OneRouge Community Check-In: Week 214

Creating Pathways to Success for Baton Rouge's Youth

How do we build a bridge for young people who may lack the higher education or connections needed to enter the exciting worlds of entrepreneurship, tech, and professional careers? This is a question that demands our attention and action.

Why It Matters

In Baton Rouge, many young people face significant barriers to success. Without higher education or professional connections, the road to entrepreneurship, tech, and professional careers can seem impossible. But together, we can change that.

Our Mission

We are committed to empowering our youth and creating opportunities for everyone. By coming together to brainstorm ideas, share resources, and collaborate on solutions, we can make a tangible difference in the lives of young people in our community.

---

Notes

Casey Phillips: So Tia I know that we were just going to set the table today for, I heard that you were at a meeting. I heard a couple of y'all were at a meeting last night that was nice and smooth and inspiring and really made you feel better about life. Did you want to give everybody a little quick update or anybody want to chime in on that? 

Tia Fields: Yeah same as last week's board meeting. One thing about me is not to get into all the theatrics that are the dysfunction of the board.  As a transplant from California, I've been living in Louisiana, Baton Rouge, particularly for about 12 years now. It always comes to my mind on what does the state do to retain the talent here? And as to why when there are major positions of leadership, that are open. They're always outsourcing instead of using the talent that's here based at home. So I think it really sets the precedent for today's conversation on how we develop and retain the youth here. I know there's great opportunities and I'm just glad to share this space with some of the most experienced people. My computer is doing this glitchy thing. We're like in pre shadow mercury, retrograde thing. Y'all know how I am about my moon and my stars. But yeah, it was just disheartening to watch and just trying to figure out from a advocacy, advocate standpoint, What is it that we can do as a community to make sure that the talent that we are developing here stays here. 

Casey: Yes, ma'am. Throughout the conversation, maybe we can lift some things up from the board meeting and anybody can bring their voice to the forefront. But I did want to welcome everybody to the space. Happy Friday. It is July and July used to represent a little bit of a breather for everyone in the working space. But I heard a friend tell me, they asked, How's your summer going so far? And Andrew and I are mutual friends with this individual. And they were like, June was aggressive. And it really was. And June was aggressive. And as I said, in July seems to be getting to the point where we can all plan for the rest of the fiscal year that's coming up. And it feels like it's in full motion. And with that being said, we got some really busy humans that have taken the time to share with us today. And I appreciate all of you being here. And Tia, thank you for putting the call together today. So I'm going to let Tia introduce our first speaker and thank all for being here on this beautiful rainy Friday in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Tia: Peace and blessings, One Rouge family. Welcome to our Friday call. We have a panel of amazing speakers. So my speakers, you guys have five minutes to introduce yourselves and just tell us who you are and what it is that you do. And I'm going to start off with you, Mr. Fitzgerald.  Go ahead and tell the people who you are. 

Andrew Fitzgerald: Sure. I'm Andrew Fitzgerald. I'm the SVP of Research for the Baton Rouge Area Chamber. And I'm on this call because I think since the start of COVID, the number one issue for business and industry, not just in Baton Rouge, but in the country overall, has been workforce and talent. And namely, there have been way more job openings than there are people actually looking to work. And as an organization, we've thought a lot about how to get the people that are looking for work matched up to these open jobs. And that's going to be a lot of kind of skilled training. That's going to be a lot of getting people, I guess upskilling is the word for that. So really, there's so much opportunity out there that, as a state and as a country, we're not really embracing by not having, the people that are looking for work, they're not matching up with the jobs that are out there. Brief introduction, I think that's on the brain of the table is a lot of the data behind that and the, the dollars that are available and the programs that are available in order to try to get people aligned with the jobs that are open. The only thing holding our economy back as a state is having the right butts in the right seats. And there's so much opportunity for having people that are just striving to do something and finding a high wage, high demand career. That opportunity is there, but like, how do we get people prepared for it? That's my answer to you.  

Tia: Awesome. Thank you. Next we have Dr. Jaleesa Thompson, one of my other favorite humans. Jaleesa, go ahead and tell the people who you are and what it is that you do. 

Jaleesa Thompson: Good morning, everyone and I am so excited to be here. I'm Dr Jaleesa Jones Thompson, and I am a consultant on my own consulting firm. I have been in the education space for over 10 years. Now, started off as a teacher, moved through school leadership, moved through district leadership and went on to be an entrepreneur. So I've had the privilege of working with school superintendents throughout the state, and I've also had the  with various leaders and business owners when it comes to leadership, development, coaching and strategic planning with their organizations. I've gotten into a little bit of crisis management lately which has been interesting. It's brought some new partners, but I am excited  Because it is it gives me a roller coaster, right? So sometimes we like to throw a little monkey wrench in there and it has definitely been more monkey wrenches than I expected, but I'm here. So that's a little bit about me. I'm the mom of two boys. I have a 13 year old and a newly seven year old. And they are absolutely wonderful. My husband is Dr Gregory Thompson and he works for EBR schools and athletics, and it has been a journey being with doing that with him or doing work and home. So it's been an absolute pleasure. So that's a little bit about me. I love being in spaces where I can speak my truth and speak truth to power. So I'm hoping that this conversation today is just as powerful as many conversations I've had lately. 

Tia: Listen, as many fires that are going around the city, as it pertains to education I applaud you for the work that you do and the commitment that you have.  Dr. Tramell Howard, you're on the call. I was looking for your personal, but I see that you guys got your PNC. Go ahead and introduce yourself. Not that you need any introduction, but go ahead and tell the people who you are and how you're connected to this work with youth development.  

Tramell Howard: Thank you so much. Yeah, we're actually at a conference in Jacksonville together. So that's why we're sharing the screen. No, no funny business. But Howard, I am a native. I have been in the community for a long time. Been in the education space for almost the last decade. I'm a former teacher. And I currently serve as a state director for a trust in Louisiana. And so really excited to be on this call to talk to you guys about just workforce and just really, I think, what is this conversation around? Like, how do we get our students to upward mobility specifically students in Baton Rouge who are for the most part background? How do we continuously expose them in the workforce to really get themselves to attract to upward mobility. I'm from Baton Rouge native born and raised. Really excited to figure out how we, as a collective coalition, create opportunities for the students of our city as we can see last night, there is a lot of crisis happening within our city and it's going to take a collective group of like minded people to really elevate the opportunity for opportunities for our students because we are currently dealing With the dysfunctional school system that is not being students at the center in the nucleus of these conversations. And so my goal here today is to put students at the center and nuclear this conversation to see how we get the goal of ability. So thank you guys so much for being you and having me.  

Tia: Thank you for spreading all that energy. We do have one more person. I do apologize that I didn't introduce her earlier, but we have missed it. Danielle with Invest in Louisiana who will also be sharing space. Danielle, if you're able to come off and you and off camera, if you would like, just go ahead and introduce yourself to the space. 

Danielle Barringer: Hi, good morning, everyone. I'm Danielle. I'm with Invest Louisiana. I'm the director of our Opportunity Youth Coalition. We're an alliance now. It's Louisiana's Opportunity Youth Alliance. Opportunity Youth is going to be anybody between the ages of 16 to 24 that's disconnected from work and or education. And we're in the process of building out a statewide coalition where we're not direct service providers, but our coalition members are direct service providers that provide  workforce development and wraparound services. 

Casey: Awesome. And thank you for being here. And honestly, in this moment, thank you for everything invest Louisiana does all  the way across the board. So appreciate y'all. And we also have from the E2C from the Education to Career Coalition, one of our working groups is around, is focused around continuous learning which, you know, That begins with, humans when they, finish high school all the way through their final careers. We never can stop learning and everyone needs pathways to opportunities throughout their journey through life. And I can think of no other better than to speak on that than Miss Girlie Anderson from Employee BR. Girlie, what's up? Good morning. I said, you want to introduce and bring yourself into this space?

