Are You Technical Enough For This Question?

(recorded February 24, 2026)

Episode Sponsor: Linewize

Join Marc, Rachel, and our guests:

Nicole Andrell, Technology Supervisor at La Center School District

and

Terrisa Reeves, Territory Director, Linewize

_________________________________
We chat this episode about Women in Tech, AI, webfilters, safety, and security for the humans and tech in our districts. We are thrilled to have Linewize's Terrisa join as our first full-episode sponsor partner. 

*Oh, and Marc finally learned how to pronouce Ilani. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

But we can talk about whatever you want. There is literally, you go where you want to go, and we'll go with you.

SPEAKER_05 0:05

Yeah. So let's get this thing started officially. And Mark, I think we're just going to start with all four of us tonight.

SPEAKER_00 0:12

I mean, that sounds great. So hi, Rachel. Hi, Mark. How are you? And where are you?

SPEAKER_05 0:19

Well, as my esteemed colleagues here know now, I am in Albuquerque, New Mexico at the K-12.6 conference. That's the cybersecurity group led by Doug Levin. April Mardok and I are on the opening keynote panel. Super grateful for this organization for a number of years now. Lots of our friends around here. I saw Oliver and Steven from Cybernet as I was racing through to get back to the hotel for this podcast recording, and also Mac from Beaverton. And hello to the three of you as I was high-bying, trying to get back to the hotel on time, which I in fact did not.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

So you're telling me that cybersecurity is so important that you have your own conferences now.

SPEAKER_05 1:04

We do.

SPEAKER_00 1:04

That was a terrible joke. Sorry.

SPEAKER_05 1:08

It's like you're a coach on Ted Lasso and we have to bring you up to speed with like the technology world and the challenges.

SPEAKER_00 1:14

All I know is football. That is it. But a great Seahawks win. Great Seahawks win.

SPEAKER_05 1:20

That was a great Seahawks win.

SPEAKER_00 1:22

Um all right. Well, we have a special. Well, I probably shouldn't be introducing this. I'm gonna just sit back and say nothing.

SPEAKER_05 1:29

Well, just a second, Mark. So how are you, Mark?

SPEAKER_00 1:31

I'm good. I'm good. We're fighting a cold. It was a terrific uh weekend before this because I went skiing in Colorado, which was terrific. One Terissa Reeves hung out with us one night while we were there. And we had a lot of fun. It was really, really fun, and that's where I think I got this cold.

SPEAKER_05 1:45

Well, mute yourself, and I'm gonna introduce Terissa and we're gonna talk line-wise and welcome our sponsor and super happy to have Nicole here as well. And it's good to be back for an episode of Plugged In. It's been over a month since we've recorded an episode, almost two months, which is ridiculous. But it turns out that the holidays, January and February, were hard to schedule with a lot of our friends and colleagues. So grateful to everybody for being here tonight.

SPEAKER_00 2:12

I think it's worth, I think it's worth noting, too, that this is our first episode where we're inviting a sponsor to sit with us through the whole thing. We are so this is a little bit different tonight. So again, welcome Terissa and LineWise to the whole conversation this evening.

SPEAKER_05 2:28

Thank you. And if we were going to have a sponsor sit with us the whole time, Terissa, you're like at the very top part of that list. So, Terissa, tell us about LineWise. I got to meet you a number of years ago and am a happy LineWise customer, and we have a region that is using the Linewise filtering solutions as well as Classwise, which I think is with all due respect and apologies to your filter team. The Classwise team would probably be the one that we'd bring donuts to if we brought donuts to Linewise.

SPEAKER_02 3:00

I would too. If they were all local, they'd be getting free breakfast from me all the time.

SPEAKER_05 3:04

Yep. So take it away. Tell us a little bit about Linewise. Thanks for your sponsorship this evening and for spending time with us when you're also at a security conference.

SPEAKER_02 3:13

Yeah, so funny. So you're in Albuquerque and I'm in Phoenix. We're both going to be doing a couple of panel sessions separately, but kind of in the same space, which I think is interesting. And I was asked to be a part of this summit when someone came up to me and said, We want you to be a part of a panel at a cybersecurity summit. I went, but we're not in cybersecurity, but we kind of are. There's a little bit of a blend of the two when you think about it. So I'm excited for the conversation. I'm going to have a couple of districts with me. And uh our moderator has been gracious to supply me with some, you know, look look what's ahead questions. So I don't look like a deer in the headlights when I'm, you know, on stage in front of a 300 people. So that's great. So, Rachel, would it be helpful? Maybe start with my background, or would you like to kick it off with the linewise?

SPEAKER_05 4:02

Yeah. So, what what brought you to linewise? Because linewise, maybe I'm wrong on this, but I feel like they're a newer provider in the filter space, not like 20 years old, correct?

