🎙️Ep. 7: Share the Dream with Dr. Toutoule, Dr. Amarpal, and Nick Satyal

What This Episode is About

In this episode of The Bridge, Cate sits down with Toutoule Ntoya, Neeraj (Nick) Satyal, and Amarpal Khanna to reflect on their shared beginnings in Los Angeles charter schools and how that shaped their careers. The conversation explores the early charter school movement, the sense of community and innovation it sparked, and how that work evolved into today’s focus on CTE, dual enrollment, and student access to authentic learning experiences.

Each guest highlights the importance of equity—ensuring Black and Brown students have meaningful pathways into technology, creative industries, and higher education. They also stress the role of access, mentorship, and professional curiosity in sustaining educators through challenges. Ultimately, the episode celebrates the power of finding your people, holding onto purpose, and staying committed to education’s transformative potential.

Meet Our Guests

Dr. Toutoule Ntoya is an educator dedicated to helping students achieve by 1) working with teachers in professional development and coaching to implement curricula and 2) working with students directly using learning and motivation strategies.  Dr. Ntoya possesses a doctoral degree from University of Southern California in Urban Education Leadership.  He taught physical science, chemistry, physics, and environmental science in diverse, k-12 learning environments. 

Dr. Ntoya is committed to providing high level learning experiences to students from all backgrounds.  His interests span from supporting students in the schools as well as out of school settings.  This is done through mentoring, writing, creating content that uplifts others, and being an advocate for students.  Dr. Ntoya is also committed to supporting all educators so that their voices can be heard in a variety of ways using multiple platforms from writing books to creating audio and  video content.

🔗 Toutoule on Bluesky

Nick Satyal is a National Board-Certified Math Teacher with 21 years of experience as a classroom teacher, network math coach, assistant principal, curriculum writer, and professional developer supporting educators in more than 20 states. A former left-handed college relief pitcher, Nick has always thrived in high-pressure environments, bringing persistence and strategy into his work in education. In 2020, he launched his own math education consulting business—an entrepreneurial leap that taught him as much about humanity as it did about math instruction.

Working alongside educators during the pandemic, Nick saw firsthand the challenges of unfocused professional learning, disengaged students, and the widening learning gaps in mathematics. Those experiences deepened his conviction that while strong Tier I instruction is essential, real student success requires more than just good teaching—it requires adaptive systems, equitable supports, and a relentless focus on meeting learners where they are. Today, Nick continues to combine his expertise in math pedagogy with a passion for innovation, equity, and student success, helping schools and districts rethink how to close gaps and ensure all students thrive in mathematics.

🔗 Nick on LinkedIn

💻 Nick’s Website

Dr. Khanna is an arts education advocate, arts programs administrator, educator and professional illustrator with over 15 years of experience. As an illustrator, worked in various industries including comics and children’s books, animation, music and apparel. In the world of arts education Dr. Khanna was a founding administrator and Director of the Visual Arts Department at ICEF Public Schools, a network of K-12th grade campuses in the South Los Angeles community. The programs there provided South Los Angeles students access to high quality Visual and Performing Arts classes during the school day.

Many of those students went on to major in the arts and work in the animation industry. In Arts advocacy and policy research- worked on “The Blueprint for Creative Schools” report published by former CA. Superintendent Tom Torlakson’s office. Partnered with the organization Arts for LA/ Los Angeles County Arts Collective to build advocacy action and strategic implementation plans for Los Angeles schools and communities. Currently Dr. Khanna is an Assistant Professor in the Visual and Media Arts Department at Los Angeles City College

🔗 Amarpal on LinkedIn

Key Takeaways

• The charter school movement of the early 2000s was more than policy—it was about community, access, and believing in the transformative power of education. That belief still drives how these leaders think about CTE, equity, and innovation today.
• Each guest recalled the turning points when they nearly left education—or leapt into something new—and how finding “their people” kept them rooted and resilient through tough seasons.
• Focus on access. Whether it’s technology, CTE programs, or tutoring, giving students meaningful entry points to create, explore, and connect makes the difference.
• Mentorship, belonging, and professional curiosity sustain educators. Building trusted networks and safe spaces for dreaming together leads to career growth and keeps the spark alive.

Transcript

Cate: So welcome to the Bridge I have a happy little group of friends here today. I like that a lot. It's wonderful to welcome, these three wonderful humans, who have a story to tell and a connected story at that. And I'll start with Toutoule and then maybe Toutoule you can introduce Amarpal and Nick because our story is one that I think

I wanna tell and how we got to know each other. So maybe just introduce yourself. Your bio will be in the notes, but anything you just wanna share? 