Girlie Anderson: Good morning, everyone like, as Casey said, I am Girlie Anderson. I'm the program director for employ B. R. Ensure the effective implementation of we our programs. I collaborate with partners. I advocate for the programs impact on citizens and for funding at local and state levels for the, we are programs. This is. I'm excited to be here this morning and thank you guys for having me. This conversation is needed as we're wrapping up MYWE 2024 with our awesome young scholars that we've been wrangling in all summer. And just on the heels of that. I do see a lot of opportunities for exposure to tech. We have a lot of entrepreneurship building as it is an element, a key element for our programs, but tech is lacking. We only have we currently have 1. Yeah. Yeah.  One provider  for the programs when it comes to tech, and we don't have any mentors. So I'm happy to be here and make some connections today.

Casey: I can just talk on mute for a little bit. Thank you for Girlie. We'll come back on that tech front in a 2nd to talk that through and just want to make sure and give a shout to it's Been a minute. Lemoine and Adam Barry. I see y'all both up on camera today. Good to see both of y'all and Flitcher Bell. Where's your black shirt, man? What's up with the navy blue? So it's cool. It's good. It's good to share all that space today. So Tia, this is a pretty long continuum. Yeah, it's a pretty it's a pretty wide continuum. Where would you like to start? And then I'll, and then we'll continue taking it all the way to the end with the adult training as well. 

Tia: Okay. I want to start with some numbers and some data. So I'm going to look to Andrew to provide  that information as to where we stand and  with the data he has. I'm going to shoot the 1st portion of his presentation or his information. 

Andrew:  Sure. One thing that people are always interested in hearing is that we have way more jobs open than we do have people that are looking for jobs. We have about 18, 19,000, active job postings in the capital region. So East Baton Rouge parish, and then the eight parishes around it, the Ascensions, the Livingston yada. We have an 18, 19,000 open jobs. There's only 13 to 14,000 people that are actively looking for work. According to the state.  And that's interesting. It shows that there aren't enough people for all the open jobs, but also you realize the people that are looking for jobs, they might not have the skill sets that are required. Our open jobs are in things like healthcare and, as was just mentioned, technology. And, how many of those 14,000 people that are out of work looking for work have coding skills or are a certified nursing assistant or something like that. I think that we call it like skills mismatch  is like the number one thing we're really focusing on right now, because there are people that want jobs. They don't necessarily have the correct skills for the jobs that are open. So I think this conversation today is going to really highlight that where  it's not a bachelor's degree discussion. It is a certification discussion, whether it's certified nursing, registered nursing. Some kind of coding language, cyber security, something like that. I think really that's where this gets into a K through 12 discussion is that how are we preparing our students that are below 18 years old? For the workforce, and how are they going to graduate high school with certifications or some kind of skills that prepare them for these kind of high demand, high wage jobs that are available. By the numbers, I'd say there is a crisis going on and. We're not necessarily responding to it right now, and it's not necessarily a college, a traditional university sort of a response. It's a K through 12 and as Casey mentioned, a mid career sort of response. How do we get people up skilled for these? Really good jobs that are actually available in the region. 

Tia: Girlie, I'm interested. Thank you for that, Andrew. Girlie, I'm interested to know as he speaks on, how do we get our youth to those positions? I know that with Employee VR, you guys spend a lot of time in development, in developing youth and making sure that they are job ready and obtaining certain skills. Can you share a little bit about the programming that you all are over? 

Girlie: Yes, absolutely. Just recently this summer we worked with over 450 youth. And so we offered this summer. We did something different. We made sure each youth received an industry based certification with so they were exposed to digital literacy, customer service, NCC, our core and CC, confined space, things, different things of that nature. And then we also offered hands on industry based certifications as well mill writing, pipe fitting phlebotomy technician what else? What am I missing? CNA CPR and so this year, we also were privileged to work with We Grow People to expose our youth to Google certifications as well. And so I think this summer we took a better step towards that, and we were effective, but we still have some opportunities for our youth for next summer. Throughout the school year, it's easier to wrangle in the youth to get them exposed to different opportunities. But I will say that there still are opportunities. And next week, we're asking, we had over 1300 youth apply for my week, and we were only able to service up to 450. So next week we're going to invite the youth that were not  accepted and some of our 12th graders that have no career path in mind. And some of the youth that recently graduated. That doesn't have a career path in mind. We're inviting them out to introduce them to these different industries and these training providers that are available and make sure that they have funding and make sure that they have a path when August comes.  

Casey: Thank you, Girlie. And Tia, we're just going to just ebb and flow with each other at that school. Tramiel and Jaleesa if y'all don't mind coming off mute. We're talking about the data. We're talking about what's being the MyWe program, but then we start talking about this bridge, right? And a bridge that is clearly not stable. So if we blow up the bridge with your words, and then let's start talking about the better bridge to build. It said blow up the bridge. Why is it not working? Where's it falling short? And let's start talking about the discussion of building the new bridge. 

Tramell: Yeah, so thank you so much for that question, Casey. And I think that is absolutely the idea that we, as a collective should start thinking about not how do we fix cracks in the bridge that currently exists, but how do we implode the bridge that exists and create a new bridge  that is. Inclusive of all folks, exclusive of community and the people that we say that we want to reach with this particular opportunity. I think the problem is like in any entity or system. You can think about 3 things. You can think about knowledge. You can think about skill and you can think about mindset. For our community, we need to shift our mindset completely about how we approach issues like this. Baton Rouge has a mindset issue. We don't have a resource issue. We don't have a people issue. We have a mindset issue. We are stuck in our ways and we continuously want to address issues with the same methods that we continuously have addressed them with before. And that is the. Taylor book definition of insanity. And so I think about when building a new bridge, it has to be one that's co created by the users in users included of that bridge. And so when we shift our mindset as a collective community, I think we can get to a place to where we're getting the right information out and people feel welcome to take advantage of the opportunities that exist. For me, I think the building of a new bridge starts with the building and changing of mindset.  

Jaleesa: And I'm going to just chime in as an entrepreneur and a former district leader. When you think about the youth and I'm listening to what Andrew was saying, listening to his data, we, I agree with 100 percent we have to shift our mindset, but it's often  viewed that it's the. People that are  new coming in, or they're, they feel rejected, they feel like they don't have a voice, that type of thing. We have to work with those leaders. And I talked to someone about this from one of my friends, from brac, like even with the campaigns, that campaign that's recently launched, how are we bringing in those old leaders and training them to shift their mindset? We cannot think that it's going to, if I've been leading a company for. 20 years, 30 years, right? And I have employees. My mindset may be, Hey, I'm good. I don't care about the culture. I don't care about the climate. I don't care about how people feel, but because it's profitable, I've been doing it this way. I'm great. What are we doing as an ecosystem to pull in those leaders to say, Hey, this will work better. This is going to give you sustainability. This is going to create wealth. This is going to create longevity. This is going to create opportunity. So we have to be. Conscientious of bringing in those people to the table and not pushing them to the side right now. Once you have people that are saying, hey, I don't want to be a part of this movement. Then you get what you put in, but it's it's all about rethinking how we as leaders are going to pull in the next generation and have that longevity. Oh, so there's someone else  and create that longevity. So where we are building a bridge, but it's something new. It's something innovative. It's something never done before.

Tramell:  Yeah. And I think part of the last thing I'll say casey. And I think part of that the issue is, even as a collective ecosystem, education is like gonna be at the forefront of that changing ecosystem. And so we currently are seeing where our system of education is right now in EBR. And I will just say it. There is a lack of leadership across the board. There's a lack of community voice leadership. There's a lack of leadership on the board. There's a lack of leadership in general. And so how do we collectively shift our mindset to have leaders at the forefront to help us figure out what is the things that we want to be true for the collective community in Baton Rouge. And so education is like at the forefront of that. And we have to figure out how do we right size education within our community to get us to any of these goals that we want to see as a collective.  