SPEAKER_02 4:14

Correct. So, yeah. So I would consider them a newer kid on the block in industry speak, 2014, to be honest, and not even starting in the United States. They actually started as a parent app in Australia and quickly realized that there's a need outside of that to develop and and bring together products and technology and innovation to the filter space that was missing in the industry. So, fast forward, we're in can't believe it, 2026, in almost 20% of school districts in the US. And I'm proud to be a part of supporting a lot of our districts in the West and the Pac Northwest, including you, Rachel, and Nicole. And so it's a really phenomenal story. And part of the reason I joined the company, actually, quickly on my background, um, I am an accidental entry into tech, to be honest. So my background was I went to college to be a teacher, played softball in college, thought I was going to be an educator and teach biology. I actually have a minor in chemistry and can't use it anymore. But then decided I was not meant to be a teacher, swore off children even. Now for children later, here I am working in education tech, but actually started as a reseller. I was doing things like selling telephony backups, switching routing, even putting together maps for global for school districts and in Kansas, believe it or not. And started talking to a lot of districts in that role. And the reason I became passionate about it was because there's a lot of guys in that role. And I was like, I was the kind of personality that said, I'm gonna be that one sales girl in the role because I think I can do this, and kind of learned inherently through that. Found another filtering company and started reselling for that. And then that's kind of where it was born. I did do a short stint outside of education in 2015 through 2023 in mortgage tech, um, leveraging what I've learned in the industry and supporting districts and kind of pivoting that knowledge into literally lending, residential lending and helping loan officers pivot. Same issues, different territory. And then I had a good friend of mine who is at LineWise now who came to me and said, Look, we need you back, and you need to take a look at what LineWise has been doing. And so a bunch of recon later, I fell in love with the passion and the background and the mission of Linewise. And in 2023, August, to be exact, I joined the company. So I'll be celebrating three years this August. So very, very excited. And I can tell you a little bit more now about a little bit about more about Linewise in detail. That'd be great. So I think, you know, first and foremost, I've listened to every single podcast. Let's just put that out there on the recorded call. And I always start with a conversation similar to how you guys do. It's like, oh, how we've met each other. And everyone on the podcast is like, I love ACPE. I love the way it networks and brings people together. It's also part of the conversation today. Spoiler alert. But when we think about these other shows like RTM, COSIN, those regional conferences, right? We hear a lot of the same thing. And I think that's part of the power line-wise brings to the table and the interactions that we're hearing from a lot of our districts. So we hear a lot of the same things. What districts are we having challenges with, that is changing. The challenges back in the early 2000s. Yes, I've aged myself, and filtering is overblock, just block it all. We need to be CIPA compliant and forget everything else. And now we have kiddos that are growing up at this digital world. I came out of the non-PC age. The internet did not exist when I graduated high school, right? So it's it's a big shift in how we're looking at technology and the way LineWise is looking at it is how are we really supporting our districts in this evolving space and age of the digital realm? We're actually focused on digital learning, but we're also by doing so, we're creating a lot of complications, and our kids are smart. So as that evolves, keeping kids safe online, I think we're all in agreement there, the game's still changing. When we think about how we're representing you in your roles as IT leaders, curriculum, Nicole, your role specifically is there is such a thing as overblocking. So LineWise is a filtering, classroom management, student safety, and data analytics company. But we look actually at it as a trifecta of everything we do is around the student. So while we do amazing products, we have to remember everything we do revolves around our kiddos. And that includes outside of our walls of the school district. These are our parents, our community, and how we're reflecting and bringing that back into the house. So big things we're hearing about AI chatbots, student safety, cyberbullying. We know their kiddos are smart and they're keeping their IT on their toes with filter workarounds. They are using curriculum tools to get around the filter, which is shocking, right? Shock and awe. So not not shocking at all. Yeah. So using sites, using docs, using creative search terms, you name it, right? Getting around the safe search filters, Chromebooks, they're going to the OS level and trying to find workarounds. They're getting through the things. And so how LineWise supports that is we're saying, hey, we don't want to overblock and keep our IT out of the filter. That's what we want to do. In the classroom, allowing our teachers to have the autonomy to do the things they need to do in the classroom without sending that help desk ticket, right? Without running into a partial blocked site, getting the access where it needs to happen. So better control, right? And of course, like I mentioned before, partnering with our parents. That's becoming a big topic. Quick side note I was a board member of a very tiny school district for three years with two school buildings, literally. Our IT guy was the math teacher and the baseball coach. So I came from that world. So when we think about that, they don't have to only think about how they're managing kiddos and staff and admins and stakeholders. Now we've got the parents. Those are the ones that are coming to board meetings saying, hey, we're advocating as a district to send a device home with our kiddos, but parents are screaming back saying we need a little bit of control too and understanding what this technology is in our kiddos' hands. And they're they're falling behind. I'm one of them and I'm in the tech space. So and I can be very, very honest about that. So when we think about the overblocking problem, I want to bring a story to the table. District buddy of mine, I was showing him a sites.google doc sites doc. I did not know that this site is nationally known. It is a chock full of gaming sites that kiddos are sharing with their friends, and then their friends are sharing it with their friends. And it's these workarounds to bypass the filter. A traditional URL filter is no longer enough. We are a full path filter for those non-texts, we see everything, right? But it's not enough. Our IT guys are and gals are still creating those custom block lists and they're a mile long. So how line-wise has solved for that is we've taken image blurring and video blurring, we attack that, but now we have text analysis. And the text analysis is a game changer because what it is doing is it's now in real time scanning the actual page of that site and making blocking decisions on the page level rather than just the URL. It is a game changer. Who's heard the term whack-a-mole? I can't tell you how many times I've heard that. But the whack-a-mole game has now become a lot more mitigated because of the text analysis function. And this is how LineWise partners, because we're thinking about things inherently as our districts are still coming asking for those solutions. It's a white flag of I can't control these areas. Think about new sites, Forbes.com, kids are still able to access Forbes, but somewhere hidden in that page, there's free B VPNs, the top 25 free VPNs out there. We're actively blocking at the page level. This is a game changer for our districts. Obviously, we're on class-wise and classroom management. We're doing the things our teachers are needing to do, inherently built in together, obviously providing the support to allow teachers to override content, applications, maybe some esports, maybe some AI chats, right, and other things to help them be more autonomous in their classroom to do the things they need to do, while also understanding in a state testing role that you may have those users that need that extra time. But then when classroom management is taking screenshots, that becomes another problem. So by removing that piece and hiding that kiddo, but allowing that class to take place without the teacher having to worry about it, these are the little things. I'm a little things person that make a difference in the classroom. And the other area that we really focus is where our monitor student safety conversation comes in. And Rachel, you and I talked about this quite a bit, but this is where that 24-7 human moderation comes in and it's critical. A lot of states are starting to implement legislation, they're starting to have real conversations, but the problem starts with the people. Our districts don't have the people or the resources to take on phone calls at 2 a.m. on a Saturday. Or they don't have time to sift through alerts to identify a kiddo at risk. And that's where our team comes in. Taking a look at contextually what that information is to reduce false positives, to have a team actually look at the detail before prompting an interaction or intervention and a phone call. These are mitigating the needs for our district staff and focus on the things that matter, kind of remove that noise, but get to a kiddo before it becomes an issue. And I think when we think about the workload, we have to think about our parents. I have a district here in Arizona and the CIO has a parent on speed dial because they happen to be neighbors and they're using the parent app, but they don't need to be the IT for the parents either. And our parent app and our community portal is powerful because it's supplying our parents with the ability to set filter policies at home for those personal and school managed devices. A district can now say, hey parent, after 5 p.m., we allow YouTube in the district, but I'm not a YouTube parent. At my home, we don't do YouTube. Allow the parent the autonomy to lock down that filter even more on those devices, whether they be school owned or personally owned. Set those time limits, take a look at the history, see what their kid was doing, and become involved because we're all digitally focused to digitally forward today. Let's take that and allow our parents to become a part of that, as well as offer all those resources, education and guidance. This is curated by experts in and part of linewise. We're talking clinical psychologists, X SROs, principals, administrators of school districts that are part of this journey and supplying resources, training, FAQs for our parents and staff, even to help them understand what this technology is coming home. And quite frankly, this is advocating for our districts as you decide what your digital infrastructure looks like in your district. So that's a little bit about LineWise, and I hope that helps. And if there's any questions, I'd love to answer them.

SPEAKER_05 15:45

Well, I'm going to jump in here for a minute because Teresa, I think Mark knows this story. I think I've told this story maybe on the podcast. So I'll be brief. But I actually discovered LineWise by accident at my first RTM. Thank you, Mark, and came with a list of questions and had narrowed my RTM sessions down to just the filter providers. And we're grateful to have a good community of ACPE filter companies. Linewise won the day. You were six steps out ahead of the others on my four questions that I asked the exact same way on each of those visits. And it was around that student safety, student mental health already working on the language translation and natural language processing and how that's used in in um health and safety conversations. And so and then we brought you different products in for review in our region, and line-wise was the top of the scoring and in those evaluations. Nicole, I understand you're a line-wise customer also.

SPEAKER_01 16:49

We've had line-wise as a filter for quite a while. Before my time here, we had it. We added monitor next, and then class-wise is our most recent addition. When we had just linewise as a filter, it really won us over because of the customer service, to be quite honest. We can start a chat and we get a really quick and personalized response. And it allows my whole team to work together when we need to make changes instead of just one person who specializes in just the filter. And we're a small district and we're only a team of three, so we have to wear many hats. So that's kind of what won us over. And then we had another product we were using for monitoring students and alerts, and there were a lot of false positives or false flags with that. And so I noticed that it was really hard for people to pay attention and take the alerts seriously because there were so many false results. So the live monitoring and the phone call going out if it's above a certain level and that has really changed that for us. We don't get all of those false alerts, and now people take it very seriously when it comes through. The other thing is we couldn't see when someone had responded to an incident. So you'd have multiple people follow up, and this allows you to see who's viewed the event and if it's been closed and taken care of or not. So we really appreciate having that as part of the tools we have in our district. And then ClassWise was our most recent ad. I think we might have just added it partially for our district last year, and we moved all the way, everyone over this year. And what really sold us on it was because it works with our filter, it allows teachers to be able to block and unblock sites as they're teaching. And a lot of times we have teachers who will lesson plan, and because they're in a different OU as staff, they won't realize that unless they open up a Chromebook and they log on as a student, they won't realize that their experience is different than their students. So then they're they get into the middle of class and we start getting help desk tickets because their students can't access what they had planned. So we've really started to use that a lot, especially in secondary, because we also have projects where their need to research subject matter we would usually have blocked. So this allows teachers to unblock it for just that class period for research. We also use it for when we have students out sick, we have Zoom blocked in general, but a teacher can unblock it for the class period for their kids and only their class for kids who are at home who want to zoom in, especially for our AP classes, they do that a lot for students that are absent.