Toutoule: Yeah. Hey, everybody, my name is, Dr. Toutoule Ntoya. And, I wear a lot of different hats. Now I'm in this weird space and in my career and I'm doing some work with Nick, Dr.

 Neeral Satyal. Dr. Amarpal Kanna, the three of us got together, working at a charter school and Nick and I were working at the school and then Am would come over as a music teacher and somehow we just, I don't know, Nick and Am I think you guys were connected and somehow we became friends.

I don't know what the connection, I never knew what the connection is between y'all two. Was it just the ICEF thing? 

Amarpal: The ICEF Thing. Yeah. 

Nick: Yeah. 

Cate: What's that thing? What is it? 

Toutoule: Oh, ICEF is, it's a charter management organization here in LA. 

Cate: Okay. 

Toutoule: They're primarily in South LA. We were at one of their schools.

They had a flagship school, and then they opened some subsequent campuses, which Nick and I were at, I think Am, you were at the OG campus. 

Amarpal: Yeah. so Toutoule if I were to back up a little bit, he's, yeah, he's underselling it a little bit. Just a tad. 

Cate: I love it. 

Amarpal: ICEF Public Schools stands for, Inner City Education Foundation.

I know that the name, the nomenclature is a little, dated in that, but it was one of the first, CMOs, before the terminology CMO was even in large use. Yeah. it was initially just a fledgling charter school, in Los Angeles. So saying that in the context that Los Angeles is the second largest city in the country.

That's not a small thing. To note. were there other things happening? Were there other programs? Absolutely. but you could say, ICEF Public Schools was certainly in the zeitgeist and in the moment, of the, late nineties, early two thousands of 

Cate: Okay. 

Amarpal: being at the forefront of that push.

Cate: Yep. 

Amarpal: Messaging what the charter movement was at that time. 

Cate: Yep. 

Amarpal: To the best knowledge of all players involved, including communities, educators, admins, et cetera. and a lot of the stuff around, like the flavor of a more liberal capital regime and how it fit into that. 

That conversation in terms of the critical aspect of it, hadn't necessarily been brought out into the consciousness as yet. 

Cate: Okay. 

Amarpal: So we were true believers. I think everybody at that moment in time, in those early days, 

Cate: yeah. 

Amarpal: We were, all true believers in the power of the community being involved in education. 

Cate: Yep. 

Amarpal: Of parents being involved in education, especially in communities that historically have been marginalized or set aside from being involved.

So that's like where we were. We were in that bubble. On the bubble of the movement as well. 

Cate: That's amazing. I, don't know Toutoule if I've ever shared this with you, but I, started my career in New York City at a continuation high school and then my second year I moved to LA and I worked at Stella Middle Charter Academy, which there, 

right there Bright Star schools. Yeah. So I was there from 2003 to 2008. And that was my heart. It was everything. It would talk about, like everything you said Amarpal, about like the community and finally giving resources to community members and families. And yeah, I lived it. I'm gonna get all teared up 'cause it was a great description and I'm glad to have been a part of it on some level too. 'cause it was pretty incredible. 

Toutoule: That's amazing. 

So we were, you were doing the charter thing when 

Cate: Oh yeah. 

Toutoule: In, the, right there and, looking back 

Cate: mid city LA 

Amarpal: Wow. 

Toutoule: Looking back at that time. 

Cate: Yeah. 

Toutoule: and you said, it so eloquently.

But we 

were like in a movement. We didn't realize it. We were just like, yeah, Gonna work every day working. 

Cate: We were doing 

what was right by our souls, Yeah. And the next thing you knew, go ahead, Nick. 

Nick: it was a time when the school reform movement had really gotten to the surface, gotten to the top of the surface there where we were like, Hey, schools are overcrowded. We were starting to realize like the community, like the neighborhood schools were not serving kids at best at the way it was at was structured. We were at a time where schools were the answer was just building more schools. Building more schools, A, let's figure out tracking. And those are like all fine and good, but it wasn't enough. So then the charter school started emerging to really provide like this opportunity to like have a conversation a. to give kids a better outcome. 

Cate: Yeah. 

Nick: And, then b. It started to create a conversation around Hey, how do we actually best service students?

It's so interestingnow. That was back 2003, 2008, right? Late nineties. Now we're in 2025, and the conversation's completely different because at Los Angeles, because with all the other forces around, Toutoule and you both alluded to capitalism here. Yeah.

