Mike and Chaya sit down with Dr. Mandi Davis Skerbetz, co-founder of Sage School of Dallas, who has dedicated her career to reshaping how we support neurodivergent and twice-exceptional students. Dr. Skerbetz shares how she identified gaps in public, private, and charter institutions, the hard reality for parents forced to pick between academic or emotional support, and reveals how Sage is rewriting what an effective, compassionate school can be when it’s built for the kids who don’t fit anywhere else.
Mike and Chaya sit down with Dr. Mandi Davis Skerbetz, co-founder of Sage School of Dallas, who has dedicated her career to reshaping how we support neurodivergent and twice-exceptional students. Dr. Skerbetz shares how she identified gaps in public, private, and charter institutions, the hard reality for parents forced to pick between academic or emotional support, and reveals how Sage is rewriting what an effective, compassionate school can be when it’s built for the kids who don’t fit anywhere else.
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About Dr. Mandi Davis Skerbetz:
For over 20 years Mandi has worked in the field of special education including being a special education and gifted teacher. Neurodiverse students and their families have been at the heart of everything Mandi has done throughout her career. It has been her dream to have a school where students' strengths are truly enhanced and needs supported for long-term success and achievement. Dr. Skerbetz has worked in various roles at public, charter, and private schools in Dallas, TX and Pittsburgh, PA. She has taught and mentored students in the field of Special Education at Carnegie Mellon University, Johns Hopkins University, Southern Methodist University, and University of Pittsburgh.
Connect with Dr. Skerbetz:
[Mike] Hello there.
[Mike] I'm Mike.
[Chaya] I'm Chaya.
[Mike] And I want to welcome onto the show doctor Mandi Davis Skerbetz, the co-founder and head of school at the Sage School of Dallas, a school designed specifically to meet the unique strengths and needs of twice exceptional learners with over two decades of experience across public, private, and charter schools, as well as faculty roles at prestigious institutions, Johns Hopkins, Carnegie Mellon, and the University of Pittsburgh.
[Mike] She's dedicated her career to reshaping how we support neurodivergent students and their families and has also coordinated international educational partnerships and led groundbreaking research on students' choice and behavioral interventions.
[Mike] Welcome to the show.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Thank you for helping me.
[Chaya] Welcome, Mandi.
[Chaya] When I first heard about this school, it made me so happy that a whole school was dedicated to neurodivergent children.
[Chaya] So how did you go about building a school like this?
[Chaya] I know you're in the process of building and, yeah, share your journey, your motivation, your inspiration.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Well, I think the starting of the school came as myself and one of the cofounders were just kinda had seen the same students over and over that they sent anywhere.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And it was so hard to tell parents, well, you can pick this school and they'll get a really high academic education, but, socially, they're not gonna do well.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Executive function wise, they're probably not gonna do well, but they are gonna get high academics.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Or you can go to this school and, you know, they'll get the social emotional support, but they're not gonna get high academics.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] They're not they're gonna get bored probably.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Behaviors might even come out of that.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And those are private schools.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] When I was in public and charter, I mean, my heart goes out to public and charter.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] They just they can't serve the kids they have regardless of needs.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So, you know, it was always my twenty plus years has just kind of come full circle, I think.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And so when the other cofounder, Jessica, and I were talking about and she has a twice exceptional son that's now in college.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] She was like, I just wish there would.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] I wish and we were kind of changing career not changing careers, but we were both kind of at this, like, crossroads of, like, what's next?
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] I mean, we're like, we keep saying somebody should do it.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] If you say somebody should do it long enough, like, are we talking we should do it?
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And so I was like she was like, Pinky promise.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] I was like, oh my god.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] What are we getting into?
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] I don't even like, so I was like, do we Google, like, how to start a school?
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] I have no idea.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So yeah.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So we started it, and we just we're so passionate about it.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] My journey's kinda come full circle.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] When I first was a novice teacher, you know, fresh out of college, like, going to save the world, I was in urban education in in a very urban setting, and they were low on teachers even twenty plus years ago.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And so I had my special education certification, and that was always my passion.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] I always wanted to be a special education teacher.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] I love emotional behavioral disabilities.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] I always said behavior to me is like being like a detective.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Like, they're the behavior's for a reason, and I always loved it.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] I loved the challenge, and it was always different.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] But long story short, the state that I was in, if you had special ed certification, you're also certified to teach gifted.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Now I had no training, not a single class, nothing about gifted students.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And so but I was low man on the totem pole.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] I had the right certs, and I was, like, you know, young and, like, yes.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] I'm gonna do everything.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So my day was split between teaching gifted and teaching emotional behavioral disabilities, and I love them both.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And everybody's like, it must be so hard to teach gifted kids because they're so smart.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] I'm like, no.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] They have more emotional and behavioral needs, actually, a lot of times than my emotional behavioral students.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So it was so funny that the crossover was early in my career.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And, honestly, I don't know that it clicked on me, clicked in my head right up, like, at that point until I kinda kept moving, and I would kept working with emotional and behavioral students.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And some of them were so talented.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] They were so gifted, but they were never because of their behaviors and their mental health needs, they were never allowed in the high classes.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] They were never allowed and, you know, well, their behaviors, we don't wanna interrupt, you know, the other students.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And so I think I just started to really they still students started finding me somehow, I guess, a magnetic to them.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] I don't know.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And those were the kids that I started just those became my people.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] I'll never forget before I moved to Dallas, I was working in Pennsylvania in a public school, and I had a high school student that, again, was super talented but had huge school refusal, lots of anxiety, lots of ADHD.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And the mom was like, I'm done.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Like, he's gonna be a dropout because I I can't do this anymore.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And so I started actually I was like, if you give me permission, I'll start texting him every morning and be like, you gotta get up.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] You've gotta be like, you know, whatever it took.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And he used to always say, when are you gonna start they called me doctor s.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So when are you gonna start doctor s's school for misfit toys?
