. Got him made it. Wood, white and gray. My first question came from Stephanie. She said, hello engraving. I hope you and your family are well. Yesterday was my birthday and I spent the day relaxing and this question occurred to me about the Ravens. You've mentioned several times that the organization has a bad reputation with wide receivers. I wonder if you could be a little bit more specific with that, but my real question is, why do you believe that Eric Acosta won't try again for a veteran wide receiver? Is it once burnt, twice shy? Or is it that he just doesn't believe any of those in the draft for this year they could have helped team? You may have covered this already and have sold my apologies, but what would it take for the Ravens to sign a veteran wide receiver and for them to change their bad reputation? The fact is Lamar Jackson wants to go all the way. The fans want it. I assume the organization wants it as well. So what does it feel like there is a disconnect in communication between the quarterback and the organization when it comes to this topic? It especially felt like that on the draft night with Hollywood. Anyway, sorry for the long letter. Blessings to you and the fam and to all the team, keep it clean. So how can Ravens change this whole idea of a wide receiver for them? The idea that wide receivers won't eat here. Wide receivers won't feast with the Ravens. Wide receivers won't get the numbers like that. How can the Ravens change that? Well, first I want to say that I think the problem is that we do go veteran too much. In fact, we go to veteran, right? I think what she means by veteran wide receivers is somebody that's still in their prime, one of the top tier wide receivers, but we tend to go with guys that are a little over the hill that won't cost a whole lot. And we keep on trying to get it done with our guys, but we also don't usually make a big investment in our guys either. EDC has gone wide receiver in the first round twice. That's something we haven't normally done in the past, but as you see, Hollywood just got shipped out. It wasn't enough. And we'll see what Rashad Bateman. What needs to happen is one, Rashad Bateman needs to turn to the player that we all think he'll turn into. And two, it just needs to be a change in the scheme, ultimately, we're known as a run heavy team. Hollywood leaving and saying that he wasn't a good scheme fit while still on his rookie contract does not help our image. And then we'll see if we can land another big time wide receiver in here. But if not, I don't see how that image gets fixed this year anyway. First off, say happy birthday to Stephanie. Yes, happy birthday, Stephanie. I want to, I'll keep it short. It's, John Harbaugh's got to go and you got to start paying people. There you go. You don't ever think that players are worth it. You don't want to pay them. They're not going to want to come. Next question came from my guy, Marco. He said, engraving my man, hope everything is great with you and the family. I think the answer to our middle linebacker position is already on our roster. Chuck Clark, he already wears the green dot, calls out defensive signals and has a high football IQ. Plus Hamilton and Marcus Williams will play the two safety positions so Chuck can make the transition. What do you think? Ravens like projects and converting players to different positions. Do you think they should do this? And will they do this? Peace. What do you think, B? I'm going to say no. You know, look, the part of the transition for players, they have to want to do it. Like Chuck Clark wants to go somewhere else and play safety. I don't think he wants to be in there banging around with them 300 pounders all over the game. And trying to come up and make those tackles. I think Chuck will, he'll peace out on that. Yeah, I think this is probably Chuck Clark's best year this past year. I thought he played really well. I think he wants to continue playing at that safety position. I'm not sure which position pays more. I would say probably safety. He wants, I'm pretty sure he wants to continue to try to thrive there. And the Ravens don't see him as a long-term answer, but it doesn't seem like it does. They've drafted Kyle Hamilton. I would expect him to be going elsewhere, not changing positions. Not even this year, I wouldn't change positions. Next question came from my guy, Gareth. He said, I ain't graven. I've been thinking that we are going back to three tight end sets again, like we did in 2019. It seems that way. And PSI have, I haven't texted you in a minute, just to say that you got me through a really hard couple of months. My grandmother passed away. You don't know how you impact people's lives. You're one of one, keep up the great work and tell Team Keep It Clean that we will get through the Hollywood trade. Love you, bro, and hope everything and everyone is okay. Hey, I appreciate that. And sorry to hear about your grandma, man. Yeah, condolences. Yeah, man, because that's always tough to lose somebody, man. Sorry about that, man. As far as the three tight end sets, yeah, I mean, that's what it's looking like. You have three tight ends on the roster, really two for sure. Well, I can't even say for sure. Mark Andrews for sure. You also have Nick Boyle. And then you got Josh Oliver, kind of, we'll see what happens with him. But then you draft two tight ends in color and likely. So yeah, you best believe them three tight end sets are on the way. So that's what it's looking like. Now, as far as, yeah, going back to 2019, I hope they have the success on offense, but the season doesn't end the same way that it did back in 2019. And that's because the quality or the lack of quality that they had at wide receiver.  And it was, I think it was the lack at wide receiving the lack of adjustments too. Because playoffs, that's when everything counts the most. And Ravens clearly did not get it done. But how y'all feel about possibly going back to the 2019 style? I mean, it seems like that's what they're trying to do. And even with that, no matter what you're trying to do, my issue is why aren't you trying to get the best players possible to fit in what you're trying to do? If you want to do a heavy three tight end set, why aren't you trying to get the best tight ends possible? Right? We talked about trading for Zach Ertz a year ago and that never fell through. I thought maybe we try and get them in all season and we didn't do that. But you're relying on, obviously, Mark Andrews is one of the best tight ends in the league. Some are the best. But Nick Boyle, I mean, he's not that guy, good blocker, like he's not somebody we rely on in the past game. And then we got two fourth round lookies that we're just factoring in. Some people are talking about converting him to a wide receiver. Got to do better than that if you're talking about running out with three tight end sets, like try to upgrade that position a little bit. Yeah, stop looking for answers outside. Don't go and try to look up a history fact in your math textbook, right? If you want a wide receiver, go get a wide receiver. Don't draft a tight end and say, well, maybe he could play there. Don't look at Miles Boykin and say, hey, maybe we can move from the tight end. No, go get a tight end. If you want a wide receiver, go get a wide receiver. I don't like, it doesn't give me much confidence when you see a team looking into the past to try to fix their current and future problems. I think that's a sign that you need to change in leadership. But, especially when they said, we needed to be exactly like 2019, get the one decent receiver up out of here. So I'm not real confident in that approach, but it seems like that's the way they're going. So we'll see. Next question came from my guy, Mark 2K6. He said, after watching the Hollywood Brown post trade on I Am Athlete interview, how confident are you in the Ravens coaching staff when it comes to the passing game? P.S. I love the Ravens, but I am not a fan of John Harbaugh or Great Roman. Hmm. That sounds like Martin needs to be subscribed. No, you guys, you guys. Yeah, no, so, I mean, I agree. I didn't see that particular interview. I mean, he used to say that up front there, but no, I'm not confident at all in the Ravens coaching staff. I don't think that they develop players well. I don't think they use players to the best of their ability. They obviously don't listen to players who have an issue with the way the team's being run, as you see with Hollywood saying, hey, you know, I don't want to be in this kind of scene. The scheme doesn't work for me. And they said too bad, basically, right? So no, I have about zero confidence in John Harbaugh and crew. I think that once Harbaugh won the Super Bowl, he just said, I'm going to do it my way. You can't tell me otherwise and it doesn't matter if it works or not. Yeah. And it's not about whether we believe in the system. It's about whether the players believe in the system. And to be his point, it doesn't seem like they're buying in, or at least we know some of them aren't. Hollywood didn't buy in. Des Bryant has spoke out about it. Oh, yeah. Will he sneeze too? Will he sneeze? Even David Cully spoke out about it after he left. Yeah. So even something, you have your own coaching staff that's saying, this ain't it.  And you just say, no, I'm going to go with my guys. All right. That's not a good look. Nobody who's been involved in the passing game believes in the passing game, except for Greg Roman. Right. Wow. And it was crazy about that with Hollywood, something that he spoke on in his interview. He said he was not only speaking for him. He said he spoke up for other guys too. But he said then when he spoke up for both him and other guys, then that's when the picture was painted that he was selfish or something like that. So that's when he said he decided that he wasn't going to speak up about it anymore. So that's very telling and very kind of scary to think about. I do want to say too, we've been very critical of Hollywood. He's had his issues with drops and kind of disappeared, especially the last half of last season. But it does take a good amount of courage to kind of step up and put yourself out there and say the things that he says. And I think it's important. I mean, it's not life or death or anything. But it's an important thing that he's stepping up and kind of being that leader for all the people on the team who had an issue. And I think that, you know, I think he's going to thrive in Arizona much more than he did in Baltimore. I wish him the best. Oh yeah, for sure. All right, last question came from our guide to Raven. He said, hope all is well on this post draft Sunday. We had a great draft and I'm happy with the group we got. However, watching into his question from subs has me wondering, is Lamar holding off on the contract because he still wants to be a quarterback. No disrespect intended, but Giro has so many design QB runs and Lamar just wants to throw the ball and only run when necessary. Is Giro and the Ravens holding Lamar back from being a great passer? I mean, if the Ravens don't free him up, someone else sure will. Lamar doesn't want to continue to be RG3 or Vic like he wants to be a proven passer. If that's true, does the brown trade put a bigger dent in the system, especially if we don't sign a big name receiver? I believe it does. I believe Lamar is thinking that this means the Ravens still don't trust his arm. So there's little trust and big trust. You can say they opened it up in 2021, but that was only because of injuries. If injuries don't happen, then neither does the Airtat. That's something that I've been thinking about a lot myself. He said, we want to build an indivisible offense, but where's our big body wide receiver for this? Andrews, likely Kala will likely be switched to wider. He's just talking about that. Will likely be switched to wide receiver or be used in wide receiver roles like Andrews, like they wanted to do with Max Williams, Hurst and Andrews. Lastly, we remember the price offered to Lamar was quote unquote, a generational price tag. I bet that doesn't seem too generational anymore with all the prices skyrocketing. Just had that on my mind. Anyways, have a wonderful evening. Ooh, that was loaded. Yes, G-Roll and company are holding Lamar back from being a big time passer and to beast credit, beast man for a while, he doesn't believe that they believe in Lamar as a passer. But I do think that Lamar is, he can see past the present and look long-term. Long-term, G-Roll just not gonna be there. John Harper probably won't be there either, if we're being honest. I think he does wanna stay in Baltimore and I think they will get a deal done. I think the move that he's doing right now is just to make sure he gets the most money he can possibly make. Just by him waiting, his price tag went from possibly 35 million to definitely at least 45 million, I'm thinking 50-55, if we're being honest, right? So just waiting and being patient is making him more money. I think that's a business move.  I mean, he runs the city. Lamar runs the city. People go to see Lamar Jackson. He puts butts in the seat. And I think it was the same thing with Flacco. People love Flacco after he won a Super Bowl. I'm not 100% sure that Ozzie wanted to bring him back because that wouldn't have been the first time that we let a quarterback go after winning a Super Bowl. Shout out to Trent Dilfer, right? And I think Ozzie was prepared to let Flacco go. And I think Steve Bishadi stepped in and said, no, pay the man. I don't care what he's asking for, pay him. I think the same thing's gonna happen with Lamar Jackson when it comes down to it. He says, I don't care what he's asking for, give him the money. And once that happens, then you're gonna start seeing a shake up, right? Then Lamar can say, not really feeling this system anymore. Okay, well, we're invested in you. We're not invested in Great Roman, or really hardball. So I think after the contract, his new contract is signed, then I think we'll see a change in philosophy and leadership. Okay. Yeah, I tend to agree. Like Ozzie said, I said, as soon as they retained Great Roman, that's a signal that they don't think that Lamar is a franchise quarterback in terms of passing the ball. Like they don't believe in him. They're not putting him in that kind of offense because they just don't think he can do it. But as we've said, multiple times we think that they do need a change in philosophy, a change in leadership there. And it's not just Lamar, but I think that Raven's fans have to kind of look at the organization and see, it's not all okay right now, right? It's a talented team. And yeah, they got a lot of talented players in the draft, but your number one receiver forced his way out because he's unhappy with the coach. Your quarterback won't talk to your front office right now. That's not an okay thing. They have to be in lockstep, right? You want the GM, the coach and the quarterback to all be on the same page and they're not anywhere near that right now. I think that Lamar, like Ozzie said, I think yeah, it's partially money. I think also it is kind of trying to hold them accountable. If they don't make the moves that he thinks that they should make, he doesn't need to sign a long-term deal. He can play on that fifth-year option, then he can play on the franchise tag, then he can play on the franchise tag again and Baltimore can just deal with it, deal with the cap implications of that. And once those three years go by, he'll hit free agency as probably the most coveted free agent in the history of football. And at that point, either Baltimore's done enough to convince him that, hey, we do believe in you as a passer, we'll bring you back, we're gonna try and win, or he'll go somewhere else. And it could be also that it doesn't even get that far. It could be, hey, he does the Hollywood and says, you know what, Harbaugh and Greg Roman aren't really meshing with me, and it's time for me to go. Ooh, that would be crazy. Yeah. I don't want to be clear, I don't think that that is going to happen.  He's not engaging with the cost on the contract right now, so it's not all okay. Right. Shout out to Graven.


I see what are somewhat generic statements in the PowerPoint without the meat of the report, I don't know really what to hang my hat on in terms of that. So a reflection to you about the presentation is it is difficult to not have the meat of that report. And so I look forward to that part of it. And this question is, I guess, floor to you as well as to, as a board, what are our next steps because we already have a, so just trying to get a sense as to when do we dig into that meat? When do we hear Brian's response? When do we have the opportunity to reflect? And then one other thing, and I'm not trying to be belligerent about this, but we were very clear in supporting our teachers around what instruction should look like during COVID what we really wanted the focus to be on. And so I did find just like, and I'm sorry, because of the lateness, someone in one of the comments had mentioned, the two comments about both the artifacts as well as the instruction, I just don't feel they have a place in this because teachers were following our instructions about making those connections and that social emotional support first. And for us to shine a light on that during the pandemic, to me, regardless of what should be there or not there, I just don't feel it was fair for them. So, so that's just my comments. Can we do public comments that were tabled earlier? Could you wait a minute? Kyle, I think there's a message in the chat. Yeah, and I sent you the right message with Jim too. Thank you. Barry, you were next. Yeah, thank you. So my question is around the planning, the response planning, and I'll certainly ask this of Brian and I'm sure we'll discuss it more, but while we have you, Jeffrey, I'm curious in your experience, which of these areas or recommendations that you have laid out would provide the most benefit for the least or most optimal? What's the optimal place to start? I take it you filtered out and said these are the high impact areas that we should focus on, but obviously some things take a lot of time, a lot of resources, a lot of effort and maybe there's more risk. I'm curious, what are the ones that we would wanna focus on if we thought they would provide a sort of optimal level of benefit for a more modest cost, if you will. Yeah, I'll give what is gonna sound like a smart Alec answer and it really isn't and that is to start at the beginning and what I mean by that is start with that item which is most likely to spur other work on. So I think I might have mentioned other policies, your policies are missing in many areas, particularly curriculum management and this is a curriculum management review. So I guess my strongest recommendation is the first thing that should be done should be a policy decision made about what you want to see curriculum management look like in the district. And like I said, I've provided a sample curriculum management policy that I've sent to other districts before. Some have adopted them, just has written some of modified them. Take a look at that because once that is adopted, that will give Jen and the other people in the central office clear direction on what's expected of them in writing a comprehensive cohesive curriculum program that will then trickle down for lack of a better word to the teachers. When I say trickle down, don't mean it's being forced upon them because we need their input and what's going to be taught in the classroom as well. So I would say start with the policy and curriculum management and everything that's related to that because you can't really do one without the other but we're building the airplane in the air here like they always say. So if you start with that and then from there help to clarify your expectations district-wide through your strategic plan and your district improvement plan because that will have a lot of influence on other decisions that were made that are being made in the future. It's three to five year process for all this to be developed but in the first year, I would go with those two areas. Strategic plan and a curriculum management policy that's gonna influence the curriculum management plan. Any other questions from board members? Laura, I have a question. Oh yes, sorry, Vera. Yeah, go ahead. Were the interventionists included in? Were they included? Well, we looked at all the curriculum. We did ask interventionists to submit a student artifact but we didn't look at intervention. The intervention program is a standalone program in this review now. Okay, thank you. Yeah, but the teachers were included in terms of the survey information and submitting student artifacts. Yes. Any other questions from board members? Yeah, Floor. Hey, Jeffrey, thank you. Thank you for your presentation. You were very clear in it. In terms of a response to the audit report, shouldn't we have staff input as well like teaching staff input? You know, the board has three major functions, three major duties. One is to write policy, adopt policy. One is to approve the budget and one is to hire the superintendent who's gonna provide administrative leadership for the school district. That's what you're asking him to do here is give his opinion, his professional opinion administratively to you to help you make some decisions about what to work on for a second, third and last. If you want to solicit staff input on that, I'm never opposed to that. On the other hand, you're hiring him to do a job and I would say ask him to do that job and respond back to you. And maybe as a corollary to that, get responses from another official district organization. I guess I would have to think about this a little bit but my first inclination is let the superintendent do his job and perhaps then, as I'm thinking about it out loud, have him provide his response and