I'm here today with Michael Essien, and he is the Executive Director of Community Schools and Partnerships at the Alameda County Office of Education. He brings more than three decades of experience as a teacher and administrator in the Greater Bay Area fighting to achieve equitable outcomes for students, parents and educators in public education. Michael is an educational leader who believes equity in the community school strategy are synonymous. He recognizes the unique time we're experiencing in California, and is hopeful for the future. Michael has a BA in African American Studies and an MA Ed from UC Berkeley's principal leadership institute.

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In this episode we're here with Dr. Michael Lubelfeld. He currently serves as a superintendent of schools in the North Shore School District 112 in Highland Park, Illinois, which is a northern suburb of Chicago. He is also on the adjunct faculty at National Louis University and Loyola University Chicago in the Department of Educational Leadership. Dr. Lubelfeld earned an IASA School of Advanced Leadership Fellowship and is also graduated from the AASA National Superintendent Certification Program. He was a 2017 Lake County Superintendent of the Year. He can also be found on Twitter, where we've met many many times @mikelubelfeld and is the Co-moderator of Soup Chat, which is a superintendent, educational chat on Twitter.

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Today's guest is Hayin Kimner. Hayin is a practitioner, a researcher and a policy advocate with a focus on the whole child, community school systems and partnerships that support the healthy development and youth in their communities. And she currently serves as the managing director for the California Community Schools Learning Exchange. Hayin has led the development of district and city wide community school partnership strategies in San Francisco Unified, and Emery Unified School Districts. While at the John W. Gardner Center at Stanford University, she co facilitated the evaluation of multiple community and school based project initiatives with an emphasis on collaborative theory base qualitative research methods that engage community partners in San Mateo, Santa Clara and San Francisco counties. She contributes to school improvement research as a Senior Policy and Research Fellow for the policy analysis for California Education and she is actively connected to community schools, initiatives and practitioners across the country.

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Ed comes from Qualcomm and brought his World of Work K -12 curriculum to California's Cajon Valley Union High School District, which starts this career exploration beginning at the kindergarten level.

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We have a very special guests with us today, Jerry Almendarez, who is currently the superintendent of Santa Ana Unified School District, which is one of the top 10 largest school districts in California. Superintendent Almendarez has been a classroom teacher an assistant principal, a principal, director and assistant superintendent of human resources, and previously along with that the superintendent of Colton Joint Unified School District before taking over the superintendency at Santa Ana Unified School District. He is an incredibly amazing leader. But even more importantly, he is an avid reader, and he's a learner, and for me personally he's a mentor and a friend.

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Glenn Robbins is the superintendent of Brigantine Public Schools. A few of Glenn's many accomplishments are, AASA National Governing Board member, AASA Aspiring Superintendent Mentor, New Jersey Visionary Superintendent Award winner, and the Northeast Innovative Superintendent award winner.

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Laura is the K12 Lab Director of Community and Implementation at the Stanford University D.School.

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David Cluberhouse, the host of the Learning Leader Lab, introduces the podcast and what you can expect to experience and learn during conversations with his guests from inside and outside of the San Bernardino County.

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