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And I I was like, you're not a misfit toy.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Like, you're awesome and you're amazing, but I think a lot of these students feel like the misfit toys.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And so, basically, my vision and, again, my cofounder's vision, even though we're not calling them misfit toys, is to build a school where students that don't really fit anywhere, not public, not charter, not private, really get what they need on all levels.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Like, I want a parent to drop their kid off and know that they're getting everything they need in the same day.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So that's really my passion.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] I also think educationally and curriculum wise, and I can go into that, you know, if you want me to go into it a little a little bit.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] But it's also kind of selfishly my chance to have a school that besides all of being perfect for these kids, having a curriculum that's also perfect for these kids and would also be awesome for a lot of other kids, but it's my chance to do it.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So, yeah, that's kind of the full circle way that we ended up now opening a school in August, for our twice exceptional students.
[Chaya] I I think that we are always getting trained to do the next big thing, whatever that is.
[Chaya] You know?
[Chaya] It might not be a big thing, but the next thing.
[Chaya] So it it must all add up, all your experiences from the past.
[Chaya] So you talked about emotional behavior and your passion for gravitating towards children that had those challenges.
[Chaya] I'm curious if you were able to identify an underlying pattern with that kind of behavior.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] I think a lot of times it depended on the setting I was in, to be totally honest.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] I think so much, unfortunately fortunately and unfortunately with students, special especially I wouldn't say I take that back.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] I would say all ages, but are so what word would I might try to they're they're whatever the environment is, they're gonna elevate or they're going to they're gonna assimilate to what the environment is.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So if a school has an amazing culture, the teachers are engaged, high levels of professional development, you know, those types of things.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] The students still have emotional and mental health needs, but I think they're not they're not treated this they're not treated as discipline problems as much as they're treated as, okay.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] These are, you know, areas of need, and, hopefully, they're well staffed.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And so they're really creating programs that are meeting those kids' needs.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Is it perfect?
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] No.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] But I'd say, obviously, it depends on the school.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] It depends on money at the end of the day.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] It's you know, I mean, it just depends kind of on all that.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And it depends on, like, the leaders and what their mission is.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] I mean, one of the things that I think was so disheartening in a couple situations I was in is the leadership had no interest.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And so it it there wasn't any I don't wanna say there wasn't anything in it for them, but they were like, well, they're smart.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So, like, they'll be fine.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And I'm like, yeah.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] They're smart, but they're not gonna be fine because they don't have executive functioning skills.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] They don't have communication skills.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] They don't have just social interaction skills.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So, yes, maybe they can take the courses.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] I don't even know that they'll be successful in those courses, middle school, high school courses.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] You're probably gonna see some behaviors, and then you're gonna label them a bad kid.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Then they're gonna end up in a different, you know, in a different environment not getting the academic level.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So it it was kind of you know?
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And then I've heard even from private schools like, hey.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] They're smart.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] If they wanna come and do our program, great.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] If they don't, they don't.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Like, I've never really met anybody that's super interested in this.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And I know it's a niche group, but it's I think it's bigger than we know it is.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] I know it's bigger than we know it is.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And so while it seems like this very narrow group, I know there are a lot of kids sitting in classrooms that are getting something's not getting met, and they kind of fit in this area.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And even when I would work with privately or, you know, in different situations with highly gifted students, but I knew they had other needs and maybe their parents weren't I think a lot of times parents grab one to the well, my kid's gifted.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] They're you know, they they can tell you everything about astrophysics.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Yeah.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] But they can't tie their shoe, and they can't turn on turn an assignment in.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So they're failing.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] But, yes, they can tell they can do all of these things.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And so a lot of times, you know, especially when it's private practice, I'd say, I can get your child into whatever college.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Like, yes.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] They are smart.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] The SAT is no problem.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Like, they've got it.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] They're not gonna last.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] They will drop out.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] They will you know, mental health will kick in.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Or if they do last, which is very, very small, they're gonna be underemployed or unemployed.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So you have to address those social and life skills before I don't care how smart you are.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] You know, being a professor, if you can't turn in a paper, you're not gonna make it.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Like, it's just not gonna work.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So I feel like that's a pattern and that this there's a there's a group of students out there that the parents are kind of putting their hat on their intelligence and not realizing that either themselves or others have, like, made it work or their intelligence has hidden.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] You know, they're smart enough to sit and take a test and, like, you know, ace and test.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] But then when the teacher gives a report or something that's over a long period of time that has multiple steps and, you know, those types of things where the ADHD and the executive functioning comes in, they just can't do it.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So I think that's kind of the pattern that I would say.
[Mike] Would you say that's the most common misconception that you see, which is academic ability equals well, that must mean emotional ability as well.
[Mike] So and that also reverses that emotional problems equal inability of academia.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] A %.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] I can remember again when I was in that double situation even though I was super young and didn't have a clue what I was doing at the time.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] I can remember one of, you know, at public school, you gotta get your test scores, and they were like, you you know, rely on your gifted students to get your test scores.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And I I won't say his name, but I can remember this one student in my emotional I was like, he will out test any of these other kids.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And but he was labeled bad and he was labeled a problem.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And so they didn't, like I said, they just totally underestimated any of his abilities versus the, hey.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] I mean, I haven't heard it from people, but I will tell you my grandfather that's 92 years old when I was like, you know, I'm starting a school.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And he's like, oh, great.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] You know?
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] For who?
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] I'd love you know?
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Whatever.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] I'd love to support you.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And I was like, for kids that are super, super smart, super gifted, but then also have social emotional challenges, and he's been the only person.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] I don't know if it's like a older generation or whatever that was like, well, they're smart.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] They'll be fine.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And I was like, no.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] It doesn't work that way.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So, yeah, I think that's been as we work with people outside of education and outside of kinda mental health and people that talk about this all the time.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Now, like, you know, going to foundations and things like that, you, you know, you gotta start at the beginning with what's what's twice exceptional, and then you gotta kinda really paint the picture of what it looks like.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So I would say, yeah, definitely underestimating and overestimating.