then get input from the staff about his response. Because until he gives a response, you really don't have anything yet. You have an outside independent report that carries no weight whatsoever. So there's really nothing for them to comment on other than if they want to critique something that's in the report itself. Thanks for your input. Any other questions? Thank you for the report. It's really important for us to understand this data. I gotta say that I'm embarrassed to say that I don't know enough about curriculum policies and it's definitely to me when you mentioned the five district strengths, I see, I know you have a lot of findings but I see a couple of opportunities for us to really work on the policies as a board and just really immerse ourselves in with the leadership team too. I think the policies have to be shared and understood by all in the district in order to be successful. One question that I have for you when you were talking about the culture and where to go first with the findings is I'm still a little confused. I was seeing this as a tool to help us with strategic planning, right? And this has a lot, the report has a hundred and something pages that you already said and the 14 pages of summary and Carrie asked you sort of where to start and you said from the beginning with the, in the strategic planning, a lot of time personally, I had never thought about the policies as part of the strategic planning. We were already talking about classroom instruction, professional development, multi-tier system of supports. How do we incorporate this and that's just for my lack of knowledge on how to incorporate this our first time doing instruction, curriculum management review. So how would we best take advantage of that towards the strategic planning, understanding that we are gonna get a lot of community members, that we're gonna make sure that we have not just the board when we're doing the strategic planning but that it is a community based strategic planning. Well, they're not mutually exclusive. I mean, you can do the strategic plan and as you're developing your goals and the mission for the strategic plan you would be asking yourselves how are we gonna implement this in the district and do we have a policy that the superintendent can interpret and promulgate throughout the district to make sure that this happens. So you can come up with the goal first in a strategic plan and then the policy can follow later on. So it can really happen simultaneously. It just depends on what your goal and your mission is. You mentioned like multi-tier system of support. See, if you identify a specific program like that to me, that wouldn't be in the strategic plan. The strategic plan would be that all students are given appropriate opportunities to be successful. One of the strategies would be multi-tier system of support. So that would be further down the road through the building improvement plan or the campus improvement plan. Or perhaps it could also be through your instructional guides when it talks about, we don't know all students can learn and what happens when they don't. Well, they go into the MTSS for alternate instruction of some type. So we have to decide what it is we wanna focus on strategically, the vision, the overarching vision and then do we have the policies in place to even do that work. I'm not sure if that helps or not. But I'm feeling your pain there because you have a short summer coming up and you have a lot of work that you would like to get done already. And then this comes along. Yeah. Thank you, Jeff. Steven, Luke? No, I'll pass. I'll save my comments for another time. Okay. So we'll move ahead. If there's other board comments or questions, we'll move ahead in 10 minutes for our very dedicated community members that have been waiting and our staff. Thank you so much, Jeff, for the presentation and thank you for joining us tonight. Do you want me to respond to any of the community questions? No, we're just gonna be listening to comments. Thank you, Jeff. Okay, thank you very much. I'll be listening, I'm gonna stop video but I'll keep listening. Thank you. So I don't see Ben. I had notes here of who was waiting longer. I don't see Ben, but I and Kyle, I don't see your hand up. So I'm gonna start with Holly who raised her hand. And oh, there's Ben. Sorry, let's start with Ben because he's been waiting. And then we'll move to Cara. Hey friends, thanks a lot just for being here. A few things. It was funny. As a taxpayer now, I'm kind of confused as to whether or not we just talked about was a curriculum review or a governance review. It's not clear to me whether you're getting guidance about governance and how a school board should run or whether or not this is about a curriculum review. So that became really confusing for me just from an observational standpoint. The next thing was is that when you hand out materials to a fourth grader, you always let them play with them before you ever try to teach them anything with them. So that's just like an instruct from an instructional standpoint.  Next, I wanna say that all teachers care about the data that was presented tonight. We all care about kids and their families. We share in your concern about the achievement gaps that were pointed out. It sounded like there were some takers here in the group. If people wanna discuss that further, I encourage you, Brian, the board and anybody else to reach out and talk to those people about those things. And then that was just about tonight. But what I wanted to say is that, and I'm gonna read something, so I apologize and I'll try to keep it brief. But teachers in our districts have taken no joy in our current state of affairs. No one likes to put themselves out there in public board meetings, just be candidly about the problems that they see, especially when they're taking the risk of people with power and influence, taking the social platforms, insinuating the teachers took the unprecedented step in my 20 years of experience teaching here in this district, of taking a vote of no confidence for the love of the drama. If that's what we were to call it, that it's created. I find it disappointing the people that I respect couldn't help themselves by further stoking the fire of discontent online instead of trying to find ways to engage in a meaningful dialogue here or anywhere in person. For years, the board has been asking for teachers to be more present and involved in board meetings to ensure that a line of communication between staff and the board, to ensure a line of communication between the staff and the board. And so therefore, I find it hard to understand how when almost 200 teachers, likely with a thousand years experience between them in our own public schools, serving in our communities have not been offered even the slightest bit of acknowledgement in the form of a response to our legitimate and real concerns. I've avoided the temptation of howless intrigue and behind the scenes scheming. And I'm also not able to engage in meaningful dialogue with you all here in these meetings because of the way governance works. So I ask you, where am I left to go? On Frontport's forum, it was also inferred that teachers taking the action they did was a statement about Act 46. Teachers and families have been at board meetings in tears at times, pleading for help. Met largely with a few shining exceptions with silence. So is this what we are to understand as governance in the age of Act 46? Is this what we are to settle for? Is this what serves our children and communities best? If that's what was meant, then yes, I believe our actions are at least in part about Act 46. Act 46 should be the floor of how we operate and communicate with one another as stakeholders in our district, not ceiling. As the governing body of our unified district, I hope there's something that you can do to help us all. I'm not afraid of uncomfortable conversations. I'm not scared of being wrong as my seven and eight year old students and five year old daughter can rightly attest. It's what we as teachers model for our students. It's what we model for our own children.  I am ready to learn with you and I am ready to grow. So in that spirit, I ask the board to think about ways in which lines of communication can be opened and not remain closed. I'm happy to meet with any of you to talk further about this. I want us to do better. I know we can be better and we must be better. Thank you. Thank you so much Ben for your comments. Kara and then Kathleen. Holly was on before me and I think Kathleen, can I defer to them? Yes, yes. Holly, go ahead. Thank you, Kara and thank you to the board and to Mr. Thunberg for being here tonight. I just really have a question having listened to this lengthy report and watching things unfold in the district. I heard Mr. Thunberg say and in my experience working with many educators in many different capacities over the years, stakeholder buy-in really is everything. It's the foundation of a massive initiative like this, like what's being proposed a three to five year process. Stakeholder buy-in is essential. There's no way to get around it. And I am wondering how right now in this district, how the board and the superintendent who seem lately to be prioritizing a low trust culture versus a high trust culture see an initiative like this succeeding with a vote of no confidence, with unrest with a feeling of people being disenfranchised. I'm hugely concerned. I don't believe that there is not room for improvement but I'm not sure that putting all our eggs in the basket of a leader who should be inspiring some confidence in the staff and educators who are in the district every single day in our schools, working with our students and our children every single day, differentiating every single day, doing everything they can to make sure all of these students can succeed. If there is no confidence there, there is no buy-in. If there is no buy-in, how is this going to be successful? And just quickly to go back to a comment that Mr. Okowski made about an educator saying, well, you know, the only way to solve poverty is poverty. That's not true. And I can point to an example I heard of in my own elementary school about an educator in that school so committed to making sure a student coming from a challenging household had the tools and the support that they needed. That educator every single day called the home of a student whose parent was really struggling to make sure this kid and this parent were out of bed and this kid was getting to school on time, ready to learn, making sure that they had the guidance and the support and the mentoring that they needed. And I feel like in this process right now, we are losing sight of the people and we're looking at the numbers and we're not looking at the whole story. We're not looking at the whole picture. And this picture is framed by all of our educators who are giving everything they have and more every single day. And yet they and community