Episode 83: PEA Association with Christy Giblon and Mark Wells

March 28th, 2025 /
Spencer Tuinei /

Sup with the Sup

00:00 / 47:12

Wendy Dau: Welcome to the next episode of Provo City School District’s What’s up with the Sup podcast. I am superintendent Wendy Dau. This week I am joined by Christy Giblon and Mark Halls. Christy is a teacher at Shoreline Middle School and is also the president of the Provo Education Association.

Wendy Dau: Mark Halls is the UniServ Director that is tied to the Provo Education Association. They’re here to talk about the relationship between the association and the school district, as well as to discuss some of the priorities for our teachers as we negotiate our budget for the coming year. But first, let me give you our updates.

There are a number of policies or procedures available for review on our district website.
- Go to provo.edu. Click on Policies, Forms, and Documents. You can click on Review Draft Policies here, and you are welcome to provide feedback on any of those policies.
The Board of Education has recently started to hear information from the boundary and feasibility study.
- As part of its next steps, a community engagement survey has been created for parents and community members and employees to take. You can find the survey on the district website at provo.edu.
Spring break is March 31st through April 4th. We are excited that everyone will get a nice week off, and we will see everyone back at school on Monday, April 7th. Please enjoy.
Continue watching for my weekly video casts in your email. These video casts provide one place for you to learn about important things happening across the district.

Well, welcome everyone. Today I am here with Mark Halls, who is our UniServ Director for the Provo Education Association, and Christy Giblon, who is our Provo Education Association President, thank you so much for being here.

I just thought it would be great to talk as a group.

I think we all care about education deeply. And I just wanna show people what it’s like to actually work together as an educational organization regardless of what your position is. And so just kinda wanted to explore some of these topics and some of the things that we want, the community to be aware of, as well as anybody who works in education that might not be a teacher, specifically some of the things that are challenges.

Wendy Dau: And just have a great conversation. So thank you. Tell us a little bit about as we go– the legislature has given us a 4% WPU, I don’t even really wanna call it an increase ’cause it just covers basically inflation and increasing insurance costs and all of those pieces. It’s not like anyone’s gonna get a 4% raise as a result of that.

Wendy Dau: Right. And that’s what’s hard sometimes for people to know. But tell us a little bit about what are some of the priorities that you are hearing from educators as we start to make these priorities, in terms of our budget as to what we need to really be paying attention to.

Christy Giblon: Well, you know, I mean there’s always the obvious stuff like teachers want competitive salaries, right?

Christy Giblon: Yeah. Especially in comparison to the districts that are close to us, and I think we’ve made some gains on that. I know that our school board has made that a priority to try to make sure that we’re competitive. They want to recruit the best teachers here, right? So, I mean, just like any other private sector job, you wanna recruit the best employees and you can only do that if you have competitive salaries. And of course, we know that the cost of insurance is going up for everybody, but who pays for that? A 4% increase on the WPU, I don’t know that that would even cover our insurance increase.

Christy Giblon: I already know that it’s more than that. We talk a lot about inflation. I know that’s something that really everyone is concerned about in the community. You know, I just bought eggs, right? Like that’s the– that’s the new measure we’re tracking.

Christy Giblon: That’s the measure of the economy.

Wendy Dau: That’s right.

Christy Giblon: But I mean, really, like, I used to pay three 50 for 18 eggs at Costco, and now they’re $8 a dozen. That impacts everything, including how we operate the district. Like that’s just keeping the lights on and buying basic supplies has gone up more than 4%.

Christy Giblon: So, you know, we understand, like we have to operate within the realm of reality, right? And as the district’s costs increase, there’s not very much of that 4% left to go to everybody. So, you know, we recognize that’s an issue, but. We still need competitive salaries ’cause we have to buy those eggs.

Wendy Dau: That’s right. We– we just formed what’s called a community connections committee and, met with several– there’s about 25 to 30 community members on there and I– Devyn and I laid out for these individuals kind of what our demographics are, because I wanted them to see that we have a more highly impacted population than Alpine and Nebo do.

Wendy Dau: I also shared with them our academic data because, for as impacted as our population is, we’re outperforming our neighboring districts, but it costs more money to educate students that have challenges, and so trying to help them understand that and show them how our teachers are not being paid as much and they were like, wow. I had no idea. And they asked so many questions about funding. It was a productive conversation. I just wish I could have that with like, you know, 20,000 people instead of the 30 that were in that room.

Christy Giblon: Yeah. I wish everybody knew like what it actually costs. I pass around a donation bucket when I have band concerts. I’m a band director in case anybody listening doesn’t know. And, we talk to parents about, the things that we need for our program. And I don’t think people realize how much it costs for just basic things.

Christy Giblon: Like we have band, orchestra, and choir at our schools. And we’re unique in the state where we have band, orchestra, and choir at the elementary level. And certified elementary music teachers. That’s a privilege. And it’s something that makes Provost School District unique. But again, that costs extra money.

Christy Giblon: And then with a highly impacted population, I would say I’m up to about, probably close to two thirds of the kids in my band use school instruments. They can’t afford their own instruments and like, that’s fine, like we don’t want anybody to miss out on opportunities just because they have financial limitations.

Christy Giblon: So we have to provide those instruments and pay for repairs on those instruments. Right. And, and you know– I mean, that’s why I still work here, right? Because I’m a music teacher and this district supports the arts so well, but I recognize that’s expensive, right? And some of the other programs that are really important to teachers and to our community, things like dual language immersion .