[Chaya] I think the whole emotional angle has not been addressed at all in in schools.
[Chaya] I think they're meant to be robots or something.
[Chaya] Right?
[Chaya] And it's
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] a really specific program.
[Chaya] Yeah.
[Chaya] Yeah.
[Chaya] And and the whole environment has a lot to do with their emotional regulation.
[Chaya] So I I truly believe that if they are in the right em environment, some of the behaviors won't even come up.
[Chaya] Right?
[Chaya] Some of the negative yeah.
[Chaya] So I'm sure it's gonna be amazing.
[Chaya] What you're doing is a blessing for a lot of families.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Yeah.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] I mean, even I mean, speaking of the physical environment per se, like, our classrooms don't have desks.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] They have tables.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] They have standing desks.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] They have kind of like those I don't know.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] They're like they're not they're not beanbags.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] They're more like a formed beanbag so that, you know, again, based on, you know, what where do you learn best?
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] You know?
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] We're learning that, you know, sitting at a desk, staring at a computer is not ideal.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So even our environment set up like that, our our our kitchen space or our our dining space is set up in a way where the student they're not the typical lunch tables.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] We didn't get those.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] We got true, like, cafe tables so that you you're inner you know, you're kind of gonna be forced to interact and, obviously, with adults hoping, but, you know, things like that too.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] We have an entire space that we're just calling our we don't have a great name for it yet if you can think of something, but it's a flex space.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So if you wanna go work on a project and you wanna, you know, you wanna be in a dark area, you can go, you know, obviously, with adults watching.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] But, you know, we're really our school doesn't look like a school.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Our actual building looks like a mix between school, maybe a college setting, and a workplace.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Like, it's not you know, the teachers themselves don't have desks in the room, so they have offices.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And then the the classrooms itself have the whiteboards and everything they need, but it's not the idea that the teacher, you know, is and they have standing kind of podiums to put their things.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] But, you know, so much of, again, our curriculum is not the standard memorize this, go to this textbook.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] It's very, very project based and inquiry based.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So not only are we using the physical environment, but kind of the expectations and the curriculum environment of that, I don't know if that's a real word, is gonna is helping to set these students up.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And everything's gonna be so we're we're gonna be small.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] We don't wanna be big.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] We obviously wanna enroll the right students, but we really it truly is gonna be individualized.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] I mean, our classes are gonna be eight students.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Some may get up to 10, but max would be 10.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And I would find it very hard that we even get to some of those numbers.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Because if we have an eighth grader come in that's already at a level of calculus, then they're gonna go into a high school calculus class.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Like, we are truly and math is really the only traditional, I guess, curriculum that we're really following because math is gonna be involved in our projects and our inquiry base, but math's kind of the only thing that you really have to kinda go step by step.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So but, otherwise, like, we have a humanities block.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] It's two and a half hours where writing is incorporated, literacy is incorporated, social studies incorporated.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] It's all, you know, hands on project based.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] It's not, here's your textbook, open to this page.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] We're gonna read like, it's not.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] My biggest soapbox that and I, you know, I think I've worn it out at this point, is kids do not need to memorize. I don't care who they are. I don't care if they're gifted. I don't care if they have a lower IQ. We have Google. Like, you can Google anything. We need critical thinking skills.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] We need, you know, analysis, all those higher level thinking, which these students are amazing at, but they can't they can't communicate it to anybody.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So we need to get it in a way where, you know, that's the level of academics that we're doing.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] But at the same time, we're preparing them and supporting them and being able to present to somebody.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Or how do you have social relationships?
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Because a lot of these kids also are coming out of they don't have you know, I we I just had an interview with a student, and he's like, well, I have I don't know if I wanna come because I don't wanna leave my friend.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And the mom kinda sidebar and was like, those aren't really friends.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Like, they're in your class, but they've never invited you to a birthday party.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] They've never called you.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] You don't text.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Like, those are peers, but they're not friends.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And so we're gonna be doing a lot around every day, midmorning.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So we have an amazing advisory board that have taught me already a ton of things.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And one of the things is that a lot of these TUNY students need, like like, big time brain breaks.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] It's not just stuff, like, five minutes in between classes.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So we're doing where they will have I can't remember exactly, but, like, say an hour and a half, two hours of courses, and then they have clubs.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So at, like, 10:30 in the morning, they have a half an hour of just clubs.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And so we know some of them, but it's gonna be based on their interests.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So we have chess and Dungeons and Dragons and, you know, Roblox and Minecraft and knitting and, you know, all yoga, whatever.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] We have these clubs.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So then it's a it's a break, which what school has a break in the midmorning to go have fun?
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Then they come back, and, again, they're in it's kinda blocked.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] You know?
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] They're in blocks with their teacher.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And then in the afternoon, it's the same thing, but it's more of a mental calling it, like, more of a mental mental I don't know what we gotta come up with better names for things.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] That's one thing we're working on.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] But, basically, that's gonna be a lot of that's gonna be run by myself and our counselor, and it's gonna be things like yoga, meditation, breathing exercises, things like that.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So more of a kind of mental reframing towards the mid end of the day.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And then our mornings will be start our days are bookended with a morning meeting and a shout out at the end of the day where the students we have to obviously work with them and teach them how to do it, but they will run that.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And so the morning meeting will be like, this is what's going on on the day.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] You know, just kind of like the morning announcements, but making it more formal.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And then the shout out's gonna be where students and staff can literally, like, hey, Mike.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] You were awesome today helping me clean up, I don't know, lunch.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] You know?