Tia: You two have been instrumental to our education to career coalition and to your point that, like, how do we shift that mindset is a part of being a part of the systems that wants to see the change happen, but are willing to take the actual steps to make it happen. As I stated earlier, I'm not a native of Louisiana. I'm born and bred in Sacramento from Sacramento, California. And in my experience, I've learned that. Louisiana, particularly Baton Rouge, Louisiana has a very unique culture and a bunch of strengths. But how is it as a community and ecosystem? Can we leverage? Because yes, we should focus on a problem, but we should definitely amplify the things that we do well. So as As a culture, as a community, how can we amplify the uniqueness of Baton Rouge? And this is open to any of our panelists. And Danielle, you're not excluded from it as well. 

Andrew: I'll jump in. And one thing that touches on something Tia just talked about and Dr. Thompson mentioned as well,  is that what is the purpose of education? Like, when I grew up, I feel like it was like education, like the purpose of getting a four year degree is to have a four year degree. But, in some sense, education is the purpose of it to get the skills you need for a high demand, high wage job at some point. And I think that's one way in, in which like locally in the capital region, you know, East Baton Rouge and all the surrounding parishes. Are we doing that? Like we have a huge industrial market, what could we gain by making sure that kids, when they graduate, if they don't want to go to a four year college, they're able to, be a millwright that was mentioned earlier. If they're, they're able to be a welder or something like that. Or in healthcare. That's our other, we have a, we have an aging population like the rest of the country does. So whether you're a CNA or an LPN nurse or a registered nurse. And so I think one thing that, you mentioned EBR in particular.  They have a wonderful career and technical education campus. It's underutilized. Fewer than 200 students per year go to this CTE campus right across from BRCC and actually use these multi million dollar facilities. So I think that's one way in which we're not necessarily serving young people well enough is that we have all these facilities to help them gain career readiness. We're not necessarily whether it's a transportation issue, whether it's a high school guidance issue. We're not putting them in the position to succeed once they turn 18/19 years old. I'd be interested to hear that what the other panelists think about that as well. 

Casey: I was thinking the same I would like to dig in. Why are why if we got all the shiny objects, why is it not working? 

Jaleesa: So I am like I said, I worked for EBR schools and that I'm so glad you brought up CTEC, Andrew. It's actually disheartening. I was a instructional coach school leader at Broadmoor high school, and I would go to CTEC to try to, we would have middle school day, right? You would come to CTEC to try to show them all the things that CTEC has, and also the jumpstart pathways program. Programs that your school has and the number of kids that were just uninterested and anything and in there, they, just didn't care. Okay, you have automotive like you have this, world renowned program. It's the interest level that has to change some kind of way. We're sparking kids interest and being in wanting to do things that way. So you do have C tech and you have pathways to bright futures, right? It got a lot of criticism under Dr Narcisse. And but it is still a great program. It prepared kids, gave them pathways to go into different Professions you had the CNA program, which is at C tech, you had the automotive program, but then you also had partnerships with universities to be able to get them dual enrollment credits. So you had, you gave them so many opportunities, but it's the adults. That are the problem in the room, right? Because how are we leading children and showing them that this is a better way. When you talk about having the resources Tramell said it earlier, we have all the resources. We have all the things. It's the mindset shift where our kids. Okay. Your kid is saying he didn't, he doesn't want to go to college. You don't want to go to a 4 year university pathways is perfect because he actually gets to develop his skills. skills while he's in school. He actually may have an opportunity to like school more because he's doing something that he wants as opposed to going into classes and doing things that he doesn't necessarily want to do. So it is an opportunity. The biggest thing with our youth is their exposure to opportunity.  And we have to continue to expose them to that. You may not like it in seventh grade, but you may come in 10th grade and say, I want to do that. We can't stop exposing them to different things because it didn't work one time. We got to find different ways to get it done to say that eighth grade field trip. They were not. They weren't mature enough, but I'm gonna bring them back in 10th grade to the C tech center and see what they think. Now. We have to, as adults, we have to lead and we have to take on that responsibility for their education and exposing kids to opportunities. 

Girlie: Dr Thompson, I'm glad that you mentioned it like this year, this summer being on the inside and trying to expose the kids to different industry based certifications and just taking them around different campuses. The interest level is not there, but I also saw firsthand that it's from the leaders, but the adults that they have selected to take the kids around to show them around to. Kind of get, to gauge their interest or to get them excited about something they're not excited about it. And so we're constantly taking over as mentors with the kids that were there. We're trying to get them re engaged, pointing out different things, trying to get the instructors to feed off of our excitement and our energy level to keep them engaged. And so it's been a real problem this summer with our instructors. 

Danielle: I would like to add that. I think that some of it has to do with the engagement of the students, but also the funding. So what we were able to do this last legislative session was get S. R.  47 past Senator Duplass has carried it for us. And it's a task force for opportunity you. The task force is in the process of being created. The 1st meeting has to be done before September 24th, but on the task force, we have seats for opportunity, the alumni and current opportunity to be able to express. What their thoughts and desires are. I think a lot of the programs are being what our feedback from our participants is a lot of the programs are being led by adults that don't have enough youth input and therefore they're not really.  Interested in it, they're not inundated into the program into the systems. Part of the thing that we do well, that I do with loyal is advocate on the state and federal levels. When we go to D. C, and we meet with our federal members, we're talking to them about funding, expanding. We owe a. SNAP benefits CSBG grant money, things of that nature. We also were able to launch the bipartisan opportunity youth caucus where Troy Carter is one of the co chairs and we're in the process of trying to get more elected officials to, to sign on board to that because we have to let them know that the population we're talking about is not, it's not directed towards any Republican, Democrat or whatever. Everybody has. Participants that everybody has constituents that are in there, or the Children are in there or whatnot. So making sure that the issues are bipartisan or viewed as bipartisan so we can get backing from all sides. I just think that the problem is bigger than one solution. It has to be tackled a variety of ways. 

Tia: When you speak to population, can you just explain a little bit what exactly defines an opportunity youth? 

Danielle: Opportunity youth is going to be anybody between 16 to 24 that's disconnected from school in our education. And Andrew, you talked about why are they not participating? They might have transportation issues. That's essentially what the coalition is addressing. As invest, I'm not a direct service provider. My role is policy and advocacy work, but my coalition members are direct service providers and wraparound service providers. We look at, why were you not able to get to school and on your job was a transportation, in New Orleans, they were able to launch the, the ride program where it's in the pilot program right now, but essentially what it is everybody within that opportunity use age bracket. They're able to ride all of New Orleans public transportation for free to be able to get them to and from school and things like that. Is the childcare issue is it, just a variety of things or whatnot. We're looking at trying to figure out how we can tackle that. And because the age gap is so big between 16 and 24, and because it encompasses those that are disconnected from school and or work it the population is huge. We have more opportunities in the state of Louisiana, and then the population like Charles, it's a very big problem in everybody's backyard. So I think that if we, what the position we're trying to take is, if we tackle it this is an everybody issue we're trying to be able to get buy in from both sides. Therefore, we can have the resources we need the outreach that we need the buy in that we need, things like that. 

Tramell:  Oh, sorry. If I could just say that I'm sorry, Mr Williams. If I could just add to Daniel's point, I think that's 100 percent accurate. And I would like, I'd love to connect with you afterwards, Daniel, to talk more about this.  Hey, classmate. And the original, in addition to the opportunity you've that you spoke to, there's still like people or students who are inside of schools every day who could be identified as opportunity youth because while they are attending school every day, they're disconnected in a way that they're not getting any fruitful gains from being inside of these systems. And to the numbers that she speak to, that is even larger because we have students every day. Who are inside of schools who are considered disconnected from school, but attending school every single day. And the last thing I'll say is that the engagement issue is spot on. We talked about the program and I won't even get into my gripes about that. But we have to learn how we co create opportunities with use. We oftentimes have these conversations as adults. That impact youth without youth being at the table, helping us co create whatever these solutions are. And so we can have this conversation every day, all day about what we need, what do we need for the force development, but we have to create an intentional table that is actually 1 that is co creating for you so that they have a voice in what we're deciding as solutions to the problems that we have identified as adults. And so I just wanted to amplify and continue to elevate that, that we have to create and co create these solutions to these issues. With the youth being at the center and the nucleus of these tables.  