Christy Giblon: Like, again, we have a highly impacted population, but yet they get first class level services. Like dual language immersion and all of the extra programs that we offer, and those cost money too. And if we wanna maintain those programs, besides it being a district priority, it needs to be a community priority to fund those programs.

Christy Giblon: That’s an excellent point. And you hear about how much the arts are appreciated in Provo City School District and how much of an emphasis that is. But people don’t realize, like when you are hiring a certified music teacher, that’s a lot more expensive than hiring a paraprofessional to– or a 29 hour instructional assistant that’s gonna teach music.

Christy Giblon: But it also creates these tremendous opportunities and amazing programs at our secondary level and these great opportunities for our kids. But that’s a cost. And so we could put that money towards reducing class sizes but it’s like, no, we don’t want our kids to miss out on that opportunity.

Christy Giblon: Exactly. It’s like where are you gonna cut if you want? Something different. I mean, we’ve done surveys before about. Some of these programs and if they’re a priority for teachers and for the community and depending on which program you’re involved with, that’s everybody’s top priority.

Wendy Dau: Yes, that’s right.

Christy Giblon: And they’re all great. Like I wouldn’t ever wanna make a choice between dual language immersion and full-time music teachers. Like, we want our kids to have these opportunities. There’s so much research showing that kids involved in those things perform better academically.

Wendy Dau: That’s right.

Christy Giblon: So again, if we want to maintain high performing academics, we have to have all of these other things that help students learn. It’s more than just the tested subjects that create intelligent and critical thinking students.

Wendy Dau: That’s exactly right. Very well said. What are some of the things that you wish people knew about the teaching profession or just about teachers in general in terms of things that the association provides for them that people aren’t aware of?

Christy Giblon: Yeah. Well, I mean, I’ve been teaching for 25 years and I would say in the last five or six– I live under this constant concern about every single thing we do and say– was I wearing the wrong color shirt today or something?

Christy Giblon: Because everybody gets upset over everything and we get accused of all these horrible things. There are certain groups out there that try to claim that teachers are indoctrinating students into things that they don’t like. And you know, if you’re on social media, like the common response meme is I’m a middle school teacher. If I could indoctrinate students, I would indoctrinate them to wear deodorant.

Wendy Dau: Yeah.

Christy Giblon: Like, and to bring their Chromebook charger, for heaven’s sakes. Right? I would indoctrinate them to practice their instrument.

Christy Giblon: I don’t have time to spread ideas about politics. I just want you to play your music. And so teachers get attacked over every little thing like that because people just assume that teachers have bad intentions and we don’t. All we want is for our kids to learn and we want our kids to feel safe in our classrooms and we want them to come to school. But yet I– I feel like in our current political culture– that there’s just always this like insidious accusation plan. Like, Ooh, I’m just waiting for the teacher to say something I don’t like, so I can report them to the state because I’m just looking for all these things and it’s just scary for teachers.

Christy Giblon: And I mean, I’m a veteran teacher and I teach a subject that’s definitely not controversial, at least I don’t think it is.

Wendy Dau: But someone could make it controversial. Christy, I’m pretty sure.

Christy Giblon: I guess they could, but I still have to worry about that every day, and that takes mental energy away from me just preparing to teach my kids, I’m constantly dealing with bullying issues and kids coming to me because somebody said something awful to them. And I think people forget that we’re not just teaching our subject, we’re caring for these little humans and we want them to feel good about coming to school.

Christy Giblon: And yet I have to be very careful in how I’m trying to talk to a kid that comes to me because they’ve been bullied.

Christy Giblon: And then I feel bad, I’ve just talked this whole time and not let Mark talk, but that’s kind of where Mark’s job comes in is when teachers do get accused of things. Who do they go to?

Christy Giblon: Right? Like, all of a sudden you’re just doing your job, you’re teaching your class, and you get this awful parent email accusing you of saying something awful. What do you do? I mean, most teachers are afraid to go to their principal or they’re like, great, I’m getting sent to hr. Why is HR calling me?

Christy Giblon: And the teachers that are members of our association call us and ask for help. That’s where Mark comes in. So I think it might be good for Mark to talk a little bit about —

Wendy Dau: That would be great.

Christy Giblon: What he does when teachers call about those things.

Mark Halls: Yeah. So I think one important thing to clarify is that, you know, there’s this perception, that’s out there among, I guess some groups, that there’s an adversarial relationship between a district and the association.

Mark Halls: And I couldn’t disagree more.

Wendy Dau: I agree.

Mark Halls: I think we work together. And in my role, typically, I work with teachers and with HR and Provo’s, HR team is absolutely phenomenal.

Wendy Dau: They’re amazing.

Mark Halls: Rebecca Boyd. Jason. I love you guys. They’re great. And, you know, we strive to keep things at the lowest level. So, you know, if a teacher were to come to me, the average conversation is like, Hey, you know, my principal did something that bugged me. Is that allowed?

Mark Halls: And I’ll be like, well, let’s look at the policy and yeah, it looks like that’s within their scope. Or, you know, that doesn’t seem quite right. Let’s– let’s go talk to the principal. Or let’s go talk to, HR. That’s another perception I disagree with.