Where we're talking about hey, market forces, like we have less, less working families that are here now. We have less students that are here now. It's about What school, where, what parent, if you're a parent, where's the best space for your kids? And now we're like having this whole different conversation around that.

And wondering if even we have even the space to have all of these schools. So it's interesting just to see how all this evolved. 

Cate: Yeah. 

Nick: It's been interesting with you two gentlemen, like just going through this, journey around things because Amarpal is now in the community college system.

Toutoule's kind of in multiple spaces. I'm helping some schools keep, and Toutoule's helping me do this too, keep some schools, keep the lights on in some schools 

Cate: Okay. 

Nick: The lights on for some schools through, through helping math outcomes. So we're doing a lot of different things as a result of this.

Cate: Yep. 

Amarpal: Nick, I believe you're an entrepreneur, the correct term. 

Cate: I just, I think so. 

Nick: I'm just trying to help kids learn math. Said what I've been trying to do for the last 20 years. 

Amarpal: Yeah. the, other piece too is looking holistically at all the options that were available at the time in that context with LA being the second largest city in the country.

And I could speak to my personal experience. I graduated from an LAUSD high school. And LAUSD high schools. I graduated and then was fortunate enough to be able to go on to college. I went to, a smallish liberal arts college, fine arts college, and my fine arts college had less students at the time than the population of my high school.

The population of my high school was, a typical urban, large consolidated high school. I wanna say there was 5,000 students there, something like that. It was insane. And with the kind of, we talk about market forces and different players coming into the space. Some of the reforms and changes we see now because of the charter movement, we see these large consolidated schools now broken up into small learning academies.

Cate: Yep. 

Amarpal: That are housed on the formerly large single campus. That are specialized in, entrepreneurship or right, global studies, science and art, and those four little academies are in one large campus. some of those things, competition breeds, innovation. 

Cate: Innovation, yeah. 

Amarpal: That is some of the, good things that did come out of it as it affected, traditional public education.

Cate: I agree. Yeah. And I know that I've been dialed in, over the last seven, eight years just, watching and now participating in the CTE movement. And so I'm curious, like so much of what you described Amarpal is makes me think of all of the opportunities that have come through career technical education through dual enrollment.

Like by taking the system and shaking it up and going, what if we did it just a little bit better to get a bigger bang for our buck for our students? And that's, I'm interested to hear, Nick, from your perspective and Toutoule from your community perspective and then from the community college perspective, is that like what has CTE done to your worlds?

And then together, how did, how do you think we got here 

Toutoule: that's for Nick and Am, 'cause Am is neck deep in CTE 

Cate: Uhhuh. Okay. 

Toutoule: Okay. I was involved in CTI helped start a few campuses, start their CTE program. And to just, and LA Unified. They've been all in on CTE.

They've, they had a whole grant fund. They got this huge funding and what it's done to schools and the resources that it's given to schools and the schools that I was working with. They would've never had access to these, these high end pieces of machines, but then also teachers to leverage those machines to give kids an authentic learning experience.

Seeing that rollout and seeing how much passion there is statewide. The appetite statewide to develop these CTE programs has, been, really interesting to see. But then also, I always wonder, what do these CTE programs look like schools for our, black and brown kids?

Are they getting the same kind of opportunities to get into these programs? Yep. Are they able to pipeline, to the community colleges where Am is working and get these high end experiences? And how do we make sure that these programs can really hit those students. So they have this opportunity, to be in these programs, 'cause they're fantastic. Yeah. I love CTE programs and, the possibilities that they have. 

Cate: Yeah. 

Nick: And just piggybacking on that, it's back to thinking about the kind of the school reform movement again. It's like this idea of it's come around for full circle because when we were entering, the school spaces, it was all about college readiness.

College readiness, And now we're actually evolving into that space. Around. And it's interesting how, even how the real estate of charter schools and like new schools were built because they stopped doing like shop rooms and they stopped, doing the auto room or what have, 

Cate: right.

Nick: The, auto garage and what have you. And now we're coming full circle and saying, Hey wait, not every student may want to necessarily go to college. And it, and there might, we need to provide 'em space to yeah. To be the person they wanna be and the citizen they wanna be. And that's, where CTE really is valued and highly important. So it's interesting to see how the whole thing has come full circle now. Am, you have a better insight because you get, 'em at the next step now with with once they graduate from high school and come to you. 

Amarpal: Absolutely. