Kathleen Riebe, School Technology Specialist in Granite School District and State Senator from Cottonwood Heights, joins the Homeroom on location from the State Senate floor to discuss her journey from the classroom to the Senate. We also talk about the current legislation that involves education and share ideas for getting teachers involved in the political process.
Kathleen Riebe, School Technology Specialist in Granite School District and State Senator from Cottonwood Heights, joins the Homeroom on location from the State Senate floor to discuss her journey from the classroom to the Senate. We also talk about the current legislation that involves education and share ideas for getting teachers involved in the political process.
Dani, how was your President's Day weekend?
You know, it came. It went. It went by too fast, but it was awesome.
You know, I needed a break so much because I think I've shoveled about 20 feet of snow this winter.
Oh my gosh. That's something that I have learned my husband does not do. It was not in the marriage contract. So--
Yeah, we actually had so much snow that, miracle of all miracles, our school district actually canceled school one day.
That is amazing. That has, like, not happened since like 1998.
Yeah, the last time that Granite canceled school, I was a student.
(LAUGHING) That is a long time ago.
So that tells you how long ago that was. We won't talk about what year that was, but that's when it was.
That's amazing.
Well, it's chilly.
Yeah, it's chilly, and it's time to jump into UEN Homeroom. Let's get it started.
Let's do it. There's the bell.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
All right, welcome to The Homeroom. And I'm going to say something. And do not immediately turn off your podcast. The legislative session is happening, and it is not as boring as it sounds.
I think a cold wind just blew through the room when you said the legislative session has started.
I know. I know. Those are immediate snooze words for some people. But it's actually very exciting, and it really affects us as educators.
You know, it was super cool for our podcast this week. Dani and I were actually able to go up to the state capitol and to see all of the excitement going on around with students and legislators and lobbyists and all the different groups was super fun.
It was really, really cool. And we have a really cool guest. All right, Jared, today on The Homeroom, we have a very special guest. We have someone that I am glad to be calling a friend. I used to work with this person in Granite School District. She is an educator, a school technology specialist, and currently a state senator for Utah. She enjoys hiking, biking, and rafting.
And something really interesting she just told us is that her first day of teaching was on 9/11, which is really, really crazy. So here we have Senator Kathleen Riebe. Welcome.
Thank you, Dani. I'm glad to call you a friend as well.
Friendship is the best ship. So we have-- we're going to put you through the usual rigor that we do our other guests on the show, which means you are going to have to answer questions from Utah students. Are you up for it?
I am ready.
OK.
What is your favorite snack?
Dark chocolate and popcorn.
And do they give you that here at the capitol? We should say, we're doing this interview live at the capitol. So that's how Kathleen could fit us in.
Yes, on the Senate floor. And they do give me popcorn. And they will give me pretty much anything I like, which is amazing.
There were a lot of snacks out there.
There were. And they say for senators only. We were not allowed to snack.
They slapped my hand.
[LAUGHS]
Jared tried. I just called you Kathleen. Do I need to call you Senator Riebe now or does friendship overrule your title?
You can call me Kathleen.
OK. But what about Jared?
Um, he can call me Kathleen too.
[LAUGHTER]
We're teacher friends.
We're teacher friends. I can call her by her first name.
And we're UTed friends, UTed chat friends.
Utah Ed Chat friends.
Yes.
That's the best kind of friends.
Yes.
Yeah. Second question.
Where do you like to go on vacation?
Oh my gosh. Everywhere. I don't want to go any place twice. I just want to keep traveling everywhere.
That's amazing.
Yes.
So where have you been this year? This year, we went to Key West. We also went to Mt. Rushmore. And we went to California. I went surfing. I stood up for, like, a second. I was impressed I got a picture. Yeah.
Totally [INAUDIBLE].
Yeah. It does.
OK.
And then I've also been to the Senate floor. That's been a really cool vacation from my job.
I was going to say, is it a vacation now?
Kind of.
Is that a staycation?
Yes, it's a staycation on the Senate floor. I like the way we're thinking about this. Yeah.
All right, perfect. And our third and final question.
When you go to the zoo, what animal will you see first?
I want to visit the hippo, but they don't have one anymore. I'm fascinated with hippos.
What happened to the hippo?
I don't know. It went away a long time ago. They loan animals to each other, which is really amazing. So maybe I might pick the polar bear now.
Oh, the polar bear is pretty great.
Yeah.
It's always swimming and comes to see everybody.
Or the bats, because they're really smelly, and my kids don't like it. So it makes it really fun for me.
Some alone time at Hogle Zoo.
Yeah. Yeah.
I have to say, I saw a polar bear at Denver Zoo, and it has zoo psychosis, which, if you're a Googler--
I know about that. Yeah.
It's a sad, sad polar bear.
We have Senate psychosis too. Just kidding.
All right, well, we'll start with the good stuff. So tell us, how in the world did you go from being an educator to a state senator? You are still working. You are still a school technology specialist. So tell us about that.
So I got involved with my association, and as teachers, we have rights, and we have a contract. And so as an association leader, my job was to help educate teachers what their rights were and how they could better advocate for them if they had a baby or if they got hurt or something happened. So as I became involved in that, I realized that we get all of our money from government. And so when people think that education isn't political, we have to realize that our budget is completely political. And we need to be involved in getting some of those funds and making sure that they're used for what we'd like them used for.
I was going to say, when I was a classroom teacher, that was something that I don't know that I fully understood. But working for a state agency, it's really shown us the role. Like, this is one of the busiest times of the year for us politically, because it influences everything that we can do the rest of the year.
Yes, it's really important to be involved.
Yes, so I've just started taking a class on educational policy. And it's really interesting because it has become a financial class really, because as our professor always says, who is amazing, Dr. Rich Nye, superintendent of Ogden School District, policy drives money, money drives policy.
Yep. So after I became involved in my association, I decided to run for the school board. And prior to when I ran, you used to have to be appointed, and now you're elected. And then when I looked at the numbers in my area, I said, hey, you know what? I'm going to run for senate.
That's awesome.
It's been exciting.
And you won.
I did.
I remember checking the votes that night and seeing that you were ahead. It was very exciting for me.
Now, I saw your signs around. Can tell us-- I don't think we mentioned-- what district you represent here?
I'm senate seat district 8, which is Cottonwood Heights, Midvale, Murray, sliver of Sandy and Millcreek and Brighton.
So the school districts kind of fall into that-- Canyon School District?
Canyons and Murray and Granite.
Wonderful.
Which was different than my school board seat, which was completely Canyons, which is unusual.
Interesting.
Yeah.
OK.
Yeah.
All right. So what do you see as some of the biggest issues that we have in education right now? As teachers, from an educator standpoint, what do you see as the biggest issues?
I see that we have a problem with keeping our teachers. So we actually have a bill out there. Carol Spackman Moss and myself were sponsoring a bill trying to understand why our teachers are leaving or staying or what challenges they have. And when they leave, there's going to be a survey.
The Exit Survey Bill.
Yes.
I actually have been following that bill for one of my classes.
Yay! I am the sponsor of that.
Well, perfect. We're going to talk later for my midterm about that.
[LAUGHTER]
Great!
I think I'll get extra credit.
OK.
Cool.
Then the other thing that we have is funding. We have really big class sizes, which makes management really difficult. Another thing we're addressing this year on the Senate floor is having more professional help and support in our schools. So we're going to be hopefully getting about $30 million so we can add more psychologists, social workers, nurses, and licensed professionals to help our kids with needs.
So one of the things that Dani and I are actively involved in and you do in your day job as well-- digital teaching and learning funds.
Mm-hmm.
Can you tell us anything about that, that maybe people aren't aware of? Maybe some of our audience doesn't even know what we're talking about, if you want to maybe just talk about some of those grants and some of the legislation that's been passed.
Yeah, there's actually quite a bit of legislation out there that has not been passed yet, but there is some appropriations. We have a $7 million appropriations towards the technology grant. We also have a STEM Action Center that isn't really asking for any money this year, but does have a lot of grants. We have the CUES, the regional centers that are phenomenal at helping people get resources to their schools.
They're the best.
They are really amazing.
They're the best people and just so helpful.
Yes. And then we also have a Utah Ready that's part of GoEd. So GoEd and digital teaching and learning go together. And then you can also go to the USET which is amazing. You learn so much there.
I was going to say, in the last two years, for what we do, it's been amazing the impact that digital teaching and learning moneys have had across the state of Utah.
Mm-hmm.
We're just seeing so many more teachers get access to training and resources. And the school districts are providing not just gadgets, but they're really trying to help them understand how they can really implement this.
Yes. We are trying to make it so that you have different opportunities at different levels. Either you're going to get an endorsement, you're going to get some kind of devices, create a maker space area. So there's lots of different opportunities that we're trying to explore.
That's been really exciting. And the funding behind it has been really great, because we've seen a lot of districts use it not just for buying the gadgets but the professional development behind it, which is so important.
Yeah, those CUES regional centers, they actually created a ton of economic opportunities in their area because the teachers there that are receiving their endorsements are actually getting an opportunity to grow their salaries while teaching and not having to leave their rural areas, which I thought was amazing.
Yeah. I know you're talking specifically about Sevier District and a few of the districts kind of in the central part of the state. You know, it's been interesting to me as we've been dealing with our colleagues from around the country, they're so amazed at the financial commitment that Utah is putting towards education specific to technology. I don't think other states have the same resources right now that we're putting towards and committing towards education. It's been really cool to see.
All right, you mentioned the USET conference, which is of course, coming up if you're listening to this when we put it out. This year it's March 5 and 6, and it's going to be at the Utah Valley Convention Center. And we're talking a lot about having educators share their stories. What's the best way for educators to get in touch with their state legislator?
So, this is a question that I get a lot-- how can people reach out to their senators? Another senator and I were speaking on Friday, Senator Bramble, and I think people don't recognize that we are just regular people in our everyday lives, and we come up here for 45 days and kind of put our life on hold. Many people like different ways to be contacted. Email sometimes gets hard because it's so many. You can text us. You can call us.
If there's something that you're passionate about, I would recommend you calling us before the session, because then we can actually think about those things and interact with you. So any way you want to get in touch with us, we are accepting of, and we hopefully will be responding to you as quickly as we can. But it does get really busy during session. So if you do feel strongly about something, contact them prior to the session.
That's really good to know. One thing I've noticed is when I've contacted different legislators about bills or about questions that I have, they do want to talk on the phone. They'll respond saying, like, what's your phone number?
So, Kathleen, a lot of your career seems to center around advocacy, you know, kind of dealing with advocating for teachers when you were on the school board or now you're advocating for educators in the legislative sense. Can you just tell us maybe for a teacher who's thinking about getting more involved, how could they get started?
I think joining your community councils is amazing. I think running for your local school board is a phenomenal way to go. Running for your local community council, your town councils, your city councils, showing up to your meetings and making public comment, showing up to your board meetings and making public comment. I mean, if you want to get involved and you're a little nervous, go to those meetings, and just get up and say, I really like that you did this or I really wish you didn't do that, because our representatives really do like to hear from you. So at every level that I've ever been at, whenever somebody comes up to speak at a microphone, I always appreciate whatever they're saying. Whether they're agreeing with me or not, it makes me understand the other point of view. So please get involved by either just showing up to your meetings and maybe tippy-toe in by speaking a public comment. And then run for office.
You know, it's always fascinating to me whenever I've gone to a public forum or a school board meeting, it's empty.
I know. That makes me nuts.
And so sometimes I think, we don't think, oh, well, if I show up, there's so many things going on. They don't want to hear from me. But like you're saying, the reality is, they are looking for public feedback.
They are.
They want to be very transparent. They want to share what they're doing. It's unfortunate that often there's kind of a disconnect between the public and a lot of their elected officials whether it's school board or all the way up to legislature.
I'm going to tell you, transparency is the biggest question we get all the time. I was in a meeting this morning about transparency. And it's hard because we are really transparent. I mean, you can find where almost every dollar is spent in schools. But the conduit for getting that information out there is not always as easily deciphered. So I think that going to those meetings and understand that there is a lot of transparency is really important.
That's fabulous. The other thing that we wanted to talk about advocacy is not just for teachers, but how do we best advocate for our students? Should we be encouraging our students to get involved? Should we be sharing their stories?
Yes, but please make sure you don't violate any FERPA by sharing their stories. So, yes, I think that it is important to share their stories. There are stories that I share, and I keep the details to a minimum. But some of our kids are really in crisis. And I've worked at lower income schools and higher income schools, and we definitely have a lot of kids in crisis. And so sharing their stories and asking them to get involved-- it would be fun to have letters from our students saying what they'd like.
That's fabulous.
You know, just while we've been up here at the capitol today, we've noticed that there have been three or four school buses going in. It seems like a lot of kids have an interest in finding out more about what's going on up here. And so that's great to hear that we can get them kind of thinking about this and maybe even advocating for themselves a little bit.
Mm-hmm. Yeah, if they wrote a letter or if they reached out and called their senators, I think their senators would be happy to hear from them. I'm also doing a teen hall on February 22 from 6:00 to 8:00, Friday at Cottonwood Heights City Hall.
Oh, that's great to know. We'll--
Bring your own device.
[LAUGHS]
We will for sure get the word out on that. So our last question we usually ask, is there anything that you're doing that you want others to know about that we haven't necessarily guided the conversation toward? So, is there something that you want your constituents, your fellow educators to know about that you're working on?
I'm running on a bill, SB-113, to get high needs [INAUDIBLE] to students who are trying to get a smaller class size for a first-year teacher in a high-needs school. So that's one of the bills I'm running. I'm also running a bill about getting your possessions out of a car that's been towed.
The thing that I would recommend is if you feel passionate about something, go ahead and look at those bills and see if you can find the unintended consequences, because those are the problems that we have when we run bills-- the unintended consequences.