Mark Halls: It was stated by politicians, that the associations cost the taxpayer or the school district money. I couldn’t disagree more, because we strive to keep things at such a low level. Whether it’s just a conversation with the teacher to explain it, a conversation with the principal or with HR, or even occasionally you, Wendy. There are a thousand steps before litigation whatever happen.

Mark Halls: And that’s just not how we work. And I think in the absence of that, you’d see, you’d see substantially more litigation,

Wendy Dau: I think we’re always trying to problem solve situations, right? And get everybody back in a space where they feel okay and that we can move forward and do what’s in the best interest of kids.

Wendy Dau: I mean, that’s the important thing here, right? And I think people sometimes forget that piece of it. Just because you’re seeking out some outside help with just making sure that I’m understanding what my role is. There is an interesting power dynamic that exists between teachers and principals, right?

Wendy Dau: Or between a superintendent and a principal, you know, whatever it is. Like it just provides a sounding board to work through this, to make sure that, that I’m understanding my role and we can all be in alignment, and working together.

Christy Giblon: Well and also, I mean, just with all the policy changes we’ve had to make. Oh. Because I mean–

Wendy Dau: So many!

Christy Giblon: Every year, like it just seems like we get bombed with all these different legislative changes. And some of them, I mean, some are okay, but some of ’em, I’m like, what? Like I don’t understand what they were thinking here, but the district is required to implement them.

Christy Giblon: And there’s no way that all of our teachers can know. All of those policies. I mean our policies are, enormous. I mean, even our administrators sometimes come to me with questions about policy.

Wendy Dau: Like, wait, what? Yeah.

Christy Giblon: And you know, there’s just no way people can know that automatically.

Christy Giblon: But I mean, that’s part of why we exist as an association. People contact us and say, Hey. I, am I gonna get in trouble for this or, or am I allowed to teach this? How can I help a student with this? And they come to us because we’re comfortable. Like coming to us as just asking a colleague, you’re not gonna go to your principal with a million questions about policy. How would principals know all of them? I actually filled a lot of questions from administrators that wanna talk to a teacher about something and they’ll ask me like, do you know what the policy is about this?

Christy Giblon: This district is really good about consulting with the association. Whenever we make policy change, then yeah, I might not know the policy by heart, but I can at least say, oh yeah, that came across my radar. Let me look it up really quick. And I’m just familiar with, the general role that policy plays in our district. If they had to email you or HR with every question like that–

Wendy Dau: well, please don’t do that.

Christy Giblon: Well, that would end up costing the taxpayers more money. Again, you’d have to hire additional personnel to work here just to answer people’s questions.

Christy Giblon: That’s right. That’s why, like Mark said, it kills me this idea that people are spreading, that we’re using taxpayer dollars and it’s like if we went away tomorrow. The cost of taxpayers would go up.

Wendy Dau: Yeah. well I agree. I think what else is really interesting is I feel like we work really hard to say, have you talked to your principal? Have you talked to this colleague that you’re having an issue with? It’s not like we immediately ratcheted up the chain and go in that direction. And I just think there’s that perception because that’s how a lot of society handles issues. When something happens in a school, instead of saying, Hey, maybe I’ll go talk to that teacher and find out what’s going on. Or I’ll go talk to that principal and find out what’s going on. It’s, No, I’m gonna post it on social media. That’s not really problem solving.

Wendy Dau: That’s an expose instead of a presuming positive intent. At some point, give people an opportunity to correct course, right? You know, I think that’s one of the things I really appreciate about working with, you as part of the association.

Wendy Dau: So tell us a little bit about what you feel like, district administrators and principals need to know, about teachers and the situations that they’re in that would help us to not only have, because we haven’t been in the classroom. I mean, I haven’t been in the classroom now for 12, 13 years?

Christy Giblon: That’s a long time. And things are very, very different. So, what are some things that we can help our administrators understand so that we can work more collaboratively and better with our teachers?

When you said 12 or 13 years, I was trying to think back. Where was I in the classroom 12 or 13 years ago?

Christy Giblon: I was at Dixon before it was Shoreline and, things have changed drastically in society. The issues we’re dealing with with kids are entirely different. And it always, it always frustrates me when people present ideas that worked 10 years ago.

Wendy Dau: Mm-hmm.

Christy Giblon: You know, like classroom management strategies and stuff that worked then. And I’m like, yeah, that’s cute–

Wendy Dau: — but this kid threw a desk, like it’s a little different.

Christy Giblon: Yeah. Well, and you know, society as a whole, I think, has been through a lot of trauma the last few years.

Christy Giblon: Kids are different now and adults are different now. The teachers graduating from college and just coming into the classroom now, like they’re entering this profession with an entirely. Different perspective than why when I entered the profession.

Christy Giblon: I mean, some of them weren’t even born when I entered the profession.

Wendy Dau: I know. I have to not think about that.

Wendy Dau: I– I love the ones that point out that they were like in my class at one point, I’m like, oh, great, thanks.

Wendy Dau: I’m glad to see you. But like also, I’ve gotta go buy some more hair dye. But you know, I think that that’s a big thing and just– society has always kind of glorified the teacher martyr role.

Wendy Dau: Mm-hmm.

Christy Giblon: Right? A lot of jokes about teachers and I mean, we’ve done it, like we’re guilty of it. Just like everybody else. Like this whole statement about oh shoot, I can’t remember the meme now about– we don’t teach for the income, we teach for the outcome and, that’s cute and stuff, but–

Wendy Dau: but also we need to live, but also I gotta buy my $8 eggs.