SPEAKER_05 19:33

Yeah, that sounds similar. I think class-wise in our region, again, line-wise kind of sits there in the background from for most of the end users in the district, but class-wise has really become valuable to the teachers, especially teachers in those secondary classes. Same as your story, Nicole.

SPEAKER_02 19:49

Nicole, you know, I think if I can jump in here, one of the comments you made, I think everyone feels support is critical, right? To work with a partner who actually is there to be there to support you from customer success to actually that chat. And I think the funniest story I have is one of your districts, Rachel, uh, made a funny comment about this in the ESD where they said, I think I've talked to the same person at least twice whenever I entered the chat. So they know it's a real person and it's someone they may have talked to in the past. Um and that chat is very, very popular. And I can brag about it all day because I'm partial, but thank you for sharing that, Nicole, because that means a lot. And it's a testament that I'm bragging for a reason whenever I talk about that chat support. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 20:35

Yeah, we've even had we've even had someone who's helping us on the chat make a personalized video for us on how to do something in our district, and then we can like save the video and use it over and over. So it's the best customer service, I think, that we've ever used with any solder product.

SPEAKER_03 20:52

Here too. Here too.

SPEAKER_05 20:54

So, Mark, um I know I don't know if we have to like do an FCC disclaimer or e-rate disclaimer or something. We did not plan this. We really planned this episode as an episode to kick off a three-part series of women in tech. And not like a surface level like women in tech, but conversations with women in tech about the work we do. It doesn't have to be necessarily about women in tech topics. And it just so happens that on this first one, we ended up pairing Teresa from Linewise with two of us who are Linewise customers and are really appreciating that product. And Teresa, again, we thanks, we thank you for your sponsorship and for being here tonight to tell stories with us. Honored to be here. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 21:39

I mean, it's an important product. Every school district has something, right? At this point in time, everybody has something. And the purpose of that something isn't just to filter students on the internet, it's also to help keep them safe. And, you know, Teresa's a friend of mine. Uh I have other friends with other companies, and they all say the same thing. It's not that they're there to block websites. For kids, it's that they're there to keep kids safe and keep them healthy and protect them. And that's huge. I mean, you're in it for the mission. So that's it's really powerful.

SPEAKER_05 22:09

And increasingly supporting learning alongside that, right? And these class-wise products especially. So I'm going to do one quick jump back and then we're going to turn it over to Nicole to kind of uh say hello and tell uh tell us about her journey and current position. But Teresa, you said like I was in tech before there was the internet. Well, I just want to say I am this old that my first technology job was carrying punch cards rubber banded, because I dropped the first set when I was like three or four years old, and that was a mess. Carrying punch cards down to the computer windows with my dad on Saturday mornings when he would go in to program at uh UNIVEC. And the computers, for anybody who's seen desk set with Catherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, amazing movie. But uh the computers were all generally older women at the window. And now that I sit here telling this story, I realize they were probably like 28 years old. So 30 years old. Watch what you say. But they would give me candy. So I became like my mom was pregnant, my dad would take me into the office on Saturday mornings, and I would color on the um green and white printout paper, they'd punch cards, I'd take them down to the computer windows, they'd give me a piece of candy, they'd run the cards to test the routine, they'd send me back with a slip and the cards again. So I was just the little runner. Uh, and that was my first story about technology in my life. And I love that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:43

I came from the you died of dysentery. So like Oregon Travel labs. Yeah, it's like this is awesome. And the typing labs. And that was yeah.

SPEAKER_05 23:54

Typing labs. Yeah. Yep. So I could tell another 10 minutes of stories about being that old in technology and as a woman in technology. Nicole, you are not as old as I am. I don't we don't want to know your age. I just know for sure that you're not as old as I am.

SPEAKER_00 24:09

Wait, wait, wait. Is she older or younger than Claire Danes?

SPEAKER_05 24:14

She is definitely younger.

SPEAKER_00 24:16

Okay, clearly the rest of you haven't seen that or watched that episode yet or listened that I am older than Claire Danes. That's the name of the episode, is that Mark is older than Claire Danes.

SPEAKER_03 24:24

Yeah, because Mark was like, she's so old. Like she's not aging well. Her chin wobbles. It's really hard.

SPEAKER_00 24:30

I said her chin wiggles because she cries so much in that show. That was what that was about. But that's our age reference. From now on, that's our age reference.

SPEAKER_03 24:39

She's not aging well. I need to warn you all. She's not aging well. She's aging beautifully.

SPEAKER_00 24:44

Please don't sue me.

SPEAKER_03 24:45

She's aging beautiful.

SPEAKER_02 24:46

Beautiful should.

SPEAKER_05 24:47

Exactly. It's a gift for each of us to be alive as we hit these years. But Nicole, you are also now a woman in leadership in technology. Did you, like Terissa and me, take a circular or a windy path there? Or was it what you dreamt of being?

SPEAKER_01 25:06

No. And spoil spoiler alert, I will tell you that I am just about to turn 40 this summer, so Mark.

SPEAKER_04 25:15

Happy 40, Nicole.

SPEAKER_00 25:17

She's younger than Claire Danes.

SPEAKER_04 25:19

Yep. And way younger than Mark, therefore.

SPEAKER_01 25:23

I definitely didn't think that I would be working in IT at 40. My first experience with technology, or at least computers, my dad is actually an engineer, but he does not have a college degree. I'm the first one on that side of the family with any type of college degree. But he is a licensed engineer. He was able to pass the exam without going to college. He started as a plumber and did electrical work and heating and cooling and kind of all this life experience allowed him to pass the exam and become licensed without a college degree. And he he can fix anything. He's just really bright and always tinkering with things. So when I was a little kid, he built a desktop computer. And that was like the mid-80s. So that was like kind of, you know, a cool thing. And uh he he worked for a heating and cooling company and did some programming and stuff. And I would go into his office sometimes, and I would be really impressed that he could type on the keyboard without looking at it. And um, you know, I thought it was really cool that I gotta play games on this computer sometimes. But as I got older in high school, then you start to think your parents are really not cool anymore. Um, I grew up in a more rural town and he wore cowboy boots and every day to work, even if he was dressed up, and I, you know, that was like kind of embarrassing, and I had kind of like been like, I'm never gonna be like my dad. And then when I went to high school and stuff like that, there just weren't a lot of women in technical roles. Even when we were doing events in Science Olympia, there weren't like a lot of girls put on technical teams. And so actually, when I went to college, I needed to make money and I applied for jobs on campus. The one I got was working in a computer lab, and I was just like, I can do this, you know, but it wasn't like the cool, flashy other jobs I was applying for. And uh I started doing that and I worked my way up and I worked on the bench and um and I started doing Apple warranty repairs and um I got married and moved back home and worked for a small company doing really individualized uh IT support for small businesses in Seattle and the greater Portland area. Um I really part way through college, I was like a psychology major. I really realized that this is what I love to do. You know, it checked all the boxes for me. Like once I separated out from like being a teenager and thinking my dad wasn't cool. I realized I loved it. It was like stimulating for me. I loved that it was always changing and I was always learning things. I really like a challenge, so it was really fun to be one of the only women or the only woman on a team and take the jobs that like no one else wanted and be like, look what I can do with it. You know, like that gave I got a lot of satisfaction out of that and felt like I had kind of found my place and I just I just loved it. And I realized at that point that I was not going to become a psychologist at all. Like this was where my heart was.

SPEAKER_04 28:34

May I jump in there for just a moment? And then do you have some days in your job now where you realize I'm a little bit of a psychologist?

SPEAKER_01 28:43

Yeah, especially probably as a parent too, but I definitely would never switch and go back. Um, you know, this is definitely where my heart is. And working in education, I think my former boss once said, What if you went and got your teaching certificate? And I just was like, I love working in a school and I love supporting education, but that is just like my calling as really IT. Anyway, so now I uh I work for a smaller district, we're pretty rural, rural. I live out in the sticks. I think you've seen me at the conferences. Oftentimes I do have cowboy boots on, or you know, some kind of like western aspect to my outfits or something. And it's kind of like a little bit of a nod to my dad because now he laughs because he was so uncool, and I was like, I will never be like you. And I ended up following, following a similar path to kind of circle back. I feel like part of it was my personality and how my brain works with troubleshooting and hard work, but I think there were also times people took a chance on me. You know, they held the door open for me just a little bit and and gave me a chance. And two of those times were at the district that I work at now, two of the biggest times. The first one was when I applied for this job here at La Center. I was eight months pregnant with my fourth child, and I saw the posting come up. My kids were already going to school here, and I told my husband, I said, I'm gonna apply for this job. And he looked at me like I was crazy. It was high-risk pregnancy, and I was like, you know, a month away from having the baby. I didn't even buy new maternity clothes for the interview. I went to Goodwill and just like got a couple things to wear for the interview because I was like, I'm not gonna sell myself or make myself fit into something that's not right. It's not the right time in my life. I'm just gonna go be myself and see what happens. And I went to the interview and um they called me later. They offered me the job, who was actually my former boss, and he said, So realistically, when would you like to start? And he's like, just say whatever, and we'll see where we go from there. Because I wouldn't have um maternity leave when I started. I wouldn't have been working long enough, but I was obviously gonna have a baby soon. And I said, I would really like to start working when my son is three months old. He said, Let me see what I can do. And he went and talked to the superintendent at that time and they worked out a situation where they hired a temp to cover for me and let me have that time unpaid. And that was a huge gift. The other thing is one of my coworkers that's still on my team right now, I was interviewing against men who had more experience than I did, and he I didn't know this till later, obviously, but um, he said, I will quit if you hire anyone but her. And so um I really have had a couple situations where people have really uh taken a chance on me, and they really did because I could have had my last son and decided not to come back, right? And they would have had to hire again. They really took some big chances on me, and um, I I really appreciate that. And I realize that I'm really lucky because that doesn't happen for everyone, and that kind of leads into the last women in tech huddle. We were talking about what does it look like to make sure everyone has a place at the table and feels comfortable and they don't have to fight for having a voice or a place. Um, and and that's kind of what I'm thinking about now.

SPEAKER_05 32:14

Nicole, um, I was eyes watering at least two or three times as you talked. I knew some of this story from getting to know you the past couple of years. I did not know all how all of the pieces connected. And they celebrate you and the fact that you were more of a straight line, I think, than some of us. As you end up, you know, in this leadership position, also as a mom and raising kids, caring for a district, caring for community, the things that we all do for those of us who are drawn to work in schools and especially in technology in schools, like you said, encouraged to get our teaching degrees and encouraged to think of some other pathways as well. But there's also this beauty and joy and a little bit of psychology that we get to do, right, with people and their technology most days. And uh, what a gift to have you here with us here this evening and cannot wait to have our cowboy boots on again at ACPE and dance again and get Mark dancing. Terissa's on it.

SPEAKER_00 33:20

Let's not go there.

SPEAKER_05 33:22

I'm on it. Don't threaten me at the good time. So, Nicole, in La Center, we're gonna come back to the women in tuck cuddles and a few other things. But in La Center, what are your your big projects and priorities this year, both in terms of what you want to do with technology and then the district as a whole? And for those in the listening audience who don't know La Center, do you want to give just a little bit of of where you are? That you're one of our Washington ACPE friends.

SPEAKER_01 33:48

Yeah, we are definitely southwest Washington. We're just, I don't know, we're probably 40 minutes north of Portland, Oregon. I think most people are pretty familiar with A LA, the casino. That is the exit for La Center.

SPEAKER_00 34:02

Wait, that's that's how it's pronounced.

SPEAKER_01 34:04

It's ANA, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:05

A LA. Okay, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 34:06

Yeah. I know it trips everyone else up, I think, but anyone who lives around here, we know. Ridgefield is right across the freeway from us. They've grown incredibly fast. Our school districts used to be about the same size, and now it's I think about triple the size we are.

SPEAKER_00 34:22

Um and is also the home of the In N Out Burger.

SPEAKER_01 34:28

Yes, yes, yes. And Costco, which is pretty exciting.

SPEAKER_05 34:32

Wait, I thought Mark meant like the original In N Out.

SPEAKER_00 34:35

No, they just built an In N Out burger.

SPEAKER_01 34:37

The Center used to be called Podunk. That was the first name of the town, but now it's La Center. Really? It was literally Washington. So we have uh we have a restaurant in town called Podunk Pizza, and my daughter played on a youth basketball team and they were the Podunkers, and that's awesome. Yeah, but it's we have one elementary, one middle, and one high school. It's about I don't know, 1,750 students. I think we have about 170 employees, something like that. So we're not huge, but we also aren't like um incredibly tiny. And we c we participate in this group that's formed this small medium school district group in this area where we're use our brains to figure out how to do more with less, because I think that's where everyone is. And some of the projects we are focusing on right now are cybersecurity, and that's hard when you are a small team and you're rural, but the risks are so great that I really feel like it has to be part of your priorities. And I think some of that means it's not going to be perfect and it's not gonna be exactly what you want it to be, but starting that process and making little steps in the right direction are better than nothing. And some of that has to do with segmenting our network, backups, those kinds of things. The Kalitz tribe is the tribe that owns ALNA, and they gave us a grant a couple years ago, which allowed us to replace old projectors, and that has really been a gift for us and has really changed the way we use technology in the classrooms that kind of cascaded to other upgrades in order to work with the projectors. We have short throw projectors, and the other thing we are really working on, and it's challenging because you have to be really mindful of people's time and you don't want it to just be a checkbox, is working with our users to educate them, especially with all of the phishing attempts via email and the spoofing that you know we're seeing more of, and really creating a culture where we will never ever be frustrated or upset if someone brings something to our attention, it doesn't end up being a serious situation because we I would rather see it and be like, oh no, that's okay, than not, you know, and really thinking about how do we double check whether something's legitimate or not. And our staff is doing a really good job of that. We're starting to dip our toes into data privacy and AI and how those things are related and how we work through that. And also, how do we use the data that we collect to help students have a more individualized learning experience? And those are those are the big things on our horizon right now.

SPEAKER_05 37:37

Those are huge things with a team of three, especially. And to your point, regardless of the size of our districts and ACPE that are go from the very tiny to the very large, the cyber threats are the same.

SPEAKER_01 37:50

Yeah. And April put on um a workshop for us recently, and she is like a celebrity here. Yes. I'm telling you.

SPEAKER_05 37:57

I get to I'm gonna um actually I'm gonna mention it tomorrow on the K-12 panel. I'll find a way to weave this in.

SPEAKER_01 38:04

Yeah. The session we had was standing room only. Everyone knows her, they know her work, they know what a great job she does, and we all learned so much. There are people in that room that I have never seen before in my seven years in the district. It was such a draw, and it was such a positive experience and positive energy to have like all of these teams and schools come together. And Makoa and ESD hosted it and they organized April being there and kind of gave me goosebumps because it brought the districts and the teams together in a way I haven't seen since before COVID. And that was just a really cool experience, and we all just like learned so much. She did she did a tabletop exercise and also she brought in some software to show us how people are gathering information, and it was it was really impressive. We all learned a lot.

SPEAKER_05 38:55

Cheers to you, April. And Nicole, I am so happy that you were there. I'm sorry that I'm sitting here grinning like a fool this whole episode because, first of all, Teresa's storyline coming in and this unique role that filters play in our lives right now. And then Nicole's story, which just is amazing. It's really great to sit here tonight and talk about this. So, Nicole, touching on AI, can we loop Terissa back in? Do you have some kind of analysis of what's happening in terms of district postures? And again, not obviously calling out any individual districts, but what's happening in terms of AI as it relates to filters? And sorry if I put you on the spot for something that you're not ready to share yet. Well, I'm ready to share it.

SPEAKER_02 39:41

Um, because um it's it's let's go. Let's go. It actually blends into the cybersecurity posture, quite frankly. Um, and that's part of the why I'm doing the panel tomorrow at the Cybersecurity Summit, and because it does lend itself to a broad conversation. Every district is not the same in terms of how they are approaching AI, but we also recognize that AI is becoming becoming a part of everything we're doing. I'm a Chat GPT and Gemini girl. I will plug in the same question to both just to see what produces outcome, right? And I'm I'm taking a look at that. And when we think about school districts and their security postures, we also forget to think about this is exciting. They look at the scary and then they recognize that they're teachers that are in the curriculum in the classroom probably don't know how to use it either. And then they're being asked to teach it. So I'm seeing districts take different postures, whether it be we're blocking it now because we're taking the time to educate our staff on the fundamentals of what AI really is. It's not this big scary thing, but it's a powerful thing that can do a lot of great things, but can also be a distractor and potential problematic. And how they're approaching that is very, very widespread. And so from a line-wise space, we're leveraging AI ourselves. But then you think about the security posture of where is our AI positioned in how we're capturing data and staying compliant and managing that data privacy without sending it off to a third party tool. So we look at that inherently as we develop our AI, and that is our internal AI that's not going to that third party because of the compliance and legislation that's coming up in so many states around AI postures in not just K-12, but higher ed, commercial, and everything else, but also giving districts the flexibility to remain pretty much autonomous in how they deliver AI, whether it be block it, allow only one of them, right? Some districts are just using Gemini. They don't want their users using Chat GPT or Claude. Others are getting really frustrated. Some of our teachers, Nicole, I don't know if it's happening in your school district, are frustrated because of the AI overviews that are in Google and Bing, because those are automatically showing up and as a tool for kiddos to use, and it's becoming a distractor as well in some cases. And so that's where Linewise is taking a posture of taking a look at it as the Switzerland, so to speak, but also keeping in mind legislatively compliance, data privacy with our VPATs, et cetera, of how we're approaching it to support our districts as well. So very broad topic. There's a lot of global legislation that we're seeing come out in like Australia around AI. That's become very interesting that we're watching very closely. Um, there are certain states that are actually taking it down to are we even giving devices to kiddos? That's interesting coming out of Utah, if you guys have been watching, so we're gonna watch that one very closely. No cell phones, even down to that area, but in regards to AI, it's a very broad topic. I have concerns personally, and my personal parent opinion as a parent for our teachers trying to navigate this in their classes, they're not getting the coaching and the training in some cases, whereas some districts are actually applying PD and resources to teachers to get them up and running on AI to understand the tool so that they can take it into their classrooms the most effective way they can.

SPEAKER_05 43:12

Amazing. Teresa, uh let me ask filter geeky questions. Does line-wise do aggregation of uh high volumes of data that then allow you to do like trend spotting and future casting? So I am I imagine that at some level because of product improvements and helping with your roadmap and things like that. But do you know if it's something that LineWise would ever do where there's like a state of what's happening in K 12 schools?

SPEAKER_02 43:44

I think you're kind of you're looking for what does that data capture look like in terms of how Linewise takes that data to be more effective with our product as we deliver new technology and innovation to our districts? Is that what you're asking?

SPEAKER_05 43:58

A little bit of that, but also this. idea of as we're in this space where we have this new technology bloom brought about by AI. Think about, do you remember the um, you know, when it was even more cool 20 years ago when Google would do like the year in search?

unknown 44:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 44:14

Like what are people searching for? What are they, you know, trying to find, what were the top search words? I think it was when the internet was young and it was hopeful and it was optimistic. Now we might not want to know with the state of the world right now. But just wondering about such a large uh such a large data set where it can be anonymized and it can really just be kind of that trend of what are the kids interested in? What are the kids doing? Where is AI specifically was where I was going with this is where is AI in the number of times that students or teachers try to get to it and it's hitting blocks. And as I started to ask you that question, I realized that you may not keep for any meaningful amount of time that that volume of data correct.

SPEAKER_00 45:02

Yeah. So I have a question that I posed to the group I'm interested to see Nicole where you land on this because we are the two one school district people. We own that data. That's our data. Like what if I want that data? I maybe I want to use that data. I want six months of search history for my kids and I want to mine that data and I want to use that data in a meaningful way. But I mean I think that's something then that and I'm not saying this is line wise in particular that that's something you need to go you have to have an understanding of the product you're using of do they scrub that data? How long do they hold that data? Can you customize the length of the retention of that data? And what does that look like in your student data or in your DPA? What data is there? And I come back to it's yours. And it is Chris and I had this argument in our unplanned session on the ethics of that. Should we get to use our students' data to trend out things that we would never see based on the the collection and the and the use of AI to analyze it. Things that we could never do before I don't know there's my question in pondering.

SPEAKER_01 46:12

I'm gonna I'm gonna stay as long as I can yes and uh you don't have to cut this part like this is part of women in tech is I have little kids and it's getting late and I have someone babysitting but until I hear a little hands knocking on the door I'm gonna keep going because I think this is a really cool conversation.

SPEAKER_00 46:31

Well I I want to drag this into what I was hoping for today, which is I want to hear your stories. I know Rachel emailed about this a little bit and I have sat through one of her roundtables at an RTM about women in tech and I was the only guy there. I want to change the direction just a little bit because we we are a largely male dominated group at ACPE and I think there's a lot to learn from the three of you that we just don't consider. Like I even had my own moment last week with our chief academic officer who said she said you have a good old boys club and I said what are you talking about and I and I followed up with if I've ever done anything that is remotely offensive because of my gender, I really hope you call me on it. I don't think that I do.