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So, really, we're trying to build in so many things, but it's all really integrated into, like, character and social emotional learning and being a community.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] That's a big part of it is, like, guys, this is your space.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] This is your school.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Obviously, there are some rules and there are adults and those are things that you just have to have, But this can be this is your place.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] This is the place.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And like I said, we're not gonna use this term, but, like, this is the place to let your freak flag fly.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Like, if you don't really like hanging out with kids at lunch because you like to play Pokemon and that's not cool in high school anymore, we'll play Pokemon at lunch.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Like, that's awesome.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Like, go for it.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So yeah.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So it's just pretty special and definitely different.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] I don't I'm not I haven't found anywhere yet that quite like us.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] I mean, like I said, there's other schools, but I think some of the things that we're integrating are gonna be pretty unique.
[Mike] Yeah.
[Mike] I did I dig all of that.
[Mike] There's so many opportunities there for active engagement with them instead of just passive, you know, I'm thinking like the morning announcements, which I don't think I ever paid attention to what was actually being said during morning announcements.
[Mike] It's just a thing that's blaring over the loudspeaker at a certain point.
[Mike] It's white noise and also I like the, you know, there's so so many opportunities for regulation as well, like stopping letting allowing regulation to happen, which honestly all types of students need to be allowed that instead of being thrown into what is essentially education prisons.
[Mike] I always joke, there's, I have to go to a vet every two weeks right now and pass by a middle school, and I always joke because if you if you're not paying attention, it just looks like a prison for whatever reason, like, it is the most depressing looking, like, Soviets building I've ever seen, and I'm not even gonna call it out because, honestly, you could probably just say any middle school and it's gonna probably look similar to that, and class sizes, I think, are really interesting when you bring that up because I think there's this I mean, it's all sort of traditional education is so almost like cattle rancher, like throw as many, you know, kids in a pen as you possibly can.
[Mike] There's always, like, I think this idea that, well, if you throw 30 kids in a class like and then treat them all like they're one giant unit they're all bond together and become you know best friends and and work together and it doesn't actually work that way with for anybody.
[Mike] You know, clicks will end up happening because it's too unwieldy, it's too big and then you throw in neurodivergent students in there who are going to react very differently, who are going to move to the corners, you're the more people in there the more isolating it actually is and there's less opportunity for actual interaction between students at that point.
[Mike] So, actually keeping things small is a big boom towards that.
[Mike] You had written something a paper on consequence choice.
[Mike] I was curious if you could describe that concept a bit.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Yeah.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So one, most of the research obviously is in special education.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] It's not necessarily in gifted, but choice has been researched within gifted to be effective.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Consequence choices after so there's antecedent, consequence choice.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So it's after required task has been completed.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] If completed to whatever standard is set, whatever expectation is set, then the consequence choice is what happens next.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So it's not necessarily a reward per se.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] It can definitely be viewed as a reward.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] But a lot within special education and and also two e and everything we're talking about is kinda chunking times.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So putting preferred activities in between non preferred.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So it's kind of allowing the student to to choose that they've done the non preferred activity.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Now you get a preferred activity.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So a lot of that we're embedding is, like, the clubs.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Like, you get you get to tell us the clubs.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Like, if we don't have a dungeon master, which one of our parents is, thank God.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] But, you know, we'll find somebody.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] There's you know, here in Dallas, there's a chess company that comes in and runs the chess.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] You know, like, I don't know.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] I mean, years ago, I knew chess.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] I don't know it now.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So, you know, I mean, a lot of it, students will be able to do and teachers and myself and counselors and everybody else, but, you know, kind of bringing in those things.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So the the idea of choice, which kind of back to your point of our school presence, they don't have any choice.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] It's the bell rings, period one, period two.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Like, at high school, they get to pick electives, but let's be real.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] The electives are, you know, journalism or banned.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] You know?
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Like, and I'm not saying there's there's nothing wrong with those, and those those might be things that we have.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] But it's not based on the students' interest.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] It's based on what the school has done for centric years and years and years.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And that's the other thing, you know, kind of, again, the 30 kids in a classroom.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] You know?
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Late nineteen hundreds.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And one of the big things is age.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] You know, we base where the students are in first, second, whatever grade based on age and and their birth date.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] That's realistic.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] That humans don't grow like that.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So even though we're having seventh you know, we're having certain grades, it does if you're ready for, you know, English one and you're in seventh grade, then you're going there.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] It's really based on where the student is and a you know, what what they're able to do academically versus, hey.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] You're, you know, you're 15 years old, so you're taking this course.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And so I think that's something that, you know, again, year after year of being in school systems, you know, I'd be like, you have to take algebra one.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] But they already knew all of algebra one, but the state require that's a required credit to get a diploma.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So it's like, like, what can we do?
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So, like, credit by exam or, you know, different things like that because you don't you're wasting a whole year of a kid's life.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And at the end of the day, they aren't in school.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] It seems like forever for them and for but they're really not in school that long.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And so if we're really kind of pushing you know, getting them into colleges and careers and things, we need to make sure that their skill set matches what we're putting them out into.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And right now, this is personal opinion, a lot of schools, I'm not gonna say all, a lot of schools are not setting up students for success.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] I don't care if they're gifted, neurotypical, neurodiverse.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] It's just, you know, the careers that these kids are gonna have haven't even been created.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Like, I can't say, hey.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Wouldn't you love to do blah blah blah?
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] It hasn't even been created yet.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] We're moving at such a fast pace that we have to the old way of doing education and, you know, you do biology in freshman year or in chemistry year, sophomore year, whatever.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] We need to be able to, you know, let that go.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] But when you're in systems that have done it forever and, you know, everything from you know, that's the way the board the board of education went to school, so that's what they wanna see.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] You know, principals, superintendents.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Oh, that's how I went to I went to school.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] That's you know, I went to a good school.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] It should look like this.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And so I think it's there has to be some level of willingness to let go.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And I think that's one thing that, again, the founders and myself have been very much like, throw it at the wall.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Like, let's get, you know, the experts.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] You know, we have Johns Hopkins PhD and the university like, we have all these experts, but let's throw it at the wall and let's see what they think.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Does it match the research?
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Does it match what's showing?
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And so I think that's been one of my I've had a lot I've had a lot of soapboxes over, I guess, my career, but I think one of the most disappointing things is not willing to change.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And I've seen it in every setting.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] It's how we've always done it.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Oh, well, yeah, we'll we'll add advisory.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] That's new and flashy.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Or like you said, like, all schools have SEL now.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] But what does that really mean?
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Like, is that a boxed lesson that a teacher that isn't trained pulls out and says, hey.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Today, we're gonna talk about friendship.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And it's like, that's not we don't nobody learns like that.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] I didn't learn how to be a friend by opening a book and being like, oh, okay.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] I need to go over and be like, hi.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] My name's Sandy.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Be my friend.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So yeah.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Sorry to get on so many
[Chaya] of possible.
[Chaya] You brought about so many topics.
[Chaya] But, really, if you don't understand the child, you will not create an adult who will be successful in your life.
[Chaya] As you said, it's not the current school system is not does not serve anybody.
[Chaya] Yes.
[Chaya] People might be able to get good grades and get good jobs, but have they really understood who they are?
[Chaya] And are they showing up as their authentic self?
[Chaya] Because once we do that, we will be at peace, I think.
[Chaya] And when we use that passion that we have to help others, and that should be what the job is.
[Chaya] Right?
[Chaya] And so I'm thinking your school will help discover what that child is good at, what the what that child is passionate about, what what gifts they have, what what are their weaknesses so that they can actually do more of their strength, more of their gifts in the real world because nobody is perfect.
[Chaya] Right?
[Chaya] Even even the neurotypical.
[Chaya] Nobody has it all.
[Chaya] Nobody.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Typical at the end of the day.
[Chaya] Yeah.
[Chaya] Yeah.
[Chaya] So your school is helping that child understand who he or she is or who they are and and helping them show up confidently as their authentic self.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Yeah.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Absolutely.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] I think a lot of our kids go through, you know, go through lot it doesn't matter where, you know, whether they're in their community or their school or wherever.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] If they're not at kind of in their own maybe bedroom space, they're masking, you know, and they're not I think that's, you know, from different situations that I, again, personally work with, I'd say, young to 20 year olds.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] That's the biggest thing is they've masked their whole life, and they don't know who they are.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] You know, they've been told you're going to go down this route, and then they get out there and it's like, you know, after a couple years of, you know, not having somebody tell them necessarily what to do, it's kinda like, is this really me?
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Is this really what I wanna do?
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] I mean, I think all 20 year olds probably go through it, but I think there's a lot of mental health things that go with kind of the neurodiverse student that make it more critical to acknowledge.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Because I think a lot of times, if they don't have a supportive environment or they're not they're not allowed to explore who they really are, their authentic selves, I think there's some pretty damaging mental health consequences.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So and I don't I don't think I brought this up.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So to kinda keep going with that, every Wednesday, every other Wednesday, one Wednesday is called an inquiry based day.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So the entire day, the entire school, so whether you're in seventh grade or tenth grade or altogether, we will be taking a question and basically doing a deep dive into all of the different holes.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And I have a horrible example, but I have yet to come up with a better one at this point.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] But, like, for example, why are there so many potholes in Dallas?
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Well, we can go into the geology, the geomorphology, plan a visit from the city planner.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Okay.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] What are they actually using on the roads?
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Let's go to a blacktop facility.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] What actual chemicals are in blacktop?
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] What makes blacktop?
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] What new technologies are coming out that might sustain the roads better?
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Okay.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] What is the cost behind that?
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Now you need to do a proposal, and you need to propose tax increases to the people that live in this area to you know?
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So really going deep into that.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] But then the other Wednesday, so it's kinda like every other Wednesday, is what we're calling artist in residence.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So we're bringing in we're contracting true artists in the area that are I mean, anything from musics to fine arts to, you know, visual arts, whatever.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And really having them have a day that from beginning to end of the day, they go through a whole process of true whatever.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Whether it's, you know, photography and learning, you know, where do you start and how to take the pictures and then how, you know, how do you Photoshop and manipulate them.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Definitely have, like, a robotics coding day for sure even though that's maybe not arts, but it is kind of at this point arts.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] A dance teacher, perhaps.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] I mean, there's and there's gonna we talked about, like, there's gonna be students, obviously, neurodiverse diverse students that are like, I am not doing this.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] But something else we have to do is we need to let them be uncomfortable and realize it's okay.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] It kinda goes into your authentic self of, like, I don't like to dance.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] I don't know why I don't like to dance, but I don't like to dance.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] But okay.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] You're gonna do this.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] We're gonna kind of respect that you don't really like this, so you get to tell me what you wanna do next time.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So that's kind of the consequence choice as well, like, is, you know, so much choice is embedded, and it you can do it when you're small.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Right?
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] I mean, I don't I I you know, there's a lot of things, but, like, I can't fault a public school teacher.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] I mean, again, they have 30 kids.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] If you're in a middle school, high school times seven, that's 210 kids.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Like, you just you can't have choice.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] It's just it's hard to have choice.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Let's say that.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Like, to build a choice for 210 kids that you see for thirty minutes or forty five minutes a day, that's just.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] But keeping it small and intimate, you know, we really truly hey.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] You know, we already know one of the stew I mean, different things about different students, but are, you know, super into the create.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] This is super neurodiverse.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] The creation, I didn't realize this, but for hockey, every goal has a different the goal horn has a different sound.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So every NHL team has a different sound through their goal horn.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And so I said, well, let's let's figure out how they decide that.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] How do they create it?
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Like, let's let's go into that.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Like, I had no idea.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So one of our activities is gonna be, you know, working with the stars and noise sound editors to teach us.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] You know?
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Like, tell us how how how do you how do you determine who gets what what bullhorn sound?
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So they're quirky weird things, but they're also the things that provide the authentic self.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] It's okay to be obsessed with bully horns.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Like, there's no shame in that.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And they
[Mike] and they invite so much curiosity.
[Mike] Like, I you're even the pothole thing, which, honestly, I'm gonna say that was a great that was a great example because I'm sitting here going like, I would like to do that.
[Mike] Like, those are the kind of videos that I will, like, deep dive and, like, no.
[Mike] I I wanna go down a rabbit hole of this and see, like, what the way it octopus is out to all, like, go on back learning about, city planning from a hundred years ago and how that went wrong.
[Mike] Like, those are the that's what I consume.
[Mike] And it's all also the little topics too that gives you the opportunity to learn so much.
[Mike] Like, I'm a big film person and I like learning through film analysis other topics.
[Mike] Like, you can use 2,001, A Space Odyssey to learn about, you know, astrophysics if you want.
[Mike] You can go down that rabbit hole very easily, and to me, like, that's that's the way I would prefer to interface with that stuff, not just, like, hear a lecture.
[Mike] So, like, allowing, like, that curiosity to curiosity to hit.
[Mike] Same thing with, you know, inviting art artists and and stuff.
[Mike] Like, that's just all all learning and all education are connected to just the basics of curiosity.
[Mike] So if you continue to foster that, everything around that starts to kinda, like, get sucked in like gravity.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] That's our that's definitely our hope and our belief is the same.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] You know, there's all these things we need to learn, but at the same time, like I said, like, one of the examples was a school that I was recently at.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Students had to memorize the Gettysburg Address and perform it.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] I don't know what term to use for that.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And it like, when I tell you, it was like a nail in my head.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Like, it bothered me so bad that they wasted, like, weeks memorizing something that, a, they can Google, which back to my Google thing.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] But who cares if you can recite it?
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] What you need to do is take it.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] How was it relevant to today's government, to today's you know, what can we learn from it?
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] What could you propose?
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Say you say there's something in there that you would you know, bipartisan.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] You'd like to pro you would like to propose you were able to propose to the US government.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] What would it be?
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] How would you, you know, how would how would you propose it?
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] You know, that type of thing.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Like, anyway, throw me insane.
[Mike] Yeah.
[Mike] I I completely agree.
[Mike] Just break it down almost line line by line.
[Mike] Like, get into why does it exist.
[Mike] And I remember doing that in school.
[Mike] We had to learn a lot of those speeches, and I don't remember them.
[Mike] I no.
[Mike] I know.
[Mike] I I will look them up if I need to know.
[Mike] It's like thankfully, I was like a history nerd, so I would go into my own thing off to the side, and I would, you know, be always be fingering through my history book anyway.
[Mike] But we never, like yeah.
[Mike] We never learned what any of that stuff was about.
[Mike] I I learned through other means, all of that stuff, or my my brother was also kind of like a history nerd, so we would talk about it if I was learning about it.
[Mike] But, yeah, we would have to recite them all in unison for whatever reason, and I don't know what that was supposed to prove other than I think just waste about a quarter of the school year in busy work.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Yeah.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And that's the other thing too.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] I mean, I get where busy work comes from and whatever.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] But, again, being a small school and having, you know, the adults and students so intermingled, there can be like, we're not gonna say, like, you can never have downtime or anything, but what is it that you like to do for downtime?
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Because everybody needs downtime.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] I mean, I think that's one thing.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] If anything, we learned from COVID is, like, it's okay to check out for a little bit.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] But, again, when well, I don't wanna assume you're my age, but when I was in school, busy work was like crossword puzzles.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] You know?
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Even in high school, I can remember being, like, possibly in an AP class and being given, like, a crossword puzzle or something.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] That's not engaging to most students, even regardless of what label you wanna put on it.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] But what what is engaging to you that we can kinda connect to have some downtime?
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] I mean, these to coding on Python.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And with AI and everything else, they that's their downtime.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Like, that that is them mentally dumping and being able to, like, go and, like, do their thing.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] That's okay.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Like, that's fine.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Obviously, you know, within limitations, but I'm not gonna give you a crossword puzzle if you don't like a crossword puzzle.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] You know?
[Chaya] Yeah.
[Chaya] Downtime is so different for everyone.
[Chaya] And so when you give
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] them that
[Chaya] choice and freedom, they will use it wisely.
[Chaya] Right?
[Chaya] I think every human being, however little they are, they know what works for them, and they will just naturally gravitate and use that.
[Chaya] So all we have to do is give them choice and freedom with structure.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And that's another thing.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] A lot of students that that, you know, they need the structure.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So it's not like this is like they show up and it's like free for all.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] It's like, no.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Here are the, you know, here are the time frames.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Here's you know, that that's something that's really important is, like, the freedom and the flexibility within the structure.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Right?
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And even getting into, you know, a lot of our students have some different sensory needs and things like that.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So that was one thing.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Like, we're not having a bell.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] This, you know, the the because we don't, a, we don't need it.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And, b, the students that we've I mean, we interviewed students before we really said, like, let's do this.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And, you know, like, they they hate the bells.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] It it either annoy either they don't hear them like you like, which just white noise.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] They don't even they until the other kids in their class get up and leave, do they even realize they're supposed to get up and leave, Which would totally be me and ADHD.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Like, I would be like, oh, everybody.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Oh, okay.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Let's go.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Like, you know or it drives them crazy.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So we're like, okay.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] No bells.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Also, we're not you know, we have those kind of more blocks of time and different things like that, but there's just, you know, super different things.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Like, one of our important pieces was finding a building that had a lot of natural light.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So we're not gonna be in that old prison school where it's, you know, the old I can't remember what they were called, but the light bulbs and, you know, all of those types of things.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So we've really you know, we planned out, like, all the lights are LED.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Like, everything we've planned as much and things are gonna we know, you know, for first month, things are gonna happen, but for first year.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] But we've tried to really plan it.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And like I said, we interviewed before we even started this, kids that I've worked with privately or that we knew.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Or like I said, both of my cofounders have twice exceptional funds, so they they've been interviewed a lot.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] You know?
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So it it's was very purposeful.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] You know?
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Even talking to to teachers that are very much kind of in the same wavelength, I guess, as I'm talking about, like, this is just not working anymore.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Like, things have to change and what that looks like.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So I feel very strong about the program we've designed.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] I feel very I'm passionate about the program we designed, but I feel strong that we have people that are very reputable, high, you know, top of the neurodiversity world saying, yes.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] This is this is what needs to be done.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Yes.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] This is what students need.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And like I said, we haven't met with a family yet that's been like, why are you doing this?
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Like, it's been like, oh my gosh.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] You know?
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So it's been exciting.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] It's been a lot of work.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] It's a I never thought I'd start a school.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So, like, things like getting insurance, basic things.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] I was like, teacher.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So I've had a we've definitely had to get get out of our comfort zones, to kinda learn what to do.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] But it's been exciting, and I think the biggest thing again has been, honestly, just the support behind it.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] It feels good.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] It always reinsures.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] I I mean, like, there's there's been times where we're, like, like, looking for a building was painful.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] It was more even painful for my the other cofounder because she really was the one doing the legwork.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] But then, like, once you found the place and, you know, you knew all of that and, you know, students you started talking to students that were excited about coming.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] It's like, okay.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] We can do this.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] You know?
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So every time there's kind of like a a I feel like something in something in the universe sends us somebody or something to kind of pick us back up.
[Chaya] Can you tell how's the admission process to your school?
[Chaya] What happens when parents reach out to you, and how do they even reach out to you, and how many kids are you enrolling?
[Chaya] All those questions I have.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Yeah.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So our website is stageschool.org.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Take I'm sorry.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Stageschooldallas.org.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And everything's there.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So you can do two things.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] One is you can just do an inquiry, and that's just basically, I wanna learn more, talk to me.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] We've been getting a lot of parents like that that just kinda, you know, wanna learn more.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Some that are like, think this is my child, but they've never been diagnosed.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So doing a lot of, like, you know, if you need help with that, we can help you kind of through that process.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] The actual admissions process is parents fill out an online application.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] It's basic, just demographic information, and then they submit some sort of neuropsych or school psych eval.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So kind of a student's evaluation report or if they have outside an outside psychologist that's done it basically kind of their psychoeducational report.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] We aren't doing, like, a strict, like, you have to have one thirty or above because we know intelligence is really flexible.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And then if you, like you know, a lot of students I question really well, I question a lot about my key test, but that's not a good or there.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] But, you know, if you have ADHD and your working memory's tanked, you're not gonna do well on any of them.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So is that truly your IQ?
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Like, you know what I mean?
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So, anyway, so we're not being strict to the numbers.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] We want highly intelligent students.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] A lot of them are have high IQs, but, you know, still there's flexibility there.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And then they have to have a twice exceptionality.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] To be totally honest, most of the students so far that we've enrolled are severe ADHD, ASD one.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] We will ASD one is our highest level.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] We won't have the supports.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] It's it's you know, we won't have the supports for any higher level of ASD.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Anxiety is a big one.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] We have one student enrolled that has Tourette's, twice exceptional with Tourette's.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So kind of dysgraphia, dyslexia, kind of all of those types of things, but they've already been remediated.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So that's one thing too.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Like, we had a parent contact us.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Student had a one forty IQ but was three years behind in reading and writing, and we were like, you not gonna be an intervention program for that.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] You're gonna have to go and, you know, get them this and we can help you with schools that provide that support, but we really are, you know, at grade level or significantly above.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So we're really, you know, keeping that focus.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So they yeah.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Online.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And then what we do is Jessica, my co the cofounder, the CEO, she does a parent interview and really kinda walks the parents through just the parent part.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And then I do the student interview sometimes with her.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] It just depends on our availability and just really get to know them.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Like, are they even are they interested in it?
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Are they even interested in coming to this school?
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Do they wanna know more?
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Like, kind of, you know so far, I've had some amazing student interviews.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Now I have to tell you one of my favorite so far.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So the student's like, oh, excited, and he's like, I can't wait to come.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] He's like, but I do have to tell you.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] I think this is going to be a world renowned school in a decade or two.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And I was like, well, I was like, I just wanted to be a good school in Dallas, and I hope to be retired in two decades.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So and then, again, that neurotypical, he was like, oh my gosh.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Was that rude?
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Should and then, like, questioning himself.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Should I say I said, no.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] It wasn't rude at all.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] It was like it was a it was a compliment.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] I said, but I'm just saying, I personally hope in two decades I'm not doing this anymore.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So, you know, just just kinda getting to know.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And then, you know, I've been keeping a list.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So what clubs are you interested in?
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] What questions for those, like, inquiry based days?
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So kinda keeping a log of that so that we can start day one with things that the students are already interested in.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And then once we get running, hopefully, you know, some of them may open up more about other things, but at least it gives us true student information to kinda start those clubs and inquiry based and the art artist in residence.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So that's the enrollment process.
[Mike] You mentioned earlier I wanted to get a little bit more on this.
[Mike] You mentioned, like, a parent being a a dungeon master.
[Mike] This, like, what are are there ways which parents are can be, like, actively involved in kind of what's going on?