Awesome. Well, Kathleen, you're awesome. Thank you for taking time out of your cuckoo crazy schedule to talk with us on The Homeroom.
Thank you, Dani. I love seeing you everywhere I go. And thank you. We should have a UTed chat at our school boards, and everybody should be tweeting out what's actually happening at their school boards. Maybe that would encourage people to attend their local school boards.
That would be a great idea.
We'd have to change your time.
Yeah, it's too late. Maybe we just need a different hashtag.
Yeah.
We'll work on that. We're going to sponsor a hashtag together. I'm going to sponsor at hashtag with Senator Riebe.
OK. And then we can tweet out what's happening on our school boards.
Yeah, I like that idea.
Thanks for coming today. We appreciate it.
You're welcome.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
So, Dani, do you want to give our audience a tech tip today?
I mean, do we have to?
Well, I mean, this is a podcast kind of about technology.
I'm tired. Do you have a tech tip for today?
I mean, I guess if I have to, I can come up with one.
I mean--
So for our lazy teacher tech tip today, I found a really cool website that all of you will want to check out. It's called what3words.com. And basically, it's this idea. Every square foot of the planet has been broken down by three words that you can type in, and it will immediately take you on a map to any location in the world.
You know, sometimes it's kind of hard to give people physical directions. And so you can just go to what3words.com, type in your address, and immediately, you can zoom in on the map to maybe, like, your front door, and there will be a three-word code for your specific location. And you can just share those three words with somebody in the website, and it will take them right to any place on Earth. And it's broken into, like I say, 1 foot square plots for the entire planet.
This blows my mind. So do the words have anything to do with the location?
No. They don't have anything to do with it.
I love this. I want to go find out what my front door is.
And you can type in just three random words, and it will take you to a location on the map.
Well, I know what I'm doing as soon as we hit Stop.
Yeah, so you can go home tonight or go to your desk and just type in your home address, and parts of your driveway will have their own code. Like, different things-- like, you can get that specific. Like, my driveway has about 12 codes.
Oh my gosh.
Yeah.
So I could tell people where I want them to park at my house.
Exactly.
Like, you are to park here, not here.
Exactly. And it actually will connect to Google Maps. So it can give driving directions straight to that location.
That's perfect.
Yeah.
Sometimes finding elementary schools is really, really hard.
Oh, yeah.
Junior highs, high schools, they're usually on main roads. But elementary schools are, like, on a dead end in the middle of a cul-de-sac--
Exactly.
--where there is no entrance whatsoever. You almost have to drop in a drone.
Yeah, because Google Maps will just tell you, oh, you're here even though you're nowhere near where the parking lot is or any of that kind of stuff.
[GASPS]
This is awesome.
The only downside is that you cannot pick the three words that you want, right? Because it would be kind of fun to be able to put in your three words for your house or something like that. But--
Dare I ask what you would want your three words to be?
"Don't come over."
[LAUGHTER]
Mine would be "leave by 9:00."
So that is What Three Words. And a shout-out to Clint Stevens from [INAUDIBLE] who shared that with me.
We love Clint.
Yeah.
Clint's the best. Thanks, Clint.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
How awesome is Kathleen Riebe?
Oh, that was amazing. Yeah.
Yeah. She's an incredible lady. To be able to be a school technology specialist, a current educator, and then just decide after being on the school board, you know what, I'm going to run for office.
Yeah, one of the big things that I get so much out of when I talk with experienced educators who are also moving into the political arena a little bit--
Yeah, becoming policymakers.
--is that has so much impact on every classroom. And I don't mean to say that everybody needs to get involved in that level, but we need to think beyond just the walls of our classrooms.
Yeah, she gave some really good tips on starting out. So I'm currently on my son's community council for his school. But I have to say, I've never been to a board meeting. And I'm going to do that.
Yeah, like I said, I had to go to a few board meetings last summer for a class I was taking, and it was empty. Like, the only people in there were people in my class--
Wow.
--who were just taking notes. And it just kind of showed me, like, so much of the work of education is being done at times without educators' input.
Right. Right. Without educators being there. And they do. They have a lot to say, and they have a lot of experience. So I thought that was some really great advice.
So in 2020, when Dani and I are both running for state senate, please support us wherever you are.
Yeah, support one of us, but definitely me.
Or maybe we'll just be doing our day jobs. But we'll still be a voice for everybody.
Yeah, but let's go to board meetings. Should we do that?
We'll make it a pact.
OK.
We'll have an upcoming episode of UEN Homeroom from an actual school board meeting.
That's a great idea.
Yeah.
OK. It's going to happen. Making it happen. Hey, did you hear that?
What was that?
It was the bell.
Oh, OK, we'll see you next time.
OK, bye.
[MUSIC PLAYING]