SPEAKER_01 47:17

I don't know that I don't and so my perspective may be a little bit skewed and I was kind of hoping to learn a little bit today with some of the things you have to share and Rachel's kind of smirking at me right now I guess I was just going to say so Nicole I think there was a moment there right that before the knock starts coming on the door as we talk about this arc for our for the kids in our schools and our buildings and being a woman in technology was there a moment that we diverted you from that you can pull back and uh kind of lean into before the kids show up sure I guess I would start by saying of all of my experiences in tech and awkward or uncomfortable moments, I've experienced the fewest of them working in educational IT. I will say that the private sector was worse for sure. And to be quite honest, so I worked as a tech at this district for three years and the current leadership position for four years. And when I I think that it's a very common experience throughout all of my roles is that when you show up to help someone with technology and it isn't always men sometimes it's other women too they will be kind of shocked to see you sometimes or question whether you are in the right place or you can help them. When I started working at this district a lot of times I would get oh are you the substitute teacher are you the para you know that kind of thing I even had I can't even remember who it was now but it was someone I can even work with and when I told them oh I took this job working for the school district and it was another woman she said do you know how to do that and I kind of was like taken aback like I wouldn't have applied you know and I think it's it's just so ingrained right now and it's really interesting because I heard you talk about the punch cards and I've talked to some other women who have obviously worked in IT longer and one of them said she was really high up in Boeing and just retired recently and she said actually at the beginning with computer science it was mostly women because they saw it as like a secretarial task with like the punch cards and stuff which shocked me because somehow it flipped but I think for me that experience of having people not believe in you which kind of I guess works its way into believe it right for ACPE right um but but to have people not believe in you has always been really a really big motivator for me. I really want to prove to people that I can do it and I can do it well and then I'm just as good as anyone else if not better. And that probably sounds maybe a little bit vain or something but I think that is like sort of how I got the jobs every job I've ever held in IT I've had to compete with men. It'd be like and men that generally had more experience because for whatever reasons are out there, they'll they'll tell you that they're granted access to those things more often than women and girls are still even to this day. And you see even in our middle and high school programs, we start losing them in middle school for whatever reason, right? When we're trying to get kids into girls especially into science technology that kind of thing. So I think a lot of it is unintentional but if you are not feeling comfortable in yourself or in the field it can really shut people down from being open to working in that field. And it's really interesting because if I walk into a room with a male counterpart I did when I was training here, they wouldn't ask him where he went to college or what his degree was in or ask for any kind of references that would prove that he could do the job, but they would for me because I was unusual. I've always seen that as like kind of a challenge like especially when I took this leadership role and it was hard and it was challenging and there were days where I was overwhelmed and I kind of wanted to give up sometimes I was like I have to do a good job. I want to do a good job because the next time a woman or someone else who you don't see very often in these roles walks up I want the experience to be the people who questioned whether I could do it before know the next person can do it 110%. They don't even doubt.

SPEAKER_05 51:35

Sing it, Nicole every single one of those words. Yes, yes, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_00 51:39

I mean is it the same Teresa?

SPEAKER_02 51:41

I mean pause I mean it it is but there's there's for me my background I I love this Nicole because while our backgrounds are similar in terms of kind of the trajectory in terms of the space how we started there is is is very different because I I worked in a sales tech role so funny you said that mark there's a company I work for they called it the fraternity a bunch of good old boys is what they called it and and here I was this lowly little saleswoman in a tech role and I think how I've seen it, I mean I have stories for days, but we probably have to and see this entire podcast so we're not going to go into it no explicit ratings, please. Yeah so we're not gonna do that. We see it nationally there's women in tech communities that are growing in the country for a reason is because there's there's this a foundational are we enough technically there's a perception out there I think inherently that says women in you're in technology your male counterpart into that same meeting is going to be perceived more technical than you are. And to take that and say wait a second I could walk circles all over this person, it's a perception thing and utilizing those soft strengths to then take that and drive your message forward. I'm part of a another woman in tech, it's called Whiten that brought in a phenomenal woman to talk about this and it's absolutely true is when we think about leadership from a female and a male perspective it's you know when you think about the more feminine qualities they could be applied to men and women you know empathy, intuition, inclusivity, you know, collaboration, whereas a masculine trait which is where we're seeing a lot of men in these higher roles is coming from control, right? You got to control your group of people there's that control of competition, there's a hierarchy of things but where women bring I think phenomenal soft skills is taking those intuitions, that journey, you know, our complex lives are just as complicated as yours, Mark, right? And bringing those to the table in a different way and having a seat and then being able to mentor those young women that are coming into the field saying yeah you are as technical. Your brain may work differently than a male's but you're going to bring a little bit more because of that. This is why I came into the sales role as I did and grew into the sales role is because of my relational and intuitive background. And that's what helped escalate my journey into the role I'm in today but I leaned into those soft skills that helped me and helped my team around me champion that and help me just be that person. And now I'm mentoring these younger women that are growing into our organization use those strengths. Don't hesitate. Don't be afraid and like you said Nicole get that seat at the table because it matters and it's important. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 54:44

I I have so much to say on all of this but I just want to say that I am competitive and part partly from at the beginning Nicole when I said I'm gonna loop some of this back to that story of my dad and the punch cards and desk set. Even though the computers in the window right were largely female, they were not secretarial they they had the same skill set. They often were the debuggers who could uncover what wasn't working and then report it back to the programmers. And we have these giants of women before us that include Admiral Grace Hopper, Dorothy Vaughn, Catherine Johnson, and Mary Jackson uh there was a recent book and movie that came out of it Hidden Figures talking about the essentially unrecognized female coders throughout history who have been carrying a lot of this work and they didn't not get the recognition. And I think about it in my career path, you know, 25, 30 years now from the beginning of this, there were more women in my programming classes when I was in early college in Fortran and Pascal and something started happening in the mid-90s where by the time I got to graduate school and then it was web programming languages, I was one woman in my classes. It was not 50-50 in Fortran and Pascal. It was not even 50-50 in the data science languages at the um you know farther end of graduate work. I don't know exactly what happened to make it this the boys' club mark or the fraternity Terissa, but something did and when we hope that this is an eyelash of our human history and when we look backwards at the collaborative spirit and the community based approach to problem solving that sometimes shows up heavier in women and contrasts with some of the, you know, I'm going to go figure it out on my own, I'm gonna run super fast, that sometimes is more associated with being male, right? And these are non not absolutes. They're often taught rather than being intrinsic. It is still startling to me that Nicole that you have these moments right as a woman younger than me. I loved that what you were talking about and thanks to Shelby Reynolds for organizing and hosting the Women in Tech Huddles this year. That idea Nicole of making space and finding space for the not bossy Rachels, creating space for them, how do we start being really intentional about that in ACPE and not just in women in tech huddles but how to mark right like how do we try to foster this work across the organization and across the country because my dad as I was moving through these early years and I was going to be in first of all he was going to be president of the United States. And then I went to college and I actually worked in government for a couple summers and as an intern and I realized who in the world would want to be in politics for their life them all. And then I was going to be an elementary school teacher. And so then I kind of changed up and went the elementary education route that kept coming back like you, Nicole to this like really deep programming and logic and figuring out how things kind of work. And my dad said as somebody who is retired in the past decade from a a lifelong career as a a programmer said you are going to have to do it better, faster, stronger backwards in heels to get the same job as the men in the application pool who are half as talented as you and then the goal is how do you then elevate and hire the women to keep increasing like can I have my little drops of rain that hit the surface of the pond that um ripple and and make bigger ripples. And so it is everyday work. Nicole there are times right when we show up in meetings. Teresa there are times when you show up in meetings and it's that okay I'm gonna have to either just listen or I'm gonna have a moment where I'm gonna have to edge myself into the conversation.

SPEAKER_00 59:08

So I'm gonna ask this question or have a request and it's gonna it's gonna come out wrong and I know it's gonna come out wrong the first time and then I'm gonna correct myself because I know this is where I'm going in my head. But of the from the three of you and I'm gonna say what should somebody like me what's one thing that I should take away from this to better work with within my environment but I'm gonna change that now to what's one thing a supervisor or a person in a position of power should take away from this because it's not just men. I recognize that there are also women who see other women I I assume that I guess I'm looking at Rachel she doesn't know it. She's got a look on her face that may fall into typical stereotypical patterns.