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Yeah.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So, obviously, parent volunteers, kind of all of those things will go through the security and the, you know, the background checks and everything to make sure everybody's okay.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] But, yes, parents can get involved.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So if they have a special, like, again, like an art if they're an artist or or something like that, you know, we're we want to be part of the community on top of what we're doing.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So we want even just, hey.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] My neighbor somebody told me their neighbor is like a calligraphy master, which I don't even know I mean, I know what calligraphy is.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] I don't know what a master is.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] But I was like, that actually is a kind of cool, like, I could I don't know if it's a full artist in residence, but that would be kind of cool for kids to learn how to do calligraphy.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So it's those types of things.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] You know, just different different things like that.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] One thing I will say, and I never even mentioned it, I apologize I should have, is we are very much obviously focused on opening the school.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] But we also realize that we are only meeting a certain number of kids' needs.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So we really wanna be part a bigger part of the community.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So we're already planning for next February a two e community day that will be open to anybody.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Like, you don't have to go to our school or anything.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Another thing is we've we've received I was surprised, to be totally honest.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] I did not expect this, but we received a lot of younger students, like, second, third, fourth grade, and we're just not.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] That's not what we set out to do.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] I didn't really think that it would be such a so many people.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So we're really trying to figure out a way to get those younger students involved just involved in the community.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] We've thought about having, like, safe Saturdays for younger students and even maybe some of our students running little again, those project based deep dive rabbit hole things.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] That won't be at first.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] But we do want to be part of the bigger community and do things that for two week families that can't afford our school or just it's you know, they're not part of it.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Another thing so the school's my passion.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] It will always be my passion.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And it's also the passion of the other cofounders, but a real passion of Jessica, who's our CEO, is year three, our goal is to open this the Sage Center.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And so the Sage Center will be we don't want to just say, hey.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] You graduated.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Bye.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] We want to keep involved with them.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] We want to help support students in careers, colleges, whatever.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And that doesn't have to be you don't have to have been a SAGE student.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] You could be whatever and be part of the SAGE Center.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] We've also which I never thought in a million years this would be like, I it wasn't even on my radar.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] We've had businesses reach out and say, these, you know, two e kids are the kids like, these are the kids we wanna hire, but, a, we don't know where to find them.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] They're not applying to our jobs.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Or if they do, they totally tank interview.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So what can we like, how like, train us and so, like, Jessica's she's all into that research.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Like, one thing is if you give a student or I shouldn't say student, a grown up, but especially, you know, processing speed, ADHD kid, things like that, the questions ahead of time, they will give you beautiful responses.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And it's not cheating.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] It's not, you know, that type of thing.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] It's giving them the time to process or whatever.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] But if you ask them on the spot, you're not gonna get anything.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] You know, they their brain just doesn't work that way.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So that's really one of our longer term goals.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Is to really be kind of a center where we support, again, non school age students and families, workplaces, and even, you know, maybe we become something that schools want us to come and do trainings and teach their teachers at some point.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] You know, we we obviously, I want the school and I want the students in the school, but at the end of the day, like, we just want it to be better for the students, you know, regardless of where they are or what they're doing.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And if I knew half of what I knew now when I was teaching these kids, like, I feel bad about some of the things I did.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Like, I'm like, I can't believe I did that.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Like, you look back and you're like, oh my god.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] I can't believe I had them read out loud or, you know, something.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Like, there were some cool thing.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Like, there definitely were some cool things, but then I'm like, can you believe like, you just look back, and I wish I knew then what I know now.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So if I can give that to new teachers that are starting out because these kids are sitting in everybody's class.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] I don't care who you are.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] I don't care where you work.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] I don't care what school you are.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] They're there.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] They might be your quiet ones that don't wanna be noticed, or they may be they may be that bad kid in the corner.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So that's just it's another big part is that, obviously, we want the school and the school is our pry top priority, but we wanna make sure that we reach as far out as we can.
[Chaya] Well, the world is hungry for this.
[Chaya] So they've come for you for information, for guidance.
[Chaya] I'm sure.
[Chaya] I'm I'm very positive that's gonna happen.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] That's our hope.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Oh, you asked about numbers.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So at max capacity at our current location would be 50 students.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Our goal for this first year is 20 to 30.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] 30 is pushing it.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] I'd like it to be more like 20 to 25, but we we could do 30.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] It just a lot of it depends.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So we originally said we were only gonna take seventh through ninth graders, but then we started get getting a lot of inquiries for tenth graders.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] And so for tenth graders, it just apply it depends on their transcript of what they've already taken so that to make sure we can get them into the right really, it's math.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] I'll be totally honest.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Get them in the right math class.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Because in the beginning, we're not gonna this first year, we won't have the the linear calculates the higher high the high high level kind of senior math first year.
[Mike] And, once again, where can everybody find all the information to reach out and apply or anything else?
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Yeah.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] It's sageschooldallas.org.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So s a g e s c h o o l, Dallas, d a l l a s dot org.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] It's like spelling.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So everything I mean, honestly, everything's on the website, but we're also on Instagram.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] We're on Instagram.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] We're on Facebook.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] We're on LinkedIn.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] You know, you can follow us.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] We're constantly posting updates on just where everything is.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Right now, like I said, we're full on admissions and just marketing and getting our names out.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Pretty close, hopefully, to finishing hiring for at least the first year or the beginning.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So, yeah, everything's it's moving very fast.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] But yeah.
[Mike] Awesome.
[Mike] And, of course, I'll be sure to put all of those links altogether in the show notes for this episode, which you can, as always, find on sparklaunchpodcast.com or wherever you're happen to be listening to this on your favorite podcast listening methods, where if you, of course, like this show, please rate and review us.
[Mike] It helps out a lot.
[Mike] And I I really wanna thank you for joining the show and for everything you're doing with this school.
[Mike] It is exactly what we in the world need, especially right now.
[Mike] So I wanna thank you for that.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Thank you so much for having me.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Obviously, I'm a talker, and I'm I love this.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Like, this is if I can end my career like this, then I I did okay in my life.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] Like, I really believe that.
[Mandi Davis Skerbetz] So thank you so much for having me.
[Chaya] Loved having you.
[Chaya] Loved listening to you.
[Chaya] So thank you, Mandi.
[Mike] And we will see you all next time.