members are coming before this board of intelligent committed people who came onto the board because they believe in our education system. And yet we are being dismissed and our voices are being discounted. So just to wrap up, how can this process succeed when there is no confidence? Thank you very much for your time. Thank you, Holly. Kathleen. Hi, yes, thank you. I kind of honestly wish I gave my feedback before that report because I've got a lot more to say now. So I'll try to be brief. But first of all, for all the parents that are still on this call and all the taxpayers that are still on this call, I don't think anyone should start their comments as the previous public comment period went before the report and saying sorry that we're not informed because I really feel like there wasn't a lot of public discourse before tonight about these subjects. So I wish there was a lot more public discourse both by the board and by the public and by the media because this is all really just coming to a head really shortly. And I just feel kind of shortchanged on that. But as far as the report goes because I do want to talk about that, a couple of things, the point 3.1 finding, Mr. Jeff Thunberg said, well, we want you to know that we know that this is a pandemic here. I feel like right then and there that kind of expresses some of our concern as to why was this curriculum review taken in a pandemic year? Like he addressed that in his 3.1 finding. So to me, it kind of discredits the timing of the report. And then secondly, his 4.1 finding or the reports 4.1 finding is that the district is lacking in a district wide approach. I would say, of course the district is lacking in a district wide approach. This is our first year as a district. So I really feel like this report would have behooved everyone to have been done in the 21-22 school year because of the pandemic, but it also would have behooved everyone to have it been done in the 2021-22 year because it would have given these teachers and these board members an actual bat doing a district approach. Like I feel like all of you kind of had the rugs pulled out from under you because you haven't even had a chance to act like a district. So those are my two responses to the Jeff Tunberg's presentation. But as far as what I was going to say before his presentation was just really where I'm coming from as a parent and as a taxpayer. And again, I feel like we just paid for something that he admitted probably wasn't the best timing to do it. And then secondly, we also paid for this that every single person in the district received in the mail. And I will say, Mr. Bryan, oh, I'm sorry, I don't even know how to pronounce your last name but my son's picture is in this report. And I have a standing policy that my son's picture is not used for marketing purposes by my school. So clearly when you publish this, no one checked with that policy or that governance that exists at my school or within your district. So I'd like a personal apology for that. But I also think we need to talk about standardized testing here. There's a national debate going on about the effectiveness of standardized testing. And I would reference and recommend that you all listen to an on-point presentation by WBUR on April 15th. That did bring to light something that Madeleine did bring up and that talked a lot about poverty and disparity and socioeconomic justice. And I won't go into it and I won't share it here but you should all just listen to that on-point presentation about standardized testing in the national debate because it's not just a Washington Central debate or Ohio or an Iowa debate. But basically, I think a lot of this curriculum review, I just wanna say from my personal standpoint didn't address things that I care about as a taxpayer and as a parent. And that is, there's a huge disparity within our district of regarding poverty. There's a huge disparity about curriculum as far as what goes on. And I know you've said it wasn't the goal to pit school against school, but I think we need to look at our students as a whole person and I think we need to look at our schools as a whole school. And I don't think this curriculum review helps that either. I think it's very subjective. We talked about the planning criteria of high quality and he said there was points to that. There are six different points of criteria, but again, all that subjective. Mr. Tundra talked about the point of the second question of are these plans or are these governances any good? Again, any good that's super subjective as far as I'm concerned. And things that I do care about I really feel like we're very minor in the report. I care about outdoor learning. I care about nutrition. There's a huge obesity. I'm sorry. I'm actually wrapping up. This is my last point. There's a huge obesity epidemic going on right now. So nutrition wasn't covered in this report. That is very much of a concern of mine. Again, outdoor learning is a concern of mine and science. I was actually told by a teacher this year that they were focusing on math and literacy in the curriculum and they weren't focusing on science. And Jeff, you did mention that because science got the lowest grade out of all your assessments, a 3.9. And I actually was super, super alarmed when the teacher told me that. And I don't know if that was because of COVID or it was because of this curriculum top down approach but I was super alarmed because if you actually teach science, you can hit math and literacy in one swing. But I was told that people weren't teaching science this year. They were teaching math and literacy. So to me, that's super scary. Do you know what your last comment? I'm feeling like this is really running very long. Thank you for listening. That was my last comment. Appreciate it. But I always also say that this is a need. I think it's super long. We made this move to timed comments to make sure everyone has a chance to comment given the lateness of the hour. Yeah. We need to, we need to. I have been here for three hours. Thank you for my 10 minutes. Kyle and then Kara. Please, Kyle. Yeah. So the timing of this report could not be worse. The only thing I've seen that compares to it is when the legislature took a pension reform a couple months ago and talked about cutting the pension benefits for teachers and state employees during the time when we should be given every teacher and staff person a medal of honor. This report actually trumps the poor timing of that because it comes on the heels of it. And it's another punch to the gut for teachers and staff to be talking about issues like this at a time when we need to be supporting teachers and staff. When teachers and staff are coming to you and raising issues about over 90% no confidence in the superintendent. When we have, as I understand it, 48 teachers and staff leaving the district including our beloved principal who is remaining on this call as opposed to our superintendent who appears to have left. So the timing is terrible. I ask you to take the same response the legislature did when I looked at something at the wrong time and just table it all together and maybe look at it a couple of years from now when you can have a more honest discussion and people might be receptive to it. The other thing is the report from what I can tell these sunny slides is based on lots of bad information all you need to do is look at page 39 of the packet where it says that the district strength, the first listed one is a commitment to the district merger. Now the UVM survey when we're going through Act 46 had about 70% of this community opposed to merger. I haven't seen that change. I think of anything we're even more opposed when we see things like this we see us moving more and more towards a cookie cutter approach. I hear terms like sample curriculum policies, sample lessons, chain of command. And I hear about music, arts and teacher positions being cut. We need to be listening to our teachers. We need to be listening to our staff that people actually in the building taking care of our kids. I don't wanna hear more from Mr. Thunberg when he refers to the elementary school that's across the street from my house as a quote zone of attendance. It's not a zone of attendance. That's where my kids have gone where they continue to go. And it's where we have incredible people in the building who know how to take care of our kids. Thank you, Kyle. Cara. I'll be brief. I have a few of a few things that I disagree with. First, this is a deficit review. A deficit review means that you look for things that are wrong. You ask the question, what is not good enough? And this is what Mr. Thunberg said when he started. When you ask the question, what is not good enough? You will find what's not good enough. If you do an asset review and you look for strengths, or I really appreciate that you said, oh, I see some opportunities. An asset review looks for opportunities, looks for internal things that we can do. And in general, moves to thinking about how can we use the resources that we have, which is the way our district has always run in the five years that I've worked there and every other time that I've heard about in this district. So this would be a huge policy change if we are to move that. Second, when Mr. Thunberg said the worst thing we can do for children is to not prepare them to take a test, my nine-year-old who heard said, that's not right. The worst thing that you can do is to give them stuff they hate and to not help them if they are having trouble. I will also add that the worst thing that you can do to a child does not treat them as a person. It is not to not prepare them for a test. Further, I have worked in a district. I worked in a school system that uses curriculum by binder. It is by no means insurer success. It is by no means insurer's engagement. So that's just a thing to think about. Third, we need to remember act 77 is a thing. Act 77 says that kids have the right to individualize and personalize education. That is a state law. In terms of things that I agree with, certainly can we improve? Absolutely. I'm a teacher who wants to improve all the time and I actually welcome all of these as dialogue. I do not welcome top-down someone is hired for a lot of money to tell me because I'm not sure that that person is really gonna know how it works in our school. And then for my third to leave the question, I think I will just echo what Holly said very, very eloquently. Do we have the climate in this district to achieve such change? I don't think so. Thank you. Thank you, Kara. Emily Levin and then Drew. Hi, thanks for letting me speak after many hours. My name is Emily Levin. I'm a parent of two students at East Montelor Elementary School. This is the first school board meeting I've ever attended. And I first of all want to thank the teachers here for their Herculean efforts they've been making to support our children during a global pandemic. It's frankly a bit shocking to hear this type of review taking place when as a parent, I'm in a mindset of thank God for all the teachers. They are doing, you know, miracle work this year. I'm so, so incredibly grateful for their efforts. So it just feels very out of touch. Listening to the presentation, what comes across to me is that the language used is about policies and standards, testing processes, alignment methods. It seems like a district that had all its policies and documents in perfect order and had all of its students doing the exact same thing would do really well in the assessment, regardless of what is actually going on in the classroom. If you just kind of have everything documented, perfectly, you're gonna do great. And that doesn't square at all with what I value as a parent, you know, for my children. I value the way that our schools support the unique needs of each child and respond to the unique needs of each community. You know, like other parents have mentioned our amazing research projects that our teachers do with our students, winter wellness, eco, all the activities that engage our students and children in ways that support different learning styles. The last thing we need is more testing or teaching to the test. I do care very deeply about equity and I'm concerned about the disparities we see and wanting to improve them, but equity, I actually work on equity in the energy industry and equity work starts with a meaningful and equitable process where you're engaging directly with the people you're trying to support who in this case are students and teachers. And so our amazing teachers need to be absolutely at the center of any process to improve equity and improve the curriculum or improve the policies or whatever this is trying to accomplish. Thank you. Thank you, Drew. Hi, I'll be as quick as possible. I just wanna touch on something. There was talk about having buy-in into this and I think we have voiced many times we do not trust the superintendent. I know I for one do not trust the superintendent right now. I've not seen proof to know why I trust the superintendent. I don't see any compassion. I don't see anything. I don't see any collaboration. So the buy-in to this program right now, I don't think it's present. And I know I'm not the only one that feels that way. Thank you. And thank you for staying on so long. Thank you, Drew. Kathy and David Lawrence. Katie Chippo and a parent of students at Rumney in middle sex. I won't be redundant. I agree with so much of what everyone has said, but I just wanna say that in the process of reviewing our instructional practices and curriculum, we have exceptional teachers and professionals and they are the experts as the board has acknowledged. The board's not the experts at education. The educators are the ones who are in the field. They need to be brought into the center of this process and directly involved. Their voice and their expertise needs to be what celebrated. And what I see in this report is removing teachers from that and having outside people who don't have current experience in education. If they just have administrative experience, they don't have practical experience as teachers that's going to inform what will actually work and be effective. So I just strongly feel that anything that keeps teachers out of the process of reforming and revising and changing our curriculum is gonna be ineffective. So you have expert, highly qualified teachers and you should celebrate them and keep them empowered in your district. So please do that. And I appreciate all the teachers who work in our district and who are there. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, David. Hi, David Lawrence, Romney. I just want to say, I just noticed that Mary Lynn has cared enough about our school district to join the call from afar. And so I look forward to hearing what she has to say. And this actually, I mentioned it in part because it goes to the point that I wanted to bring up. And it's not really about the curriculum issue directly. I'm not much of a futurist despite the industry that I work in. I don't consider myself very good at predicting the future but everything that we feared about Act 46 seems to be coming true. And that includes one of the main concerns that I've had that this was going to actually reduce community participation in the oversight of our school district. And it is tremendous to see that so many people did come out for this although it was a tremendously energizing event that unfortunately caused it. But I also have to say that as one of the few people who is not on the board but makes a regular effort to be at almost every board meeting, this also took me by surprise. And I think that speaks directly to the lack of transparency in the process. It is a bit frustrating to me that policies and I understand why the policies kind of came about. The board members are exhausted. You have a heroic effort to do this job. Board meetings have been very long in the wake of the merger. And things have just not scaled well. But on the other hand, community participation has been tanked in part because of things like having to put time limits on the period of public participation and not only that but a time limit per speaker. And yes, sometimes speakers can go on longer than any of us really are interested in and maybe I'm already hitting that point myself but compared to the before times this was not something our boards had to do at least not the Romney board. And it's really distressing to me to see that people got online and had to wait an hour for executive session again. I understand you need your executive session but it's not the kind of thing that encouraged public participation and we were up to 131 people and that's 40 more people than we have now. So people, the public that wanted to participate left. And so I'm just really concerned also about how we are actually going to foster public participation and it does not seem like this Act 46 thing is the way it's working out for us and the very last comment I'll make is I also want to note that the whole principle selection process for Romney has been extremely disappointing given that in the past, I mean, we've just gone through two principles in just a few years and more we have very recent experience of how to involve the community in the decision and now this is all just like, wait, what's happening in case he's leaving and somebody's being hired and we don't even know who like for the community that is just really shocking that that's the way the process went down. And I will probably exceed in my time, so I'll wait a minute. Thank you. Welcome back, Irlyn. Thank you. I know that there's Robert's rules although it's been a while. I have to recall them. So I point to you. Yeah, I thought about it, but I would give you the closing statement and I know that you are not a resident but we are not in town meeting right now so I'm gonna allow it and just be brief, please. So just to clarify a couple of things, this curriculum review has been in conversation for a few years. I supported the curriculum review because of the reasons I left our state. There is an equity gap, the data is clear and I appreciate every comment that has happened tonight. I can say because I know and love so many of you, not many of you have lived it. So I appreciate what this review is bringing forward. I did not listen to all of the review because I wanted to remain unbiased and I have not looked at the review, obviously, because I don't have access to that. But this was well beyond the time that it needed to happen and if you look at the data, you will see that. It is time to move forward and engage in a curriculum review, professional development and a conversation of how we can move forward and close this equity gap. No one should have to leave the state because it's not happening, that's number one. So to clarify that, this wasn't happening at the worst possible time and honestly, this data wouldn't have meant any different. This year, five years ago, three years ago, I've lived it and I know it, that's number one. Number two, I thank everyone for the engagement. I really hope that you will open your minds and conversation to look at the data because this was not subjective, it was all objective. Number three, I'm sorry that I'm not there to post everything that's happening at every board meeting. I live three hours away from all of you. I have known for the past year, everything that has happened in this district, everything that has happened in the legislation and everything that has happened in the special education laws, because I have been there to testify for all of it. I have sent this board and the superintendent and curriculum director and principals multiple emails about what is happening with my children and how much they are thriving now because of the curriculum that they have been able to move forward to and been encouraged and flourished and how much they've had to been held back because of the lack of support that they had. So for all of you, I love so many of you, but I really, really think that you need to engage in conversations with people that aren't speaking right now because I'm the only voice three hours away that feels comfortable to do it. Thank you for your time. I love seeing all of you and I hope you have a great summer. Thank you for your comment. It's nice to see you too. We are gonna wrap this meeting. I know everybody is tired. It's been a long meeting. We really appreciate everybody's input. It has been a difficult meeting I know, but we have learned a lot and we have learned from each other too. We look forward to seeing you in our next meeting and we are still working really hard in creating opportunities to really engage with the community, which our meetings are not the best way to engage with the community. So we apologize for you not feeling like you're being engaged. We are still working on that and we will continue to do better. Hope everybody has a good night and we'll see you later. Could I have a motion to adjourn? Oh, Jonas wants to say something. Floor, did we agree that we are not going to address the S13 resolution? I completely forgot about it. Sorry, I was just so concentrated on the other. So if the board has the energy, is Scott in board? I'll move that the board approve the resolution and joining the resolution on S13. Could I have a second on that? Would Dorothy second? Yeah. If not, I will. I don't think Dorothy is with us. I don't see her hand. She's gone. She left. To left. I'm happy to. Okay. So Scott moves Chris seconds. Any discussion? This is the right thing to do. Yeah. Okay. So all those in favor of their solution as submitted and as you read it in your package. Please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. I'll make a motion to adjourn. Second. Thank you. Down there. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Hi. Good evening everybody sorry I was muted. Sorry. Yeah, have a good evening everybody. Hi to everybody. Great.