SPEAKER_01 59:58

I mean what's something that people in positions of power should know or practice or be self-aware of I think I think the peers that I appreciate the most are the ones that treat me completely as an equal and they don't seem to be super uncomfortable around me and to Rachel's point I think we feel that like we have to prove ourselves and do it better faster and the peers that don't expect that from me right and that I think even we do it to ourselves a little bit like like sometimes I think as a woman you might be slower to ask a question because you might think it might sound stupid or wrong or like you don't know what you're talking about. And the peers and supervisors I have who give me the space to just be more unfiltered than I have to be as a woman I feel like there's a lot of people who are someone I work with a lot of teachers and actually my sister's one of them. And one day she came into my office and she said I've never seen you cry at work ever and she's like I cry like every year multiple times and she's like I don't know how you do it. And I told her I learned that I can't do that. I don't have the space or the luxury to do that or a lot of people won't take me seriously and they'll say I'm emotional. And I I really want us to get to a place where like Rachel was saying there's a place at the table you don't have to do it better faster. You don't have to have a hard shell on the outside you you know like you don't have to fight for it quite like that. And I think for me there were times when I was younger where I really tried to fit in or like take up less space and sometimes that even meant in IT not being as traditionally feminine if that makes sense. And I've really stopped doing that. And for me it's like a combination of things it's like partially like a cultural thing and where I am in life. But when I go to conferences, meetings when I'm working here on campus I no longer try to fit in. I just try to be myself. I don't try to be less feminine because I want to remind people that you can be whoever you want and you can be as stereotypically feminine as you want to be and that doesn't mean you're not capable. And I'm hoping if people see that enough they will stop having those like that thought process and it's not even meant to be malicious most of the time it's just something that has like happened and been spoon fed and cultivated. And the other thing is like when I go to ACPE a lot they'll see me wear clothing that has been like designed by a native artist and I wear it because that is something because I'm white and native there have been times in my life where I have hidden that more because I didn't want to deal with the comments or the questions or it was uncomfortable. And I've stopped doing that because I think it's really important for people to see that and know that I'm confident in who I am and yes it's like unusual to be a native woman working in IT or in a leadership role but I want people to see that and see that presence there and have it stop being so uncommon I think.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:47

And I want everybody around me to be themselves too and it I don't want anybody to to basically front for on my behalf I want I want to see the real you and I don't care if you're a man woman or anybody I just you know I'm not getting from an employer standpoint I'm not getting the best you if you're not yourself. And that's what's important to me. And if anybody here has worked with me before you know that I'll say whatever comes to mind and that's just how I expect other people to be and it hurts my heart to know that some people feel like they can't do that.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:24

Um perhaps a topic for another episode speaking of this so that it's not about one person and people feeling free to be themselves while that is definitely like a good place to start and feeling safe and comfortable having psychological safety at work. I wonder about the idea of thinking more from the approach of how do you build teams that self-cycle diversity and inclusion and therefore it's not a mark with a soft heart. I take your question with all of the good that it brings and wonder about leveling up in terms of creating dynamic teams. That it's not something that one individual has to carry or even think about yeah I mean there was no easy way for me to ask that question.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:13

Yeah no that's I've never experienced anything that has made me uncomfortable with any of the people on this and to be honest I haven't had I think this year's going to be my fourth ACPE I think I've never actually had an experience there that has made me really feel that way. It's been in the private sector it definitely was different. I would say that I have had a lot of experiences of um male peers helping me being saying like hey if you struggle with this or you want to know about it, come out to my district or I'll come out and help you or email me or call me. I really have not experienced that as much in educational IT. It doesn't mean that it isn't there and it does still happen. It's interesting though that most of the time it's not happening for me within the IT community. It's outside of it in education, if that makes sense. So that has been really positive. And I remember going to the first ACPE and being really kind of like, oh my gosh, especially since I don't take a team. There's only three of us. So it's only me. So the first year I went I felt kind of like I had to like walk over to people's tables and be like, hi, can I sit with you guys? You know, like um but I got so much out of that connecting with all of these people that I don't usually talk to and most of them were men because that's the majority of the population there. And everyone was just super supportive and willing to talk to me and willing to be helpful and open. And I think the other really cool thing about most of the women I've met who work in IT is that a lot of them are competitive, but they're almost more competitive with themselves than with other people. And so they often have these really kind hearts where they're they're like ready to help up the next person. They don't feel insecure or jealous or they don't feel like they have to be top dog and outshine someone else. And I really love that about this community. It's like when I met Rachel I just felt like this like instant connection we both really like to dance and I I I think you could like it I grew up on like nine country so maybe you need like a country line dance. I don't know what you grew up on. But the women in tech that's like a whole room full of women that are like and some men some men come too who have very similar stories and it is like just this kind of feeling of community and support in general I think that I haven't experienced in the private sector.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:38

Nicole you touched on two things. You notice that a lot of principals are male even though teachers are overwhelmingly female. And so there are still these spaces where education, tech, there there's still lots of work to do. I am so glad to hear that you have had a positive experience being someone who has come to ACPE more recently and I love ACPE in this startling astounding way. It's been a big unexpected joy this second part of my career. But I will say as a woman who attended ACPE in the prior decade and knowing my colleagues, female colleagues who were there in the early years, there was work to do. And I am grateful to Mark and to the other male colleagues and leaders in ACPE for hearing us, for taking it seriously, for making space for women on the board and women in leadership and thinking of how do we make this a more inclusive conference than the kind of guys conference at the mountain that it may have been at one time. And celebrating that that was a moment in time and that the relationships that came out of that were true and solid and have been lifelong for so many. The technology sharing has been that has had a depth to it all along and yet there were some things that needed some uh sunlight and some attention paid. So Nicole I think that there are still things that we would have people who would tell us well yes Nicole or yes Rachel and and it's that curiosity and that invitation and um continuing to not be afraid to learn about things that we need to improve that I think makes ACPE unique and um will take it into its future decades as well.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:26

Yeah and I think I think that is the approachability like I feel like you and Mark and Teresa are all approachable. I hope that I come off that way too but if you're not approachable people won't tell you those things they won't be vulnerable with you and I I think that's really important to hear that and or this is my experience and it's different than yours.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:46

Sorry Mark I mean we did take a picture together last year Nicole We did and sequin blazers right jackets and yeah I know that you you have children coming and I'm gonna take advantage of every minute until they're there and they're probably there there already but I wanted to point out Terissa and kind of why I wanted her to be on this episode because it's a different it's a little different story I think on the vendor side of things but for years now I've watched how you work with your team because it's mostly women and it has always stood out to me the way you operate I mean do you want to shed a little light on that or yeah I do but I want to I kind of would love to hear first about what you've kind of observed so I can kind of lead into that from there. I mean I'm flying around all the time this is the 24th ACPE for me. Like it's been a while but I've just watched you and I hate to say it this way so I'm gonna do it again. You you guys all look out for each other and it's very obvious what you're doing. And yeah I guess that's what I see and I don't want to get into that any more than that.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:54

Yeah. No, I think um thank you by the way so I I kind of want to start a little backwards um getting into that because it's an important foundation of of why we are the way we are and how you've seen us and observed us. So um I'm really grateful to that actually because it's something I don't just obviously intuitively just think that people are witnessing it's just coming naturally. When you think about how we're talking with your female counterparts and building them up and it's actually communicating in a different way. I'm like Nicole your background is different. Rachel your background is different. Mine's very different too the way I've I've I'm very competitive I've played collegiate softball I still play softball competitively slow pitch still travel around it's something that's inherently built into me but I like you Nicole I am the one that will say I will prove you wrong but I also am very much the person also mark if you're that person seeking out how to be a leader to your female counterparts, I also look at that and and bring that in internally to say hey what are things I can help you and understand to help ask the right questions? Your counterparts are all different and you can ask the same question a different way and you're going to get some amazing results and provide a safe space, literally, for your female counterparts to actually open up and have a dialogue and feel that they have that space to communicate all that in you know being inclusive and being a part of that conversation. So really quick on that background, which leads me to how I look at the people that I'm with every single one of those those amazing ladies I work with have different personalities and different dynamics and different ways they approach basic conversation and social dynamics. ACP is overwhelming to a lot of people men and women alike I think I thrive in it personally it's my celebration of all that everyone's accomplished for the year week but in that same group of women that work in the same company they have different roles they're also they approach those types of situations differently and I've gotten to know each one of these ladies personally and they've gotten to know me. And that's inherently how we take care of each other. We're checking in where are you? Are you safe or you feel you can go off and have that conversation with that IT director, right? Or another vendor, right? When do you want to head out? If someone is uncomfortable, we're all going together because we're in here as a team, we're leaving here as a team. And it's not about hurting feelings. It's not about ruining someone's good time. It's everyone's going to have a phenomenal time and we're all in agreement of what that good time and what that interaction looks like. That's literally what we just do inherently. And so it makes it a very safe space for all of us. And it doesn't become a role or a burden because at the end of the day we're all enjoying that time and getting the impact that we want out of the conference, but also making everyone feel safe because I don't know about you guys, if one of my teammates or friends or counterparts, Rachel, Nicole if you were there, were not feeling comfortable and I wasn't doing the thing to help support you, that doesn't feel good to me either.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:57