Christy Giblon: Yeah. So, there is that perception out there that like back in the 18 hundreds a teacher would run a one room schoolhouse and their whole role in the entire community was just, I’m a school teacher.

Wendy Dau: Mm-hmm.

Christy Giblon: Some of them back then weren’t even allowed to get married. Right. Their whole existence was to be a teacher. And I think some of our teachers are still kind of holding onto that. And then they’re trying to raise a family and they’re trying to exist in a very stressful world.

Christy Giblon: And so when people ask who cares if you have to stay for this extra meeting after contract hours? And well, yeah, I can have a meeting during their prep period. They can just take their work home to grade and those kinds of things. We just don’t have time in our world. Like I have to get my work done at work because I have to go home and work on stuff.

Wendy Dau: Right.

Christy Giblon: And I think sometimes we forget that like well, I added a meeting here, but then this per their department chair added a meeting here. And then also they’re running the school play. And this one’s running the science fair and this one’s tutoring kids after school. And I don’t think people realize how all of those things pile up and teachers want to please. Right. Like we go into this profession because we have big hearts and we care about the world and so we want to do all the things. And then teachers end up having mental breakdowns because they’re overwhelmed and then they end up in Mark’s office.

Christy Giblon: Right Mark?

Mark Halls: Yeah.

Christy Giblon: I mean Mark should get props for his role as a counselor.

Mark Halls: I’m not a licensed counselor for the record–

Wendy Dau: But you are a counselor by default sometimes.

Mark Halls: I’m always willing to listen.

Christy Giblon: And he has talked a lot of teachers into staying into the profession.

Mark Halls: I mean, yeah. It just gets so overwhelming sometimes and I think every year has gotten harder, and I know I haven’t had the longest career yet.

Mark Halls: I probably have had the shortest career in the room, but even in the short time I’ve been an educator, it’s changed so much. And it’s burdensome on teachers. I think, mental health is a huge, issue among, among our teachers just with the increasing expectations. They feel attacked by society at large, and it weighs very heavily on them.

Mark Halls: Kind of going back to what Christy said, they still have this archetype in their head. The reason they got into the profession is they want to help every student and be there for every student and be the perfect teacher. And while that’s an incredible goal, and yes, we should, we can and need to help every student.

Mark Halls: It’s a heavy burden.

Wendy Dau: One of the things that I think, as I was talking with one of my assistant superintendents today, he was talking about how often we pull principals out of buildings, and I was like, I don’t feel like we pull ’em out that much.

Wendy Dau: He goes, yeah, but you don’t realize how much other people are pulling them out. Yeah. And I thought about that and so that kind of makes me think about what you were saying, Christy, about, well, the principal doesn’t think it’s a big deal that I have a faculty meeting, but they don’t realize that this person called a meeting over here of all of the 10th grade English teachers or whatever it is.

Wendy Dau: And we’re also trying to be human beings at the same time, right? We’re parents and we’re partners, and spouses and just human beings. Trying to live a full life. I think sometimes we forget about that. And so that might be a way, and just think about every time we’re creating that ask, is it something that could be done maybe in a different way than through a meeting?

Wendy Dau: Like, I used to do emails and then, like, I would do a hidden question in it. If they answered the question, then they got a candy bar or something.

Christy Giblon: You know, you should start putting those in your employee video cast.

Wendy Dau: Isn’t that a good idea?

Christy Giblon: I’m the one that’s up at five o’clock in the morning on the train.

Wendy Dau: Yes, you are watching them.

Christy Giblon: So I’ll be like, yeah, I want the price.

Wendy Dau: I get it. So I think that’s one thing. What are some other things that we can, even as high as district leadership, just be aware of that’s happening. Because I do think even sometimes just giving grace, like recognizing I went home last Friday and I was so exhausted.

Wendy Dau: I’m like, I’m not working at all. I’m not opening my computer, I’m not looking at a single email. And I felt so terrible. But I shouldn’t feel terrible about that, right? Oh, the guilt. Yeah.

Christy Giblon: That’s the education thing the guilt, and not being able to turn it off. Because even if I don’t check my email, I’m still laying awake at night thinking about, oh yeah, this kid asked me to fix his instrument and I forgot, and, oh yeah, I am really worried about this kid. He hasn’t come to school in a week. I wonder what happened to him and how am I gonna get through to that kid that’s failing my class? I’ve tried everything and I can’t get ahold of their parents. I don’t think people realize how much time we lay awake at night just thinking about those things.

Christy Giblon: Even if I don’t check my email, that’s still going on in the background.

Wendy Dau: Well, and while you’re commuting, work, just infiltrates all of it.

Christy Giblon: I think society needs to understand, we also have to have understanding partners and family members.

Christy Giblon: Yes. That’s true. My poor boyfriend, he’s not into teaching. He does computer drafting and he asked me how my day went, and I’m just like, well, this happened and this happened and I still have to grade this. And then my computer went down and, this kid said this to me I think he’s always like, I’m sorry I asked, I think we just need outlets and, like you said, we need grace, just understanding that if you pile all this one more thing on my plate. I’m gonna get fired for smacking you. No, just kidding.

Christy Giblon: But there’s always one more thing that, that we’re trying to do, and one more program that we’re adding and one more expectation.

Christy Giblon: That’s the ask for all levels that administration– school, through district administration. It’s okay to like decide we’re gonna do something new, but if we’re gonna do something new, what can we take off the plate to make it reasonable?

Christy Giblon: How can we balance it out? Props to my principal at Shoreline. He’s super great about saying, you know, we had a faculty meeting scheduled today, but we don’t have any business that I couldn’t just put an email. So here’s an email. Go home on time today. Thank you. Have a good day. Every time I get one of those, I’m like, oh, that’s like better than a candy bar.

Wendy Dau: Right. So just kind of understanding and also reading the faculty who’s kind of reading the room in that process.

Wendy Dau: For sure. Well, and on the flip side, I mean, we do like to know what’s going on. I really enjoy your employee video cast every week and there’s sometimes things that are on my to-do list, like, this is on the list for things we have to meet with Wendy about.

Wendy Dau: And then I watch your video cast. I’m like, oh, check you already addressed that. Thank you. Teachers do like to know what’s going on. We will get complaints if there’s not enough information, yeah. But just knowing that we can get it through an email or a video cast or knowing where to find the information on the website is so helpful to us.

Wendy Dau: That’s good. As I’ve been out on listening tours at different faculties, there’s different things that come up. Some of the things that come up frequently, class sizes come up frequently, and that’s why– and the last video cast tried to explain like how much money that costs to lower class sizes even by one student.

Wendy Dau: I hear all the time kindergarten aids, I don’t know if you hear that a lot. I hear all about kindergarten and then when you go into a kindergarten class full of 29 5 year olds, you’re like, now I know I hear about kindergarten. It is a totally different world.

Wendy Dau: What are some of those things that you’re hearing from your membership, that we need to be keeping in mind as district leaders, as school leaders about how to, go into our budget? Priorities for the coming year? Well, I mean, class size is always a top priority. We talk a lot about how a lot of problems can be solved in the classroom by building relationships.

Christy Giblon: Like that’s a key to being a good teacher. But I mean, like you said, 29 kindergartners, like that’s 29 pairs of shoes that you gotta deal with, tie, and oh my gosh, I can’t even– I’m having stress just thinking about that. I have almost 200 middle schoolers and–

Wendy Dau: That gives me stress thinking about that too.

Christy Giblon: And they have noise makers, right?

Wendy Dau: You hand them something that actually makes noise.

Christy Giblon: I know. It’s so great. Yay. But anyway, even if you can physically manage it, right? I teach bands, so we want big classes, right? I’m out recruiting kids, I wanna have big classes and I can physically manage some pretty big groups.

Christy Giblon: I don’t know if you guys were at the Provo Band Bash this year. That’s where we play with the sixth grade and the middle school and high school. The microphone wasn’t working and we were in the gym at Provo High I was like, whatever, I got this. We can’t delay. I’m tired of waiting.

Christy Giblon: So I’m just yelling to a whole gym full of people and people were listening and being quiet. I can silence an entire gym.

Wendy Dau: Like you’ve got math skills, Christy.

Christy Giblon: Yeah, I can handle all these people, but again, I can’t give all of those kids what they need. I can corral them.

Christy Giblon: There used to be a legislator that was always like, oh, well if we can just give them all computers, then you can have 40 kids in a class and have them all on a computer. And that’s fine to a point. But just because they all have a computer and they’re all sitting quietly in your room does not mean that they’re all learning.

Christy Giblon: Kids have more needs now than they did in the past. They don’t have less. And so it’s just kind of counterintuitive that education funding keeps declining when we need that one-on-one time with kids so much.

Christy Giblon: How are you gonna have any kind of one-on-one time with 29 kindergartners? We need that. Another big ask is, classroom aids. I can manage those 29 kids if I have somebody in the classroom with me. And we used to have more of them, we used to get more federal funding for our schools and now that’s been going away. It doesn’t look good in the future.

Christy Giblon: With– if they’re gonna eliminate the Department of Education, I don’t think people understand what was happening. The US Department of Education gave us funding for things like students with special needs.

Christy Giblon: And you think it’s scary with 29 kindergartners? Try having a large class of kids that also. Have special needs. They have disabilities and, physical needs that someone has to provide for, and if we lose that funding from the federal government, that’s one more thing we have to find money to provide.

Wendy Dau: That’s right. When I was talking with some of the other superintendents, one of the things they talked about was. The funding probably isn’t going to go away, it’ll go through the state. But the concern that many of us expressed was how do– like right now, the federal government puts so many restrictions on how that money can be spent.

Wendy Dau: So it immediately gets funneled to the district for the purpose of supporting these students. Right. Is that going change? If I see that it still is funneling in the same way, then I’m going to be great. Like, that’s okay. But I am gonna be concerned if I start to see that number or they’re like, well, we’re gonna take off this amount to go help with this project over here, or this special program or something. Then it worries me in terms of how do we provide what our students need.

Christy Giblon: Well, I always think it’s interesting when they say, oh, you’re gonna get the same money.

Christy Giblon: It’s just gonna come a different way. And that sounds good on the surface. But it never really plays out that way. You know, it’s like we were talking earlier about that 4% in the WPU. Like, that sounds really great, but when you think about all of the things that should be coming from other sources that are not now, and they’re supposed to be coming from the state and the state’s still only funding the WPU at a minimal level.

Christy Giblon: Yeah, the money’s coming through somewhere, but then they pull money away from the state pool and act like they’re still giving us the same amount, but it’s really not right.

Wendy Dau: Well, and just like you said, when you start adding up increased costs for all of these different things, it isn’t gonna equate to a 4% increase in what this looks like.

Wendy Dau: Maybe if we’re lucky enough to maintain the current state that we have, that’s really where I think a lot of people don’t understand and that’s why I think it’s so important that, districts and teachers are working together to figure out where are the best places to put this money?

Wendy Dau: What does this look like? What do we need to do? What are our priorities here?

Mark Halls: I think that’s one of the things that teachers really appreciate about the associations, are that we, we allow them just to teach. Because every teacher does not have the time, like Christy spoke out early to know every policy.

Mark Halls: Christy doesn’t have the time. Or to have a thorough understanding of education, finance, and such teachers just want to be in their classroom. And we allow them to do that. And, you know, we feel like we can represent them — in conversations with you.

Mark Halls: Well, like you just said, you know, you’re asking what do teachers need? We know those are expensive things, right? Mm-hmm. Like I, I have a lot of experience with negotiating contracts, when we get the numbers from the state, I already kind of have a mental picture of like, okay, I think it’s realistic for us to ask for this.

Mark Halls: Yeah. And, and it’s not gonna be realistic for us to ask for this other thing. And you know, if, again, if the districts didn’t have an association to bargain with on that, then they just have. You know, six or 700, I forget how many teachers we have now, just knocking down your door, like why aren’t you funding this?

Mark Halls: And nobody is explaining to them, this is why the budget priorities are what they are. Yes, we did hear you and we are pushing back to get what you actually need. I mean, I can’t even imagine if there was nobody to help bargain that you’d have to hire another HR person to deal with everyone coming in and being like, why aren’t you funding smaller classes and why can’t I get an aid? They come to us for that and we can explain it to them and they realize, oh, it’s not just the evil district holding money back.

Wendy Dau: Right, it feels like, these people were at the table so they understood, and asked all the right questions and knew what was going on and can explain those things. That’s very powerful. What are some of the other things that you’re hearing from teachers that are really important that might not be salary related– but that are also beyond instructional aids and kindergarten aids– that are things that just help with their working conditions?

Wendy Dau: I’ll give you a quick example. I was just over in an AP government class at Timpview and one of the things that came up was the students feel like their classes are getting easier they said, I wonder if it’s because sometimes teachers don’t feel like they can hold to these rigorous standards because parents will push back I said, I think sometimes that happens.

Wendy Dau: I think a teacher gets burned in a particular situation, and so they’re just like, well, never again. I’m not gonna do that. It was really good for me to be reminded of that. ’cause that’s something we can help with on the district office side to say we will have your back as you’re implementing this rigor.

Wendy Dau: Right. Teachers need to know that when someone goes up the chain to complain about it, we can say, no, this is what we’re about. Yeah. We want to see this in classrooms. This is awesome.

Christy Giblon: I don’t think people understand the value in just that.

Christy Giblon: I mean, third term just ended for us. Last week. Yay.

Wendy Dau: The longest term ever.

Christy Giblon: Yay. March is our favorite month. Oh, no. But, you know, I’m pretty flexible about due dates with assignments in my class, and it’s banned, right? I don’t have a ton of assignments, but at the end of the term.

Christy Giblon: There’s a final due date. Yes, there is. And it’s not the last day of the term. No. ’cause I have to have time to actually grade all of your late work that you turned in on the very last possible day, last possible second. Some terms are better than others, but I still get these parents sending me emails about how dare you not accept my kids’ work.

Christy Giblon: And they’re emailing me at 10 o’clock on the last day of the term. I’m like, well, you know, it’s your fault that they have a B instead of an A. And I’m like, no. It’s not my fault. And I have the confidence to set a due date because I know that my administration will back me up.

Christy Giblon: Good. And you know, and they’re not gonna come to me and be like, oh well these five kids, you still have to accept their late work. Even though it’s like a month late and you told them every single day for a week right before your due date. Just that help with talking to parents and helping parents understand that this teacher has 200 kids late work to grade.

Christy Giblon: I’m sorry that yours didn’t turn theirs in on time.

Wendy Dau: Last night we met with a group of, about 30, parents. We formed a parent advisory committee to get a sense of what, students experiences are in school and what kinds of things we need to systemically fix.

Wendy Dau: And one of the things that they talked about was, holding kids accountable, like they want help as parents holding their kids accountable. I do get some parents that are like, oh, I see that was the deadline. Thank you. Yep, totally get it. It’s just about how do we figure that out so that we’re communicating effectively, but also teaching a life skill, which is you’re gonna have to balance a lot of things as an adult.

Wendy Dau: And yeah, sometimes you’re gonna miss a deadline. It happens. And there might be a consequence as a result of that. And that’s okay. It’s just one of those things we have to work through.

Christy Giblon: Well, another one of the hard to measure things that teachers need right now is support with behavior.

Christy Giblon: Yeah. I appreciate you guys have been working with us on that. The first day you came in and we met with you, I’m like, we will fix this. That’s probably the number one reason that we deal with advocacy cases a teacher is burnout because they’ve been dealing with horrific behavior problems and don’t feel like they’re getting support.

Christy Giblon: Or a teacher has been dealing with it, dealing with it, and then finally they lose it. We get to deal with that in all of its stages. Mark loves those cases, right? It’s gotten increasingly worse, I would say the last five or six years.

Christy Giblon: And, that that’s one of the things that, you know, it probably is gonna cost some money to allocate the resources to have support behaviors in classrooms. And it’s not just the teachers that need support. Our students need support.

Wendy Dau: Yeah, that’s right.

Christy Giblon: That’s usually the ask, right?

Christy Giblon: If we’re having problems with a student in a classroom, we’re putting a referral out saying, please help me. This kid has needs that are beyond my skill level.

Wendy Dau: We need a better continuum of support for behavior and figuring out, how can we help support a student explicitly gives them, you know, teach them different things, work with them.

Wendy Dau: It takes time people and money to be able to do that. But it would make a big difference. For teachers.

Christy Giblon: I mean, when teachers are asking for smaller class sizes and aids, that’s an underlying issue.

Christy Giblon: They’re asking for it again, like, I can manage my 45 kids with noisemakers in a room, but if one of them’s off the rails, I need help with that. I can’t deal with that forever.

Wendy Dau: That’s an excellent point. One of the questions I’ve been getting on listening tours is, we feel like there’s a really good relationship between the district and the association right now between leadership and teachers.

Wendy Dau: How do I know that that’s going to continue? That’s a question that I get. And I’ve tried to say, well, as long as I’m the superintendent, we have our district leaders, and our school board members, that group really cares deeply. And we don’t always get it right. I’m never going to try to claim that I’m always getting it right or that we’re always getting it right.

Wendy Dau: But, there is a desire to get it right and to try to course correct but how do we. I think that’s one of the things that people have said, well, everything’s working fine in Provo. And I’m like, yeah, but that’s all contingent upon this personality group that’s working well together.

Wendy Dau: And part of the reason why you have an association is to make sure that relationship continues. What are some things that we can do as district leaders or even our school board to help teachers know that we are gonna do everything we can to continue. That positive relationship other than me just saying it over and over and over again.

Christy Giblon: I think we’ve already been discussing how we can make this work in a different political situation since we’ve had some legislation passed this year that limits what districts can do and that, I mean, that’s really frustrating ’cause again, like you said, we have districts like us that have this really good, you know, everybody on board relationship between the district the school board and the teacher’s association.

Christy Giblon: And so you’re gonna pass a law saying that we can’t work that way anymore. I couldn’t believe that. But we’ve already seen the effects in some other districts where as soon as the district thought, well, we’re not required to work with the association anymore, some of them have already turned on them.

Christy Giblon: And the bill hasn’t even gone into effect. And some districts are like, well, good, we don’t have to negotiate with you anymore. And you know, again, that is the fear, right? Like currently things in Provo are good, but we’re a new superintendent or a school board election away from that changing.

Christy Giblon: Yeah. And it hasn’t always been as good as it is now. I’ve been doing this work in the association almost since I started working here, and it hasn’t always been as good as it is now. Like, I’m so proud of the relationship that we have and how we’ve all worked together and there’s no guarantees on that, like you said, but I think one thing that we could do is just make sure that as we’re passing new policies and working on new contracts for teachers, there is language in them that has some long-term effects. Some long-term protections, like our personnel policy is pretty good right now. As far as helping teachers and I think anything that the school board can do to help solidify those policies.

Christy Giblon: we can probably come up with policy language to make sure that if for some reason, you know, who knows, you know, like you’re fabulous, right? Like maybe next week you become the state superintendent.

Wendy Dau: No, no.

Christy Giblon: And we have a new superintendent that doesn’t feel the same way.

Christy Giblon: If we had policy language that states–

Wendy Dau: –that’s a great point.

Christy Giblon: That this is the way that we handle things. Like I know this year we worked together on A procedure that we’re using internally with the association, if a teacher has a complaint, step one, you work it out with your principal.

Christy Giblon: Step two, you call in your association rep and we help you work it out with your principal. Right? Right. Like there’s all these steps before the district even has to deal with it. Maybe if we could put some of those things–

Wendy Dau: –That’s a great idea.

Christy Giblon: Into board policy. So, there is this chain that doesn’t start with, well, if you have a problem you call HR.

Wendy Dau: I think the other thing that people don’t realize too, and this has been my experience, since I’ve been an administrator, is that people often blame associations for, why there might be an educator that is underperforming, and I disagree with that wholeheartedly. Oh, agreed.

Wendy Dau: Yeah. Because as a principal, I’ve always felt like, and– and I’ve worked in a couple of different districts and I’ve always actually felt like the association has actually helped my teacher be like, you either need to step it up or this isn’t for you. Like these expectations are really reasonable.

Wendy Dau: Maybe speak a little bit to that.

Mark Halls: Yeah, I mean, from a teacher’s first day at, at provost school district or, or most school districts in the state, there’s some interaction with their union president at Provo Christy, gets up and says things that the district. Can’t to a certain extent.

Mark Halls: You know what I mean? Yeah. And much stronger phraseology. Like, here’s what you will do and here’s what you will never do.

Wendy Dau: It’s been pretty great.

Christy Giblon: That’s my favorite presentation.

Mark Halls: There are a lot of conversations I have with educators and with members that the school district has a government employer.

Mark Halls: Whether it’s ways they can improve or maybe a personality, trait that they could work on, that would be tricky for an employer. It would be tricky for an employer to be like.

Wendy Dau: That’s a good point.

Mark Halls: So there’s a lot that we do and sometimes.