Tia: There is a thank you for the there is a question in the chat and more so a statement from Morgan. She said, have we considered how we socialize worth and value you around the essential jobs? Sorry, my screen is jumping.  Sorry, one moment. Have we considered how we socialize worth and value around these essential jobs or have or has our messaging largely been that these are way low wage or low value jobs? And is the messaging around excellence a limiting force? 

Andrew: I would jump in that real quick. So the average wage for a construction job in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, meaning like the nine parish regions, so EBR and every parish around it, the average wage is about 85,000 a year. Do you know what the average wage for a history major or an English major is? It's a lot lower than that. And so we really do Not emphasize like how skilled craft or it's similar with healthcare. It's similarly high wages with those kinds of jobs skilled craft construction and healthcare. They're extremely good jobs available, but I think I put this in the chat. We treat them like dirty jobs and it's weird how we do that because there's. We, I'm from Chicago. We  North South. There's some kind of affinity to 40 degree jobs are the important jobs. They're the good jobs. They're the jobs worth having. But like, when you look at like wage and quality of life, that's not necessarily the case. So I definitely agree that. As a community, as a country, as a world, we don't, highlight how important and how  meaningful these jobs are and how like meaningful they can be from a bank account standpoint as well. 

Jaleesa: I think that I love what you said that a shout out to Chicago. My dad's from Chicago. I love that. You lifted that up because we actually have a discussion all the time. We launched a campaign called forever a teacher campaign and it was the positives of being a teacher. I think that people. They don't, I don't think people realize how much their voice impacts jobs and impact the future for others. Because when you're constantly complaining, I'm just going to be very candid about your job and just saying this. It's awful. I hate getting up that early. I hate this shift. It's I have to do this. I have to do that. We have to be conscientious of how we decide. Discuss jobs, because our children are listening. They're always watching. They're always listening. The youth is paying attention to what we say. So when we're saying, yeah, we have these high wage, high demand jobs. If you're saying, oh you go over there and as a plumber, you clean and poop all day. You make those types of comments. Then the kids are like I don't want to clean poop all day. And they can make really good money being a plumber. But it's the way that we discuss these jobs and these opportunities that also make it very difficult for our community. So if you don't want to clean poop all day, although they play more money and you have a track, you have a craft that is always in demand, you'll go take a job as a cashier because I don't want this notion that I clean poop all day. So it's also the way that as adults, we discuss what we do. We just, we talk about our jobs. We come. It's how we, the perception that we put out there, social media is real. This generation is very influenced by what they hear and what they see. They don't necessarily want to get their hands dirty to see the job one on one as opposed to them just listening to what's being said. So we just have to be that's one of the things I want people to be conscious of because it's impacting our workforce.

LaMoyne Williams: I just want to chime in on what Dr Thompson is saying. I haven't worked in vocational education for about 15, 16 years. The conversation about what a vocational or going to get a trade is all about is the problem. I can't tell you the number of times I've talked to parents who do not want their kids going to the technical school or the community college to get a trade to get the job because that was seen as well as not being successful. And part of that problem is the fact that we live in a.  In the capital city where we have two major universities. And so often the goal is to want to push everybody to go to the L.S.U. or Go to southern, right? And so if you want to go to community college or go to get that technical trade within this lesson, some sort of way you failed yourself, right? And the other thing is that we need to bring Back vocational education into the high schools. You're right. C tech center that is there is a wonderful idea. But we're still late with that. And then once again, parents don't want their kids going into those particular roads. And so a lot of education needs to be done with the parents of these students so they can understand that these are great opportunities and career options for the individuals. As a matter of fact, you can go to training school and not come out in debt, and be on top. Yeah. As it relates to the opportunity youth Miss Danielle was speaking. I work with opportunity youth every day. And it's not that they're not interested. The problem with the opportunity youth is that they have a lot of issues that come along with that. And so transportation is one of the major barriers, particularly in Baton Rouge, right? And let's face it, cats is not the issue of transportation. Everybody wants to say they can get a free bus pass, but yet to get to school, it may take them four or five hours on cats to get here. So that's not the issue. And then the second thing with the opportunity youth is that all of these jobs exist, but if we train them, how are they going to get there? People forget that, I trained him for a job, but the job is in Gonzales, Louisiana. I live in North Baton Rouge and I don't have transportation. I barely had transportation to get to the training every day. Someone had to pick me up. So how are we going to, how are they going to, once they get the certification, how are they going to get to these jobs? And that's what I see commonly with the students that I deal with.

Danielle:  See, stuff like that is why we push for the task force to be able to the task force is a statewide situation. We have a few we have several agency heads that are going to be sitting on the task force and then some local nonprofit leaders and things of that nature. But the whole thing is to talk about these problems everywhere has a transportation issue.But a transportation issue in New Orleans is not the same as Baton Rouge. It's not the same Alexandria and or Lake Charles, et cetera, et cetera. It just goes on and on and just figure out how to address some of those things, which is why it's important to plug into other programming and funding because

Some nonprofit leaders or community leaders will have access to CSBG grant money. That money is as long as it benefits the area for that community, which the organization's in, they can utilize that money. They utilize that money for Lyft rides, Uber rides, expungements, things like that. But if they're just getting money solely from WIOA and or their SNAP benefits, they can't use that money in that same manner. So it's just like realizing what resources are out there and being able to tap into them. And also to speak to Jaleesa’'s point is like narrative shift. Yeah, we have to shift how we talked about the jobs that we do. And then I'm a licensed attorney. I don't utilize my license in a traditional manner. But everybody thinks they hear attorney. They like, you got boo coo money. I'm like, oh, no, that courtroom thing was not for me, boo. It was just, it just wasn't for me. I'm like. So we have to switch, shift the narrative about jobs and also about how we categorize the people we're talking about. When people hear opportunity, they automatically think like at risk, they think criminal justice reform, and it's not that. It's any reason as to why you are disconnected from work and school. That could be a criminal record, or that could be because you had a baby. It could be because, you are suffering from mental illnesses and stuff like that. It's a variety of reasons, but we always have a negative. Thought process or connotation when we think about these terms, opportunity, or the people that we're trying to reach, and to your point, we were part of the, we're planning a conference in October and some of the things we're thinking about talking about is. The idea that all of the home egg shop auto, you know, all these things that used to be in a school, they're no longer there. And some of those things were pipelines into career paths. And continue education tracks and stuff like that, and we no longer have them. How can we incorporate that back into the school system? And therefore, it can really have a positive effect on the job force throughout the state.

Casey: Can  I just for a 2nd, because, i, whenever people talk about English majors, I'd just to remind everybody, English writing major right here and I said, it's amazing the amount of the lack of critical thinking and people's how hard they struggle with words in order to communicate and to get things moving across, but I'm going to play, I'm going to play the Pepper role, right? Just for the sake of, challenging what we're talking about,  So there's one thing, there's two things I want to lift up. We have now, we're probably on our sixth generation of kids that say going to school sucks, going to school sucks.  It's how we're teaching is ridiculous, right? We're not meeting the role of the private sector is meet people where they are and meet people at the market where it is in order to be successful. And this is no disrespect to educators, principals, college professors, whatever, if it was working, then we wouldn't be having the conversation.  The and I said, and there's really innovative companies. There's a, there's one that we come across in Dallas called stimuli, which is building the entire school ecosystem in a video game, in video games, sports, video games, first person shooters, adventure games, and everything that you can get soft skills all the way across the board. Guess what? That's where kids are. That's actually where they want to learn, right? And it said in, you put that. The second thing that I would like to play, prove me wrong. Prove me wrong. We keep talking about vocation. LeMoyne, this is no disrespect to anybody else when we're talking about vocational schools,  but are the, are those jobs actually going to be there in 2050?  Are those jobs actually going to be there in 2075? Because those kids, they are going to be around that, right? If the whole place doesn't burn to the ground, you're looking at the degree of automation, right? That is happening in that sector, maybe arguably faster than any. Are those jobs going to continue to be there? With automation, because we're attracting all these companies and giving all these tax breaks, but their labor force is not going up, their profits are because they're keeping their costs down because they're going to more automation, but we're training people for jobs that, quite frankly, Could potentially not be there. So prove me wrong that I'm wrong,  Adam. Jump in. I know this is Adam. Jump in. Yeah, Adam. Jump in. 

Adam Beary:  I got a couple of things. Oh, I joined this call today because I'm very passionate about this topic. And also because  I love Dr Thompson dearly. So I wanted to hear what she had to say.  To answer your immediate question, you just said about vocational jobs still here. The answer is yes, they will look different, but they will still be here. A very basic example is, and this is not a vocational job, but it's an example of how vocational jobs will exist,  is that today we have a project manager who manages projects, right? AI will revolutionize that industry, but we will still need someone to command that technology for our processes and for our projects. Vocational will be the same way. Every new thing that we put together still needs a maintenance plan. It still needs someone to work on it. It still needs someone to design it. It still needs somewhere there in some instances to assist. There's skilled work you could tell me in 70 years, Adam will robots will be fixing robots. Maybe that's the case. Okay, but I do think for the time being, I get your point, Casey, and I think it will look completely different, but we as educators and business people and folks who are saying these are the jobs of the future have to.  Part of this educational process is educate students how this job will still exist, how it will look different, how do we train them differently for that job, right? That's a short answer to your question. I did have, and that's obviously just my opinion I did have a question for Ms. Girlie if she's still on the call. She mentioned kids MyWe program. Did anybody get that number down or I say turned away didn't have a job, but had applied for the program. Do we remember how much that was? On what she said, it sounded like it was a couple hundred kids.

Casey:  Oh, more than that.

Adam: I think what this highlights is we are all not working together to create a system for the kids of our community. Okay, I have interviews with four different programs in the past two weeks. Of kids I want to support. That's absolutely ridiculous. Okay, because then I have to choose which program I want to support. And all programs have, Ms. Danielle, if I butcher this term, let me know, opportunity youth in them, that is valid. Okay, all of them do. So we have to work together as adults. And I'm saying this because all of you on the call are the people who put these programs together. We have to come together, put our egos aside, and put a singular program that benefits all. I believe, like all the other business owners in my sphere believe, our workforce is here. We don't have to hire anyone from outside of our state, outside of our city. The youth in our workforce today are talented enough to do so, we're not channeling them together. And the point that Dr. Thompson made is they see that we're not doing that.  So they're not working together either. We have a program here in this space that is getting funding from corporate partners. We have a program that's getting funding from the mayor. Both of them don't have enough money. Man, if we would consolidate our efforts there, I think we'd have enough money to support all of our kids. Those places are also getting jobs from two different sectors, okay? We would have jobs all consolidated in one place. The last thing I'll say on the job process is something I'm very passionate about. Processes are created too much in a way to benefit me as the worker. I do not sign up for a high school process. Because a high school worker is going to come in and give me a huge ROI. I do it because I believe in the betterment of our community. So if your program today gives me a way to screen children, remove it, okay? It devalues them as people who want to get new jobs, okay? If your program today creates barriers for me to offer transportation, for me to offer a lunch to the intern who is here, remove it.  That is not the normal workforce that we have. I understand there's liability concerns. I understand there's legal concerns. We need to do the extra legwork to make that happen, okay? Because I, in one program, I could not provide lunch for an intern who worked on our team. They did not feel like a member of our team when everybody else got lunch, because I couldn't provide it for them, okay? I could not take them to the plant. Because I could not have a form to sign to allow transportation to be able to take them and experience the job, which was the whole point of them being in our workforce in the same place. Okay, this is, please do not take me as just yelling at people who are creating a program. This is me saying, From the business sector. I have been pitching people in our community, myself included, my own staff to say, what we can do in this space from the business community is we have to be invested and we have to be involved and we're going to continue to do so no matter what programs out. What I would ask for the people that create it is let's not make this so difficult. Let's not put our egos in front of the children and let's create something that benefits everybody with an equitable system. Okay. We want. Opportunity youth. I had a youth in a program sent to me in my program this year who was not an opportunity. Now, I treated him just nice. He applied for the program like everybody else, but I could tell in the program, and I mentioned this to someone who is running a program, that this was not the target of the internship, right? Now, I know equitable means different things to different people but the problems that you guys have put forward today Is true. We have this workforce and we have this community that's not being serviced. So our programs  can be inclusive, but also make sure we're not missing the point. That is the point. You guys have brought it up. That's the people we want to service with our programs for our schools and our business. So hopefully that didn't sound too soapboxy. Jaleesa's laughing because she knows we've had many conversations about this. I really appreciate all the hard work you guys are doing from a business guy saying that, but, and I will be involved in whatever you put in front of me. But I just want us to say, are we truly working together? And if we're not, let's work together and create something easy for our kids.  

Casey: Nice. Thank you, brother. Thank you, brother, Adam. Good to see you, man, today.  Other speakers?  Any thoughts come up?  

Jaleesa: We can close and dismiss because Adam has shut it down. I love Adam. He knows I love him, but he is absolutely speaking 100 percent truth. We have spoken about that. Exactly what he said. So many different avenues that it's get back to the Children get back to what's, what's needed. Tramell spoke to you, help them. Co create with us here. The voice is in the room. And that is really the only way we develop a workforce where people were where Children feel like they have an investment. We always talk about buy in as a teacher, during the 1st month, you don't focus on anything, but getting buy in from your kids so that they. Feel like they are part of the room and they feel like that's their classroom. They have that ownership. That's it's the same thing within our communities when we are launching these different programs. And we are putting up these internships if I can't, if they can't see it, if they're going to sign up for an internship to learn and we have all these barriers, right? We're never going to get them to a place where they are. A part of what they feel like they're a part of the workforce or part of community. They have no community, right? So it's just shifting mindset. And I absolutely love it. Thank you, Adam. 

Tramell: Yeah, and I'll just kudos to that. Adam. That's 100. And that you can actually take what you said today and apply it to every single area industry within this community. It started with education, but there's a book called the 4 disciplines of execution and the 4th discipline of execution is a cadence of accountability. And so I think for us as a collective community, we have to figure out what do we want our cadence of accountability to be to make sure that we're actually getting to a place of execution to get to the outcomes that we want to see for our community. And so it starts with adults holding themselves accountable. And Adam, I'm not going to preach the same word he preached because, he preached it, the adults holding themselves accountable, the community hold themselves accountable for us to actually get to the purpose of this coalition to get into really 1 place and 1 outcome that betters the community.

The environment that's here in Baton Rouge. So shout out to everyone for those, that commentary.  

Casey: Yeah, there you go. Girlie, I know you lost power. I wanted to give you space to be able to speak now that you're back with us.

Girlie:  All of this is great. This does bring some bells first. I'm sorry. Excuse me. So we have been considering creating youth committees again for our youth for our, my, we program for the summer. So that will that thought is helping us bring that back to the forefront.  We do have we do need buy in from our kids. We do need more. Energized adults that are there helping us and speaking to these kids. And we welcome you all like we all of this energy on this call. We need it when it comes to my way because we don't, it's a small group of us. It's political as everyone knows.  And it's hard to get our kids. What they need most of the time, and then to hear what, and we're not listening to them. We're not listening to them. We're just following guidelines. We're checking boxes and that, that's all we're doing. And so this conversation has been helpful as we're wrapping up things, so we can go into better plan into a better planning state for next year. I appreciate being here. 

Casey: Awesome. And, can we all just can we all just have a little solemn blood pack with 1 another that starting on August 31st. we're all going to demand that all the entities that are involved in the summer internship programs and the EBR.  Sit in the same damn room and dismantle all of it that's been happening and get one application, right? One application, one hub and make everybody use the exact same program and try to go for 100 percent placement of all the young people that want to work during the summer and support themselves and also help support their families, which, by the way, y'all, That's another major thing that's pressing in on this and I think all the educators on the call know this is that there are a lot of young people by the time they hit high school, they're not there just to go to school to learn, they got to figure out a way to hustle and make money and help mom keep the power on man, like they don't have time to just sit around pontificate and dream about what the future is. They are being thrown into being an adult too damn early. And they got to, and we got to figure out a way that if we're asking young people to spend time, then they got to be able to figure out a way to be able to make money during spending that time because they got no time to waste. So Andrew, what'd you think? You've been quiet for a second. 

Andrew: I know it's rare for me to be quiet for this long. I was going to say in terms of the high school and the internship, I'm glad Trey Godfrey is not in the call because I can throw him out of the bus and be like, he'll be on this. He'll definitely make sure that happens. So much of everything from what Adam said for then Dr. Tom's so much is just accurate in terms of, we have so many barriers to entry for what we do in terms of we talked about, the ivory tower, CTE, like the CTE campus that nobody can get to and 170 kids per year use it. We need to be more big picture. I think one thing, if we were to take a big swing at the Baton Rouge area Chamber, I'd love to have a giant campus in North Baton Rouge. an area that a lot of the high schools are underutilized. You have 40 percent like capacity at a lot of them. What if there was either for health care or for industrial, you had like a skilled craft training thing that was full time where you just, you didn't need transportation. You just went there and you get a traditional high school education where you can go to a four year university if you want to afterwards.  But you have everything there for welding and pipe fitting and all that there, as well as wraparound services for your entire family. What if we took a big swing like that and we did something that the San Antonio's and Dallas's are doing and trying to be like, meet people where they are. And taking an underutilized asset, like a high school at 40 percent capacity, and you made it a big community center also taught skilled crafts during the day to high schoolers. And then after school hours for people mid career, you also got to learn the same skills. I think as a community, like there are a lot of opportunities out there. We have a lot of big companies, especially in healthcare and industrial training. And we're just not making the connections, and we're complaining about what's going on, but we're not taking big swings, we're not taking risks and chances. So I'm excited by everything heard in this call, and I hope that we have new leadership at the Baton Rouge Area Chamber, and I think that we're going to have some big ideas. I hope you guys can get behind in the next year or so.

Casey: Andrew, so let's immediately build on the idea and let you know that with the education to career coalition that in the Tunisia, which he was with y'all help co lead. There is an entire working group around how to transform schools into community hub, right? And to utilize them 7 days a week. In the evenings as well because our tax dollars built them and we're shut out of them because it's not policy. It's practice that it keeps us from being able to use it quite frankly. We've just been waiting for the circus of the superintendent Thing to finish it so that we could really move forward because nobody's gonna make big moves in bold moves So if you want to get involved in that Dustin Lafont from front yard bikes leads that working group George Bell from United Way. Several humans are on there. That's that's something that I would like to invite you to come and be a part of if you are interested. 

Tia: All right. We are on our time and I I appreciate everybody coming and sharing space. But before we end the call, I do want to open up space for community announcements and I will go first. One of the things that we're doing right now is restructuring a little bit about our Friday calls to make sure that we're not just talking about the problems, but we are coming together to make actual plans and taking action to get the things done. That's going to move our city forward as it relates to all nine drivers of poverty, education to career, transportation, mobility. Food access and equity. So my community announcement from One Rouge is next week we will have all three of our coalition meetings on Tuesday. We have our education to career meeting. Helena has dropped those links in the chat. So if you I will challenge you all that the things that we're talking about today,  jump on the call and take a look at the actions that we've already set in place and see where you fall in your work falls and how you can help move that needle on Tuesday. We'll have our CAFE coalition meeting at two o'clock via zoom and then  we will have transportation and mobility. So I'm just gonna open up the space for any community announcements at this moment and make sure that you guys are exchanging contact information for those who need it.  

Casey: Yeah, and I realized that I also, I misspoke, Dr. Thompson is helping running the school of the sub, which he was kind enough to lift up. And Andrew, I forgot to say the most important thing, and I think Lemoyne knows where this is, has seen it. R. P. C. Did something really interesting at Donisonville High School. They took the entire back half of the campus, which was underutilized and built it into a world class training facility to be able to do that. The precedent is actually already set in the region. And when you look at. At Glen Oaks, right? You look at parts of Istroma, you look at parts of Capitol Heights. There's nothing but opportunity in Capitol, folks. If you want to figure out, like, where to get in to fit in and make a difference, get involved with us at Capitol High School. There's a lot of opportunity for that. And with community announcements, we'll keep it rolling. Tramell and Dr. Thompson, do y'all have any community announcements?  

Jaleesa: Pray for EBR, pray to whatever powers that be, pray, meditate sing a song, do a tribal dance, whatever you need to do for EBR schools.

Tramell: But we do, we have started this Facebook live show called the other voice. And so really what it does is try to bring some sense to the conversation around education. Cause we are dealing with a lot of cluster right now. As it relates to our education, and we know that it's at the forefront of the thing. And so we have to get the right information to people to activate the right types of conversations because it's really a sad place to be in as a district. And if we're going to do any of the things that we're talking about on this call, our education has to be at the forefront and leading the charge. And so we do have the other voice and we will have an episode coming out soon. So check us out.  

Casey: Awesome. Thank you for being here today, especially during your conference. Pat. I hear you trying to get in some airtime.  

Pat LeDuff: Thank you. Good morning. Good morning. I wanted to I know we're in announcements, but I needed to ask, are we working on reduce earlier than 16? We have a lot of 15 year olds that are much more mature than they were before with responsibilities and all of that. Is anybody is there anything in place that's stopping us to start at age 15 opposed to 16 is one of the questions. And then the other just comment I wanted to make when we talk about accountability and as us as adults, we have to be consistent with our message. We worked with the students as well at Scotlandville CDC. They don't know the name of the company. They don't know what the company does. Just making sure that we have something in place that we're really. When we are exposing them, we're making sure that they are really getting the knowledge of what we're doing and how we're doing it and why we're doing it. Thank you. And also for everybody who has made contribution or an investment in Posh Pop. Thank you very much. We have five more days. You still have time. 

Casey: Awesome. And so the first and Danielle can speak to power on this. But the first thing as far as the 15 year olds the 16 through 24 with the WIOA that's a federal statute. And then it flows through the Louisiana Workforce Commission and down to Employee BR. So there's not really any there's not much wiggle room in that. There is in school youth opportunity, in school funding, but as Girlie can also let you know, we had a two year exemption that's expiring. As far as the, on the amount that could be spent on in school youth. So yeah, I don't disagree with you, Pat, that it should start before 16, but it's a little bit above our paid grade unless, you wanna go to the steps of DC and talk about a real, talk about a mess, man, the 2:00 AM the 2:00 AM meeting last night, that's a mess, but Woo, man, what a mess. Danielle, any parting words for us, my friend? 

Danielle: Yeah, so to answer your question, most of the grants that are, that are supplied by our coalition members are 16 to 24 and like you said, it has to do with federal funding or whatnot. However, I can say that if you look into certain nonprofits, because the ones that get we all funding they don't get enough funding to actually like. Do all the work, so they get a lot of funding from private sources. So that private sources might have more wiggle room with the target population that they can reach and that's pretty much it. If, anybody who's willing or wants to participate in the task force. Let me know, we still have seats on the task force where they can be there, but the task force is going to be subject to open meetings law. So anybody can come and. Let their voice be heard. We also are in the process of trying to set up presentations  at the task force. If there's something that you guys want to see presented on, or you're willing to do the presentation, let me know as well. And I'll do my best to try to get you on the calendar and schedule. 

Casey: Thank you. Ms. Payne. I appreciate you being here today. Thank you. Jan Ross.  

Jan Ross: Hey, Casey. There's not a whole lot that I can do about the school system. I have come to that realization. I left the school board meeting last night at 10:30, and there was still obviously has been reported. There's still a lot more to do. Casey and I had this conversation earlier this week. The realization that  there's not You know, we can't have the impact that we would like to, but all the organizations that have been taught, been talking about what we can do for the youth, the one thing that I can offer is that with the Wilson Foundation, we have the Capacity Building Institute and a number of the organizations represented here today have been I don't know if anyone else has already taken part in that, but I just want everyone to know if you have a nonprofit organization that you are a part of, or that you know in the community, that can use assistance to grow the organization, as well as just strengthen its infrastructure. The Capacity Building Institute is available and an opportunity that can be very helpful to the organization. We have an application available right now, and we have extended the deadline to this coming Wednesday. I just put the information in the chat box, so if you all are interested, know someone that's interested, please connect them to me, to the link in the chat. And let's see what we can do to really pick uplift the nonprofit sector so that all of the organizations are have strong and high quality programs to provide solutions to so many of the challenges that we discuss on One Rouge. Again, if you'll have any questions, please. Contact me. The information is in the chat. 

Casey: Thank you, Jan. I do have one quick question before you go. As said, if a organization has done the capacity building in the past, can they apply for this cohort, or do you prefer it to leave space for new groups to come in? 

Jan: In actuality it just, let's see what what the capacity looks like as to the number that we're, that are applying, if we are filled with new organizations, I would ask an organization that wants to do it again, or has maybe a new leader, or new management level in their organization, to wait. And let's let those that haven't had the opportunity yet to apply, but I would encourage an organization to apply in case we do have, availability.  

Casey: Awesome. Thank you, Jan. And I'm seeing this statement totally separate from Jen. But it's the last time that I went to a school board meeting. I'll say what I said on the microphone six years ago, defund and dissolve the EBR school board. And so if we're going into a constitutional convention, which seems inevitable that is an opportunity to restructure it. It is a misguided attempt at oversight. And you have individuals that are not in any kind of way, shape or form qualified to, to do what they're doing. And it's not personal. It just is the facts. If it was working, It would have worked by now. It's not working and it's time to get rid of it. Anybody that's interested in alternative solutions to an elected school board of humans that often have never been inside of a school building and making all the decisions for teachers and our kids, please look me up. I'm happy to have that conversation. That's my community announcement. Ah, it feels good to be back on the microphone. I missed it. Yes, I missed it. Any other community announcements? Good people.

Girlie: As we are wrapping up as we're wrapping up my way. We have total team takeover on Friday, August 2nd at red stick social on government street. I think we're looking to start at 2 o'clock. So it'll be from 2 to 5. come hang out with us. Meet our youth and help us boast our accomplishments from the summer.  

Casey: Cool. Thank you, Girlie. 

Tia: All right. So if we have no community, any more community announcements again, I just want to thank everybody for taking the time and sharing space with us. And I'm for you guys to join us on next week for our coalition meetings for actionable work,  not just talking about it, but actually doing things. And thank you again and happy Friday. 

Casey: Education to Career Coalition is next Tuesday at 2 p. m. Please contact us if you would not have the zoom invite and you would like to get involved in this work And radically change how we're doing things  I'm sorry. That word makes people nervous. Not radically. In it, we'll innovate together. We'll innovate together. How about that, Andrew? Thank you for your time today. My friend, Girlie, Danielle. It's a pleasure. Dr. Thompson. Thank you for Mel. Thank you.  Appreciate y'all.  All right. So open microphone. Anybody want to say make the ground shake? Anyone? Yeah, that's right. That's right. 

Pat: I want to make ground shake. Yeah, I want to make ground shake. When we were talking about the students that we've had for for this summer just mere being on time knowing their job description, being accountable sitting in a corner on the phone, no customer service. So if we're going to train our youth. Then they have to at least know the core of what it takes to be in a business.  And so when I say be consistent with our message, we all have to be consistent because I find that we tolerate things that we really don't believe in and we don't want to happen, but what we tolerate them and we could, I think we can do a better job in a nice way of making sure. That our students are getting what they need for the next, for the next level. It and it over it, it overlaps right into like how you're treated at McDonald's, how you're treated at Popeye's. It's it's all over. Does anybody have any comments on that? 

Casey:  What was the last part? I'm sorry.  

Pat: No, I said it overflows into how you're treated at McDonald's and how you're treated at Popeye's and how you're treated. At different businesses, because when you go to Chick fil A, you're not treated like that. Some, Chick fil A gets it. McDonald's used to have it. But we are just allowing our youth to perform in a way that is not going to take us to the next level. And, I don't know, what I hear from the businesses is we can't find people to work, so we have to let them do what they want to do. But how do we get them prepared for life? That next level so that when they get into that job, they have the knowledge when they get into that job. There's just some things that,  that, that will not, will not be quite Will not be tolerated at in, in the culture of certain jobs  where you're going to get paid a lot of money. 

Casey: Wow. That's such a, I'm going to open it up to smarter minds than me because that's a deep ass question. I got a couple of thoughts around the iceberg of that question, but somebody may have a little bit deeper, a deeper thought. 

Adam: I'm gonna go ahead and  I was gonna say I'm by no means an expert, but I saw this with one of the kids we had in one of the programs. He showed up late 1st couple of days had a conversation with him about why was he late? Come to find out he was late because of what Casey was talking about earlier. He worked 2 jobs in addition to our internship because he had to make money for his family. So I expressed to him why being late  could, hinder his ability to make more money in other jobs. I made it useful to him to why being on time would be important. And then said, Hey, you want to take an extra lunch and you want to nap in this room? We got over here because you've been working hard. It's during your break. You can do whatever you want during your break. I'm not saying that's feasible in every moment, but as business owners and even people giving this advice, I think we have to for whatever reason, the generation today is not big on saying you got to do it that way. Cause that's the right way to do it. Got to make sure they understand that we hear them of why their excuse, whether their excuse is valid or not, they're doing what they're doing  and pitch it to them in a way that this is going to be successful for them. Not just because their employer is going to look good at it, but. If you're not up all night, you got more time to advance in this job that you're trying to make or the money you're trying to make or the opportunity you're trying to get in a small sample size. I saw that as a benefit. By the time kid left us, he might have took seven or eight naps, but at the end, he said, man, I love my opportunity here. I would love to know more about what I can do to get into this space. So He was respectful by the time he left of all of our engineers that worked with him. He did a presentation in which he thanked all of them for their time together. So I guess my point is I could have went in a day two and said, Hey man, you're really screwing up. Try to take a different approach. It seemed to be somewhat helpful. I know it's not traditional, but it seems to be, we've got to think untraditional on how to. Move that message along. 

Pat: Adam you're hitting the nail on the head and about how to approach it. But what my issue is, how do we all come together and be consistent with that message? Just the core message of not, it's going to be important how we deliver it, but the expectation, right? I just find that the business, all of the businesses are not requiring the same expectations of what's going to be required in the real job. So what you did was absolutely, which is what I did. I've dealt with all of my opportunity to use at the level that you just did, because I already know that coming with issues. When you go, when they go to another job and they're allowed to do that, and no one's taking the time to be consistent with the message that this is what we're going to require in our state, in our city, for our businesses to go to the next level.  

Casey: Girlie, what do you think? 

Girlie: So what I'd like to say, just simply put, we need more compassionate mentors that are available for these for these kids. And we need more flexibility with funds because how employee can only incentivize within a certain category. realm of guidelines, right? So if we have kids that they're, they have to have, they're having to work these two jobs. Okay. So we can only give them a stipend based on X formula. Or we can only incentivize them based on these types of things. We need more flexibility with that. And just like Adam said, we need more individuals, more mentors that are going to sit down and be personable with these young people about their situations and their issues and help create pathways for them. That's the only way we're going to. And I don't know that I've ever seen anyone help any youth in this at any St. Ruth's Parish.

Pat: We had a youth  that was actually she was having issues with her dress and and her hair and, and all of that. And so when I sat down with her the baby is homeless. He's saying every night she's had somebody else.  So you got to sit down with them. But, and then you got to hit it head on. If you're going to help them, you got to help them. Just like Adam just said. We had to find us a way to live, and then we took over to the store and our partner with the women's center and we got her the proper clothing that it required for business attire, and but  how do we all come together? And I guess you're saying it because we have to have more people that are passionate and are really concerned about how do we take our youth to the next level. And stop tolerating what we don't appreciate.  

Casey: And if I can, just because I've been in, full full crazy mode today anyway, and giving you my ideas. May I offer everybody a different, a slightly different perspective on behalf of the young people? What used to work in the past has not proved to yield the fruit, right? You have so let's go macro level. The world is literally burning,  right? Most kids, if you really get a chance, if you really get to know them, not kids who are related to you, I'm talking about kids that, You're like, you're one of those tall adults that actually give a shit. It actually will listen to them for months and months. And you develop a relationship with, they have no confidence that the world is even going to be here in 20 or 30 years and that we're basically going for Armageddon. People of faith believe that revelations is coming and they're, that's one perspective, then the people who are really paying attention to climate, the science tells that it's not going to be around. Number two, all the adults in their life that did the right thing or just buckled up and pulled up their britches and worked hard still can't pay for their bills. Can't afford a house and are moving all over the place and realize that America is a lie. And number three, we have we have young people coming out of communities that are over policed, over institutionalized, and quite frankly, they're criminalized from birth and you're asking them to say yes sir and no sir, when no matter what they do, there's a very high probability they're going to wind up being arrested and go to jail. So from their perspective. On behalf of all the young people that are telling everybody to behave, I agree. And that's why you're getting the attitude that you're getting is because there's hope, there's no hope that there's a reason to act otherwise. So have fun, get what I can while I'm here and where the, what the future holds, I don't care. So I'm just giving you a perspective that is a chorus that I've heard from 12 to 18 year olds now for the last 10 years. And as a compassionate. Empathetic in adult that does care. It wants to be a good mentor. I'm not lecturing. I said, I'm listening and I'm offering little micro adjustments all along the way, and that's the only way to change the collective beehive. In all actuality. Can you answer the question, can you answer the question that society actually gives a shit about these kids?  Not you, Pat. Not you, Adam. Not you, Girlie. But does society really give a shit about these kids?  If the answer is no, that's why we got what we got and that's when you roll up the murder key. It feels like someone's going to take hot grease and throw it out the window because it's a lot of misdirected hostility. And I don't know, man, it's something about the Christian thing with Chick fil A that seems to be like, I don't know what it is, but it seems I boycotted Chick fil A for so many years because of their aggressiveness against the LGBT plus community. And then the conservative culture canceled them. Because they had the and actually tried to do the right thing. So I got to go get waffle fly fries again. And then I swear to God, it is crazy. I've never rolled up to Chick fil A and not had someone be so nice. 

Pat: There's, I don't, I don't, I'm not talking about all the other garbage. I'm just talking about the customer service fee. These are the same kids coming out of the same community. But they are they're so nice.  They're so nice. 

Casey: Anyway, thank y'all for the the space today. I've actually had a really great week. Not feeling overly salty, but when I'm watching what I'm watching happen right now in our city, it is hard not to be a little frustrated on this Friday, but I ain't going anywhere and I ain't gonna stop fighting. We're just gonna keep rolling. We're gonna keep rolling. And Adam, by the way, man, I said it's a smaller crowd right now. Looking healthy, my friend. We're You look like you got your glow. You got a glow about you, bro. And that's it. It's good to see you again, man. 

Adam: Thanks, bro. I appreciate it, man. I'm want to echo what you said, all the people on this call.  You're doing great stuff. Our city. We watched last night, but don't let last night stop us from continuing to do what we can do in our space. Thing is, James said it. We can't do much about the school board, right? But we can do what we can do it every day. Casey's not gonna stop making a better place. I'm gonna stop trying to inform our colleagues that Things I learned, like apparently that our culture used to tell black women how to wear their hair. I didn't know that was even a thing. Somebody told me about it. And so every person that I have in business that I talked to about appearance, I say, Hey, we do about appearance. We let people be themselves, right? I spread that message of positivity. They do great work and I can't control what somebody else does. But I can control my space and say here at B. E. A. R., this is what we care about, right? I know all you people on this call are great people doing great space. I'm the eternal optimist as some of my friends are upset about sometimes, but I just want to tell you, keep doing your work, keep bringing the light that is greater than darkness, whatever that means for you, right? Don't give up the fight because we're discouraged over, over messages that people are pitching at school board meetings, I know it's disheartening, but we woke up this morning we still doing the good thing.  

Casey: Boy, and Adam and Tia had this conversation Tia and I had this conversation last week. Adam, anytime you want to come touch my hair, feel free, man. You can just stroke it, come on, and it's a bit 

Adam: Oh, let me tell you, if I could grow it, I would grow it, bro. 

Casey: Tia's got her locks.  Locks down, she's 

Adam: One day a guy came in, he, dude, Afro was looking great and he said he said, man, I got to talk to you about something. I said, okay. He said, "What do you think about my hair? I said, it looks great. What do you mean? He's can I wear it at work? I said. Why would you not be able to wear it at work? And, I'm saying that in jest, but honestly, it's about somebody in my space, I hadn't, I don't know nothing about that, but it's imperative to me to say. Okay, now what do I do with this information? And look, I'm not going on some campaign or whatever, but if somebody asked me about it, if somebody came to me and said, hey man, this person the other day at my office had their hair this way, what do you think I'd say? Sounds cool. They should be able to express themselves how they want. Are they,  Why is it offending? Having those conversations, that's the only thing I can really do, right? In the space that I'm in. I don't need to have the conversation with Ms. Girlie because she already knows, it's about informing people that, quite honestly, think like me, look like me, have the same background as me. Traditionally we'd say, Hey, you can't have tattoos and work in the workforce. Percent of people today have tattoos now, right? And I find that my colleagues in my space, we really don't care about that much. So we almost have to inform the narrative of people who is mentoring to say actually,  That's not a big deal like in my industry. Nobody cares about that anymore I mean I wear this shirt short sleeve shirt, right? This is a pattern shirt my office They you know ain't coming at leisure They can't you know Don't wear flip flops to a meeting with a new client because he might get mad and ain't that I care but he might get mad Explain it to them. Hey, but you have some comfortability and some freedom if you do good work. I think we're reluctant sometimes as owners or as mentors to say the case point like hey This has been so important in the past. I need you to think it's still important Maybe it's not that important anymore. And you give them some freedom and flexibility in that space  Maybe you'll see some of that dissipate. Anger wise or hey, man, I got 18 rules. I got to follow You at work, maybe making it ten just does a good thing. You know what I mean?  

Pat: What's your company, Adam? 

Adam: So I have a company. It's called BEAR Process Safety. It's in the industrial space. We do hazard assessment for chemical and petrochemical plants. We say we're trying to take the cancer out of Cancer Alley. That's what we are, that's what we're doing. We're trying to help our community.  And then my wife  and I are in the veterinary business as well. Okay. Okay. I look forward to meeting you. guys.  

Tia: All right. Thank you everyone for the extended time. I appreciate it. And I look forward to seeing you guys all on next week. Much love. 

Chat

Links

Community Announcements