Teresa, I think I've observed so you and Jordan and your team at Linewise is visibly close room I've also noticed in different conferences and in lots of different technology vendor and technology partner settings, there's kind of like this bonding that I observe that happens even your competitors even in like the same verticals but then more broadly across verticals and just like K-12, I think that people move probably between different companies over their career cycle. Am I picking up on that correctly that there's future also just in general like right this kind of commercial bond that forms.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:40

100% because I think in general depending on it regardless of who you're with you know we we're building relationships across um different women in in with different companies I have great friendships with competitors um in our space because I deeply respect what they do because like you said earlier Mark we're all here to be do the same thing and it's all around you know protecting our children and and providing a safe space for them to grow and thrive. I deeply respect all tech leaders and everybody in that space and I say specifically women, I seek out those connections because gosh I want to learn I want to grow and I think that feeling is mutual it creates this little camaraderie a little bit as you go and you develop really good relationships and and connections that way along the way and that's one of the reasons I love conferences. I get to see in person some of these amazing leaders across these organizations and I see them once or twice a year. So you bet I'm going to take advantage of it and see how they're doing and celebrate those advancements and their roles and how did you do that? Tell me the story about in the journey and take notes.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:46

And I can imagine hopefully it hasn't happened to you too often Terissa but I wonder if there are moments similar to what Nicole touched on earlier where someone is like yeah yeah yeah but I really need to talk to like your boss right like 100%. Okay that it's great that you've got like my business card and we can make the connection but I'm gonna need to talk to your boss.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:05

People clearly don't know Teresa if they say that to her.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:07

So and then when you when you are the boss right and you're still female and it's like well no like really I'm what I really mean is I need to talk to like a guy about this because it's you know networking or I'm gonna I'm not gonna give details but you asked about a cringe story and I'll never forget this.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:25

I was well into my career title I had the reputation district comes up the guy looks at me looks at my male counterpart and goes are you technical enough for this question and I looked over at my counterpart who happened to be in marketing by the way he just looks at me and goes yeah she's got this and I went try me give it a shot and if I don't I know an engineer who can but ten bucks says I probably can answer your question. And I'll never forget that moment because it also reminds me of those what we call the gender role in terms of your what people perceive like a male teacher a male nurse right and all those little things are people are still surprised and flipping on their side mark just because you're the sole gentleman in the group here it's the same thing for you too you know you are assumed you know you're a male nurse or something and it's I mean I'm trying to be nice we're on a podcast but it's a similar thing but that was my that was a technical cringe moment for me for sure. And I gotta tell you the question was so basic I actually wrote an email about it and sent it to my boss laughing I was like you'd never believe what happened. Like is that all you got? Do you have a real question for me?

SPEAKER_00 1:17:41

Congratulations here's your trophy for a great question I mean it it's just so it it is that is so incredibly cringe from a standpoint of not gender roles of just arrogance. Mm-hmm I approach at least I try to approach my job of if I'm asking anybody a question I'm assuming that they're smarter than me. Um and you know it leads to innovation when you're listening to everybody in your department and everybody around you in a way of of I'm not better than you I'm learning from you and it it doesn't again I come back to it doesn't to me at least it doesn't matter the gender of the person. Agree you know so it's Rachel you've been asking questions.

SPEAKER_05 1:18:25

I want to hear your story and it also does matter the gender and it also often matters the skin color. So Mark I hear you and what we have learned in these past couple of decades is that naming it identifying it and stating it is important as well. And I know where your heart is right and that's where you know I I think a lot of us are and that didn't help us progress as much as we might have in some generations prior.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:58

Yeah I agree. I mean Mark and Rachel you're asking a lot of the questions and I think this is a one for the for a future podcast for sure but what are some of the steps we can do to continue that change right for for the better and to continue this dialogue to actually be actionable about change and you know maybe make that pivot and start being those advocates for that in a really really measurable way. That's what I would love to see happen. And maybe in a future podcast I'll be watching and be like that was Teresa's question.

SPEAKER_05 1:19:33

That's my question. Terissa I think that's a great way to wind this down. Nicole um what's your kind of closing thought? Anything that you wanted to say tonight or or that you heard?

SPEAKER_01 1:19:44

Yeah I think it's really interesting because as I hear you guys talk about this it kind of circles back to AI again on some level for me because I can tell you that my kids read the magic tree house books and one of them was about you know set in a time where women couldn't vote. And I have a son and a daughter who are like a year and a half apart in age and they both came to me with this book and they're like women couldn't vote because they were little and I had to explain yeah they didn't have the right to and my son was like why and I was like well there was a time where women were considered not really human beings with rights but more property and they were just floored and in that moment I realized people aren't born that way right it's something that we are learn we learn and are taught at some level even if it's subconsciously and it makes me think about AI and how like when I was a psychology major I realized that you cannot reprogram or reimage people but you can machines right and now we have this this experience with AI which there's really like a relationship level with that we haven't had before and that's one of the undervalued skills that women serve a lot of times in a lot of fields including IT and now we have this really crazy exciting time where AI learns from us and we have control over what we give it. That's going to change the interactions because like AI is not created knowing um uh or with the context or the cultural learning that I wouldn't know how to do a job the same way a male counterpart would it's really really I don't know it's really exciting to me it kind of comes back to that and how we've been so afraid of like when I was in high school it was like Google was like a thing and they my high school teachers didn't want us to use the internet to research things. They wanted us to use books and everyone was afraid and now it's like we we use the internet all the time. It's a skill you need to have it's the same thing with AI and now what if AI like changes the way we have relationships with technology and each other to some degree you know and it allows you to ask questions that may be uncomfortable for you to ask to someone else and the like maybe full circle of like you were talking about the child and Pokemon there for a long time and when we talk about project based learning and stuff it's learning as you're living right with it not being learning to learn math but to use math to do something in everyday life and what if we circle back to that with AI.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:25

Yes please and more female voices in the mix. Yeah currently Nicole to your point it's trained on a lot of things. Yeah that's a really good point. How do we make sure women are involved in that and you touched on right the the relationship and the collaboration aspect that might be missing. So it is also an exciting time to think of the promise of moving more towards that context and understanding that you were touching on AI knows facts but doesn't have a human's emotions or the human context for the words often. And it's an exciting time to be alive frightening as well because it's uh feels like it's like swords that keep doing this both ways. And also I know that prior generations throughout history have had these moments where it's like oh this is the end or this is the best thing ever and here we are in 2026 still talking about them all.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:25

Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. And uh I know that was like a lot of things but I so enjoyed this and I have to go be a mom now but thank you so much for letting me be a part of it.

SPEAKER_05 1:23:37

Same same same thank you for sharing evening with us.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:40

An honor to be on this with you Nicole thank you. Same thank you so much. All right take care.

SPEAKER_05 1:23:46

Bye Nicole Teresa thanks to you and thanks to Linewise for being such a big part of this episode and uh we appreciate your sponsorship. Thank you guys