Mark Halls: It comes to the point that as an association, because we hold our teachers to such high standards, that we make a recommendation that maybe this isn’t the career for you, maybe it’s time to look for something else.

Wendy Dau: And that’s something we can’t say.

Wendy Dau: We have to keep working with the teacher to try to help them through it unless there’s something obviously really egregious. I feel like you all want to make sure that we have the best educators standing in front of our kids not only because we care about our kids, but also because we care about our profession.

Wendy Dau: Every single individual kind of represents the entity as a whole even if we don’t like that.

Christy Giblon: Some of the concerns that teachers bring to us are related to that. Sometimes we have teachers that will bring an advocacy request to us that, yeah, this one teacher on my grade level team is a slacker and I’m tired of doing all their work for them, and I’ve tried talking to my principal and they won’t do anything about it.

Christy Giblon: And so then they come to us and we have to help them work it out. Sometimes we facilitate a conversation between the teachers and help them figure out what, you know, how can we work better together as a team. And sometimes we go talk to the principal and principals are like, oh.

Christy Giblon: I had no idea that they were having this conflict, and I will take care of it. Yep. And sometimes, the teacher that’s being problematic is one of our members too, and we have to have a conversation about, you know, placing an undue burden on your colleagues.

Christy Giblon: So I mean, we have to handle a lot of delicate situations and I think most teachers would appreciate us coming to them first and being like, you have to fix this. Because, you know, we– we don’t want you to get fired.

Christy Giblon: So please fix it before it gets to that point.

Wendy Dau: Yeah. I also appreciate that we have a working relationship, so we know what are the concerns that are coming up with teachers, because I feel like there’s been a few of those things where we’ve been able to solve some of that before it’s– I think that’s our new strategy, right? Is like, let’s solve this before it gets to a point where it feels like it can’t be solved.

Wendy Dau: And really trying to work together through things. I’ve really appreciated that.

Christy Giblon: We appreciate that you try to be proactive about that too. No superintendent wants a school to blow up on that and no principal wants that either. Most of the principals in this district are also really great when we go work with them. Mark goes in and talks to them– we always start the year with this intent. We’re gonna go just have a, Hey, how’s it going? Conversation with the principals. And then before we can get around to all the schools, something blows up and we have to deal with stuff.

Christy Giblon: Yeah. But really, we want principals to feel comfortable when we come in their building. And for us to be able to come in and just say, Hey, like, let’s work together to solve a problem. Principals don’t wanna end up in HR either.

Christy Giblon: They’d rather solve it with us. That’s right. And most of the time that works. because most of our principals here are really great. They care about their teachers too. And they also were like, please tell me if something’s brewing in my school I don’t know about, please tell me so I can fix it.

Wendy Dau: Any last thoughts about how we can move forward in this really weird reality that we’re in?

Christy Giblon: Well, I think it’s gonna take everybody, right? Our whole community has to be involved if we wanna have great education in Provo or, you know, in our country.

Christy Giblon: I mean, everybody, like if businesses wanna have good employees then they also need to be putting pressure on the legislature to, to fund education and, and maybe looking around, how can we help? We’re a big company and we wanna hire smart people. How can we help our local schools?

Christy Giblon: And you know, parents, I would say 95% of the parents that I deal with are that way they’re already that way. Even if they’re mad, they’re like, Ooh, my kid came home and I found out they’re failing your class. What do I have to do to make them get all their work done?

Christy Giblon: Most parents are supportive, but it’s gonna take a village. Everybody has to own part of it.

Wendy Dau: I think it’s really important to help people realize what a huge percentage of Utah’s population supports public education.

Wendy Dau: Because there is this– there is this view that it’s not supported and that isn’t a majority.

Wendy Dau: We have over 90% of our families choosing our public education system. And it’s because we have exceptional educators, and people who care about our kids and care about the future of our community. We need to remember that as we’re going through things.

Christy Giblon: I hate to get too political, but we do need everybody’s help to make sure that when we elect public officials, that all levels– like the city level and the state level and the national level, that we make sure that they understand that that’s what their constituents want a strong public education system.

Christy Giblon: Oh, yeah, that’s a high priority for Utahns, even the ones who don’t have kids. If a community member is listening and they wanna know how they can help, that’s one way.

Wendy Dau: Going back to my history roots, I really, truly believe that a democratic society rests on a public education system and making it available and maximizing those opportunities for students.

Wendy Dau: When that gets chipped away at or attacked, then I think we, I think we lose the opportunity to interact with people who have different perspectives and to be creative in, are problem solving. All all of those pieces I think get whittled away at and that threatens, a society that should be representative of many different views and ideas and solutions for how we fix things.

Christy Giblon: Agreed.

Wendy Dau: Thank you so much for being on our podcast. This was really great to talk with both of you.

Christy Giblon: Thanks for inviting us. Sorry, Mark, I talk too much, we should invent more questions next time and make Mark talk more.

Mark Halls: I don’t think anybody wants that.

Wendy Dau: That’s not true. Thank you.

Wendy Dau: Thank you for joining me for this week’s episode of What’s Up With the Sup. As always, all episodes will be posted on the district website, YouTube, and anywhere you get your podcast. If you have any topics or questions you would like us to discuss on the podcast, please email us at podcast@provo.edu. And don’t forget to join us again next week for another new episode of What’s Up with the Sup.

Wendy Dau: Have a great weekend everyone.