Greetings friends. This is Survival Dot. I'm very excited today because I just received a package from Federal Express. I just received my M1 Garand that I ordered from the Civilian Marksmanship Program or the CMP. Let's open it and take a look at it. As you can see, it came with this nice hard case for free. And there it is. Very nice. I'll have to say my first impression looking at the stock is very, very good. These stocks can be of in a lot worse shape. They can have cracks and gouges in them. They can have mismatched wood. And I think I'll probably clean up this stock.  I'm very happy. First impressions so far. Here is a tag from the Armorer. It says muzzle reading 2 plus, throat reading 4. So that is well within the guidelines of a field grade rifle. From the Civilian Marksmanship Program you can order different grades and I order the field grade which is approximately $500 which is a bargain in my opinion on this rifle. If you want to spend more, you can spend $1000 or more and get a rifle that's even in better condition. But I know people who've ordered field grades and I've shot their rifles. And people that I know who received field grade rifles have been very happy with it. And I'll have to say first impression I'm very happy so far. Okay, let's look at what came with the rifle. Here's some paperwork, the certificate of authenticity. Here's my receipt. You can see what I paid for at M1 Grand Field Grade. I paid $495 for it plus 29.95 shipping for a total of $517.95 which included a hard case and shipping. What a bargain. See it also comes with a few other things here or they threw in a nice little free target. Okay, there's a chamber flag. They threw in a in-block clip. And here's a little manual. Read this first. This manual put out by the Civilian Marksmanship Program. There's a lot of little information here about the M1 Grand. I'll have to definitely have to read that at some point. This is a World War II rifle. George S. Patton, General George Patton, called the M1 Grand the greatest battle implement ever devised. It was the first semi-automatic rifle to be generally issued to the infantry of any nation. It was the standard service rifle of the United States armed forces from 1936 until 1957 when it was replaced by the M14. However, the M1 Grand continued to be used in large numbers until 1963, until a lesser degree until 1966 when it was replaced by the M14. I'm very impressed with the cleanliness of this rifle. Some of these I've heard have a lot of gunk in them. This rifle looks like it was just cleaned and oiled. Very nice. Springfield Armory. This particular model was made in this particular rifle was made by Springfield Armory. M1 Grand was manufactured by several different manufacturers. When I ordered this I ordered the one from Springfield because I like Springfield. Here's the safety. In this position the safety is on where the rifle can't be fired. In this position the safety is off allowing the rifle to be fired. The M1 was used by U.S. forces in World War II, the Korean War, and to a limited extent in the Vietnam War. And most M1 rifles were issued to Army and Marine troops. Those many thousands were also lent to our allies. And as a matter of fact right now this is a rifle used in World War II and the Korean War mostly. And in the Korean War right now the South Korea has one million of these rifles that they want to return to the United States. And Obama will not let them come back into the country. And there's a fight going on in Washington right now between Obama who who is the most anti-gun president we've had in the history of our nation and members of Congress who want to bring these rifles back. This is a piece of American history. This is World War II rifle. And there are a lot of people who want these for collector's items. Although this is definitely a functioning rifle and people use these for deer hunting. It's a .36 caliber, which is a great deer hunting round. But if we can bring those million rifles back from South Korea then those will go into the civilian marksmanship program to be sold through this program. And a little bit about the civilian marksmanship program or CMP it was created in 1996 by Congress and the CMP had three mandates and one was to instruct citizens of the United States in marksmanship. Two is to promote practice and safety in the use of firearms and three is to conduct competitions in the use of firearms and to award trophies, prizes, batches and other insignia to competitors. So the CMP is a government run organization and they get these rifles of these surplus rifles from the government and they sell them to the citizens of the United States. And isn't it great to live in a country where your government will sell the citizens their surplus rifles only in America. Now here I have some ammunition. I ordered this also from the CMP. They also sell surplus ammunition and I actually ordered this with in a separate order and I actually received this before I received the rifle. This is another bargain. This is 200 rounds of 30 out of 6 for the M1 Garan and this was 200 dollars. I mean not 200 dollars. This was 200 rounds at 98 dollars plus shipping about 7 dollars in shipping. I've actually have been shooting some of this ammo. This ammo is in very, very good condition. There's no corrosion. This is Greek ball ammo and these are reloadable cartridges. Some of the surplus cartridges you get are not reloadable. This is the good stuff. This is non-corrosive reloadable. Here I have eight rounds loaded in an in-block. So the CMP is also a great place to get 30 out of 6 ammunition. Here's how you load an M1 Garan. I want to be careful not to get your thumb in here. That can result in getting your thumb pinched very painfully. They call that Garan thumb and a couple of ways to load it. You take a hand and press back on this lever here. Press it in with this thumb and then that way when you press this all the way down it will automatically close the bolt. If your thumb is in there it will pinch your thumb but if you have your hand on this right here when it closes it will push your thumb out of the way. This rifle is loaded and there's one in the chamber.  You just press this lever right here and it pops right out of there. I want to correct something that I said. I believe I got the safety backwards. This forward is in fire position and we bring the safety back like this. It is in safe position.  This should not be in the trigger guard.  As you can see the rifle is unloaded. There's nothing in the chamber. The chamber flag is so that when you're at the range to put your rifle in a safe position to go down and check the targets for instance. What you do is you want to pull the bolt back. You want to of course unload, pop out the clip, pull the bolt back, safety on, and flag in the chamber. Set your rifle down like that and then you can go down range. That is considered a safe rifle. Another thing about the civilian marksmanship program, in order the civilian marksmanship program will only sell to U.S. citizens. You do have to fill out some paperwork to order from them. You have to send them proof of your citizenship. One thing you have to send is your birth certificate. Here's their catalog and this is available online at thecmp.org and all this information is available online the different types of rifles and ammunition. They even sell brand new stocks, brand new barrels, plus like I said ammo. But another requirement to buy from the CMP is you have to have taking. You have to be a member of a marksmanship organization that they recognize and you also have to have taken a course that they recognize. And the one that I recommend, the one that I took and I recommend is Apple Seed. And I've done other videos on Apple Seed, Project Apple Seed. You can also check out their website. But when you go, when you attend an Apple Seed event, you can attend a weekend event, two day event for $70 and you can't, it's a non-profit organization and you cannot beat that deal anywhere. And their training is top notch. And I have been to about a half a dozen Apple Seeds. I've been to boot camp and as a matter of fact, I am an instructor in training for the Apple Seed project. And none of the instructors get paid anything that is completely volunteer organization, which is one reason the fee is so low. And if you attend an Apple Seed event and you're interested in buying from the CMP, you want to ask them to give you this little piece of paper here and this proves your completion of a marksmanship clinic, which will qualify you to buy from the CMP. And you also need to join an organization. The organization that sponsors Project Apple Seed is the Revolutionary War Veterans Association. And the RWVA membership only costs $20 a year and you can absolutely not beat that deal either. And another thing about the Revolutionary War Veterans Association $20 year membership is if you're a member of the RWVA, then you can repeat the Apple Seed project weekends. Your first one will cost you $70 for the whole weekend, two-day weekend, but then you can repeat that as much as necessary until you can qualify, shoot a rifleman's score and qualify for this nice rifleman patch right here. So you will not find better instruction anywhere and you will not find a better bargain. But these are the two things you'll need in addition to the other paperwork you have to send in like your birth certificate. If you want to order from the CMP, you want to get this right here, you want to get this right here, membership card in the organization completion of a marksmanship clinic. You make copies of these and you send that in with the other paperwork that when you go to the website, you get the forms, all the paperwork you have to fill out to send in. And you make copies of these and you send it in and then you can qualify to buy from the CMP. This rifle right here, I see these rifles in this condition right here, I see these at gun shows all the time. Typically this rifle, if you get a good deal on it, you're going to pay about $900 for it and you could easily pay $1,000 or more for this rifle. So getting this rifle from the CMP is definitely a bargain. And if you're interested in owning a piece of American history and at the same time owning a very good, very accurate functioning rifle, you can use this for deer hunting and it's just great for a marksmanship practice as well. Then I can't recommend the CMP or the M1 Grand anymore than that. Okay, I've had a chance to check my rifle out a little bit better and I've had a chance to shoot it even. And one thing I found out about my serial number, I looked up my serial number, there have charts online where you can look up your serial number and find the date of manufacture. And I found out that this receiver was manufactured in May of 1943. So this is a World War II rifle. This rifle was probably used or at least it was issued, probably issued during World War II. And these rifles were used and re-issued, reworked and re-issued over and over and this could have very well have been in the Korean War as well. And I've actually had a chance to shoot the rifle now and I'll have to say I'm very, very happy with the way it shoots. It's just perfectly functioning rifle. I have had a chance to, when I shot it, I zeroed my sights and it's very, very accurate. Now, as I mentioned, these rifles have been reworked and very often we'll have parts from different manufacturers. I ordered a Springfield, like Springfield, so I ordered a Springfield rifle and what that means is the receiver was a Springfield. And I found out actually my trigger group was manufactured by Harrington and Richardson Arms Company, which is also in Massachusetts. Springfield Armory is in Springfield, Massachusetts, but Harrington Richardson is also there in Warchester, Massachusetts. So my trigger group actually was manufactured by Harrison and Richardson. But I'm very, very happy with the way this rifle functions. And so I recommend, the M1 Grand, if you want a piece of American history, I recommend the Citizen's Marksmanship program. And of course, I certainly recommend the Apple Seed project, even if you don't want to buy from the CMP but say if you want to learn to, you want to learn Marksmanship, you want to learn how to shoot with the best technique, I definitely recommend the Apple Seed project. This is Survival Doc reminding you be prepared or be prepared to be pleased.


I'm here today with Gerard Powell, the founder of Rhythmia. Jerry, thank you so much for sitting down with me. Thank you for having me, Jordan. I love your work. Thank you. I love yours. I truly do. So I wanted to stand with you today and talk about spiritual business. One of the last times I was here, I had this whole transformation of my own professionality doing the work that I do and rising up in my own company to be a more professional leader. And so I've been taking a lot of time to learn about money and spirituality and spiritual business and I thought there's really no better person to talk about for spiritual business than you. So right off the bat, one of the biggest criticisms and complaints that I've received from people is money and spirituality don't go together, you know, and I've got that in spades from the spirit science audience.  And I wanted to ask you, like, how do you address that? What do you say to people who have that belief? I disagree completely, you know, of course. But we as a race have not evolved to the point yet where we will just contribute money to a particular thing, ad infinitum, without anything from it. It doesn't happen. If you see it in Christianity, they're out there pounding the pavement to get money. If you send us money, you'll get into heaven, send us money, you'll get into heaven. That's the worst way of running a spiritual business. And the truth of it is, there is no way to get out of the non-soul business. There's not. Whether you're selling a car, a house, baking a cookie, making somebody lunch, it's all soul-serving souls. That's all it is. So any time that someone says, well, I have to do this different because I'm in a spiritual business, now you're f***ing with the nature of the universe. It's not true, right? Because if everything is a spiritual business, then what comes into play? Spiritual principles and business principles shouldn't be different, shouldn't be. So if you really see a good businessman, he's a guy that completely understands spirituality. And those are businesses that flourish. Trying to shortchange people, being terrible to employees, that's not the thing. So as long as you're operating in integrity, then you're being a good spiritual businessman. I like that. That's true. Yeah, it reminded me of the hermetic principle that all is one, a part of the same cause of mind. So there's no separation between anything. How could you be different than it? You can't. And the problems in the world come from us believing we're separate. Absolutely. And that's split of the soul. I loved being polls on Instagram. And a month or two ago, I asked the audience, I was like, money is, and one was like energy and the other was root of all evil. And it was like pretty 50-50. But just the other day, as sort of a New Year celebration, I took a picture here and I shared it and it was spiritual business is needed or wrong. And it was like 88% was needed. And it was like the whole energy shifted, like people were getting it. So I wanted to get, I want to ask you, why is spiritual business so needed in this world today? Oh my God. And it was a really conscious moment. Well, if we take a look at it and say, okay, every carnal desire can be achieved in business. Right? You can go to prostitution, you can go to gambling, you can go to alcohol. You can walk into any city. You don't have to be in Las Vegas. You can walk into New York. You can walk into any city in the world and have all of these things done for you. But what is there for your spirit? What is there? Really, you've got to go so far out of your way. In other words, a lot of people are coming from Canada to go to Costa Rica, right? To have something to address their spirit. There should be, it's just what's right and I'm going to tell you what. The kids are waking up. When I say the kids, people your age and younger are out there. Actively, there's a thirst for the knowledge of spiritual knowledge and it's not everywhere. Like, you've really got to search to find these places to feed your soul. So when I got to Los Angeles and there was a gapé, I was like, thank God, like a place to feed my soul. You can get your carnal desires fixed all over Los Angeles. You can't get your soul. There's not enough of it. And I'm saying, not in the dogmatic organized way. That's everywhere. That's in every corner. I can go to a Roman Catholic church or I can find a synagogue or I can get the dog one. But I can't get the feeding of the soul. Look at, in 1935, when you were 11 years old in a field raking and your whole family was there and are in a mine chipping away coal, feeding your spiritual needs was not way high on the list. So as we evolve and progress as a race, and we are, even though everybody says we're not, the progression has been monumental. Tremendous. Yeah. And actually, we're flying into progress, and that progress creates time. And that time creates wonder, and that wonder creates the need to know. You made me think of too, it's like, you're voting with your money, with your investments. And so it's like, if you're spending all of your money on video games and alcohol and that kind of stuff, like that's what you're creating. Absolutely. And if you're investing in spiritual business or spiritual practices and services that feed your soul, that's what you create. So one of the, I know kind of continuing on this too with the spiritual business is like, in and amongst the comments, I was actually, I'm very grateful, so I'm gonna say thank you to everybody watching for the comments on Our Miracles Real, because most of them were like so good and loving and understanding and positive. There were a few people who were, you know, just had that immediate reaction of like, well, this is just a businessman who's, you know, using the shamanic ceremonies to make money and stuff like that. And this was amazing because I've both taken this to the medicine and I've talked with some other people here. And the message I keep getting from the universe is that this isn't even your business. This is the medicine's doing. Guaranteed. This is the plant medicine who was like, Jerry, I will use you to build this amazing place.  I'm not kidding you. Who knows how to run a business? Like, give me that guy, because I'm not a spiritual leader. I'm not a thought leader. I'm not.  That's it. That's what I am. So, so beautiful. I'm crystal clear about who I am. You've done it so well and I just want to say from my heart to yours and this whole space, like you can feel that like all of the resources that you've, that has been created through the place has been used to make the place more and more immaculate and, and like every person who works here, every shaman, every helper, every, everyone is like at such a high level of love and compassion and care. And every time I come just week after week, you show up, everyone shows up in complete service and it's so, so beautiful. So thank you for making this place. Oh, thanks for saying it. Thank you. Yeah. I'm wondering if you have any advice for people dealing with like, you know, I've had both in my life, you know, like when I started making money with spirit science and stuff like that. I got a lot of backlash. I've heard that from a few other people who were involved with or making money with spirituality and like their friends or other people in the spiritual community would get really angry with them. And just for like personal health, do you have any advice for dealing with negative people? Sure. Yeah. You just say, okay, then you do it for free. So easy. It shuts them right off. That's actually, that's actually, I'm doing it for, you do it for free then and show me how to do that. It's true. I mean, so simple. I can't, I can't imagine this place existing without the resources necessary listen to facilitate it. It costs almost $11 million a year to keep this place open. So that's amazing. So it is going to pony up a billion dollars to like to keep this open for a hundred years. Right. You show me who? Show me the guy who's going to say, well, wait, you know, like, let's see if Bill Gates will do it. He just checked this office list as the biggest no ever. Well, unless he actually came here, I agree. But yeah, and I'm with you. Let's hope. Let's pray. I think somebody would even do it for 10 years.  Yeah. It's very, you're talking few and far between at best. I don't think there's a person on the planet that would do. I tell you this, it cost me, I went upside down 10 million dollars to do this.  I know. No, totally.  And at the same time, like, after being here, I'm like, I would pay that every time. It is so worth it for this complete transformational experience. But it's one of those, like, you have to take a leap of faith. Yeah. Because, you know, you see all the comments and everything, but you don't really know and understand until you fully experience it. And then you're like, worth it. Like that was so valuable. So, you know, you're creating this sort of this vortex for people to facilitate it staying open. People come here, they invest in themselves, they experience these profound life-transforming experiences. And then this place can thrive as a result of it, right? Yes. And that's beautiful so that you can make it better and better and better. And that's what we try to do. I'd like to tell you, if there was some way to do this for less money, I'd be the first one to do it. But as soon as I try to compromise the service end, then the rest of it falls with it. And the thing is, it's really hard. How do you, you know, and these people, and I'll be honest, we pay two to three times as much as the normal wage in Costa Rica. That's beautiful. And I love doing it. I love doing it because, number one, these people are with us for life. And honestly, because, you know, the job's irreplaceable. And not only that, though, we get to source the most amazing people. Well, in order to do that, you have to charge money. Somebody has to pay the 135 families that are working here. Somebody has to pay them. They're not going to do it for free. And they're not, nobody's going to do this for free. Right. And you have people working here from all over, and like lots of people from Costa Rica, there's people from America, people from Brazil. Absolutely.  And it's like, no, there's people from all over, like most of the people work here from Costa Rica. 99% of the people are Costa Ricans. That's beautiful. Yeah. That's amazing. Yeah. Speaking to money, you know, a lot of my audience, especially the spiritual community, I think in general, has struggled with money.  Yes. And so what can people do right now to shift their vibration towards money? The first thing they have to do is understand that money is not bad.  And that's a Bible quote, right? But they think it. Yeah. And it's super hard to think that and acquire it at the same time. The hardest thing for people to do is to realize that that statement is factually incorrect. Money was the source of all progress. If it weren't for capitalism, which is a bad word right now, all of this progress that we've seen in the past few hundred years would not be, would not be. People wouldn't be living longer than ever before. Wages wouldn't be higher than they were ever before. All of this progress, medicine, take a look at everything, technology. That's all based out of out of this. What is money is energy. It's all money is its energy. It's a condensed point of energy, money is a condensed point of energy. If you can come to grips with that and then make a deal with the university, you're going to do the right things with your money. That's the other thing. So like if you're if you're getting money to pleasure yourself, then money is a bad thing. But if I have, if I'm accumulating assets or having assets so that I can number one, have a kinder, gentler retirement, that's a beautiful thing. But number two, if I'm if I'm doing it to to help people, then holy God, what a great source. So what I'm saying is that the gun can be used to save the village or the gun can be used for robbery. It's not the gun doesn't know. Yeah. So the thing is the intention. It's the intention behind the money. And if the intention is right, you're right. The spiritual community is my community. And I've never seen people struggle with money more in the spiritual community than any other sub community. They struggle with money because they think it's wrong to have. Right. It's that ingrained belief that came from just thousands of years ago. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of these things and stuff. So this is kind of part two of the similar same question. But then what would be what is the best way to make money in alignment with a spiritual practice or spirituality? So my thing with that is that if we can visualize what we're going to do with the money, you can get completely bypassed that it's bad. I'm going to get money so that I can start my church. I'm going to get money so that I can help people. I'm going to get money so I can give it away and feed the poor. Like there's so many simple ways. And the problem with it is it has to be the truth or you're not going to buy it. So what does that mean? That means that when you say, hey, I'm going to tithe or I'm going to, and I don't mean tithe in the conventional sense of giving the money to a dogmatic religion, that's not it. But to make a deal that I'm going to tithe this money, I'm going to give 20% of the money that I make away to these endeavors. Once you do that, then you're in flow. It's all OK. It doesn't matter what you're doing. It can be, I don't know, a taxidermist. I don't care. Whatever you have to do to make a living, as long as you're doing it in love, that you love doing it and that you have a free, agreed upon plan and deal with the universe. So what does that mean? That means you write out a letter. And it says that on this day, I, Jerry Powell, promise myself, my God, my universe, however you believe, that as I do this new endeavor, and as it makes $100,000 a year, I'm going to give 20,000 of it away. As it makes a million, I'm going to give 200,000. As it makes 10 million, and you make a deal and you sign it. That's a contract with the universe. It's a real contract. And now you're off the hook. Now you're in participation. Right, right. Super simple and easy. Beautiful. Yeah, it's real. So just giving. It's just about giving. It's all it is, dude. Yeah, that's all we're doing. OK, so my last question is, you know, we just entered 2020. And you made a beautiful post on Facebook, which I loved. And you were talking about the shift in transformation that you've been through in this place and everything. And at the end, you wrote that 2020 is the start of what will forever be known as the decade of the shift. I believe that. And can you just elaborate and talk more about that? So I really believe this to be true. And the medicine confirmed this with me. We haven't noticed it. But we've been in this shift. Progress has made the shift. Donald Trump is making the shift. Because he's shining a light on our differences. This is all culminating to this decade, when and this is the funniest thing. In the stock market, there is a saying, when your hairdresser starts talking to you about stocks, it's over. In other words, once everybody is invested in the stock market, it's time to get out of the stock market. My thing is this is that what the 20s are going to be is the realization by the masses that we are in the shift. See, most people are still so polarized. Most folks do not believe we're in the shift. Most folks, if you turn on Fox News or CNN or whatever, they believe that the sky is falling. People are killing each other more than they ever have. There's more fear, lack, and limitation. There's scarcity. There's distance. They're still in this thing. But this will be the decade of the truth. And the truth is, these are the least violent times of the last 5,000 years. People are living longer than ever before. Economies are expanding. Wages are increasing. Poverty is decreasing. Oh, wait, what does that mean? Right. That means that we're shifting. It's like the perspective itself also creates it. Correct.  You start being healthy. Absolutely. Yeah, because of the way that you're looking at it. So what does the medicine ask us to do, Jordan? It asks us to be in truth. Those things that I just said are absolutely the truth. They're not positive or they're not negative. I'm not inranding it. I'm just telling you, this is the truth. This realization can't be hidden for long. Politicians want to say this. It's f***ed. I can fix it. And they said, no. Then the Democrats say, no, it's f***ed because of you. We can fix it. And then there's a smoke screen occurs. And then everybody believes it's f***ed. And nobody can fix it. And the exact opposite is true, that things are working. And that message can't be hidden for, this is the, so when I say the shift, the 20s will be an awareness of everyone, that things are okay. Once that happens, it makes things better and better and better. So this is like, this is a beautiful time. And Donald Trump was a key instrument in this. Key, couldn't be done without him. He's a real help to the, to every side. He really is, people don't get it. I can see that. Just from the, if you're triggered, there's something for you to look at. If you like him, there's something for you to look at. It's facilitating change of awareness, dialogue and conversation. And all these groups that are offended that nobody even knew we're there. It's giving a platform to a bunch of people who are underserved in respect and understanding and all this stuff. They're all surfacing, yeah. So like we get to hear things that under other administrations, we wouldn't have been ever heard. And so it's interesting stuff. I've had, just as a sort of a final funny thought here is I've had people ask me like, well, a lot of people saying, don't ever get involved in politics because it's spirituality and those don't go again. That's a whole nother half an hour conversation, right? But then I have had people ask like, well, what is your stance on politics? And I'm like, it's really simple. Their left wing and the right wing are part of the same bird. And I believe that completely. That's it. That's the whole thing. Completely. Completely. You need both of them to fly. And you do, and there's somewhere in there there's truth to and neither of them are in it. But in the middle of that, there is truth. So like if you just see what the truth is and we've been so lucky on it because of capitalism because a lot of things that happened, yeah? Technology that came about as a result of capitalism, right? Has now made us aware of what the consequences of our own actions. So all of a sudden people are being repressed and people are going, no, no, no, because we know about it before you'd never know about it. And so with access to the truth, nobody wants to hurt anybody else. Right. So I mean, those are all the questions that I have. Fantastic. In closing, do you have any final thoughts of just anything that's come up? No, I just say that life's hard enough without feeling guilty about making a living. Like there's enough problems in life. Like you have to address family situations and health and all these problems. But then to throw on top of it, I'm making a living and then therefore I've guilt over that. There's enough, there's enough doing it's just something that people don't need. And I think we're going to evolve out of it. I do. I agree. I really do. Because it's ridiculous, yeah. Well, Jerry, thank you so much for sitting down and going over this. Fantastic. This was an amazing journey. Love to have you, Jordan. I love you. Amazing. You're my man. You're my man.


Get in the water, get completely wet. Are you ready? Five for one. Six, twenty-eight. Ten, eight, three. Is that safe again? Again. Let's start. One, two, three, four. Five, four, six, five, six. Count as a full repetition.  Make sense? Snake, you ready to count it? You're not allowed to do this. That's not it? You're not allowed to do this. All right. There you go. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. Nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 90, 20, 21, 15. Nine, 40, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23-, 24, 27, 28, 25, 26, 30. Minus five seconds, 241. That's the metal pan. Back 10 seconds for... He does have them.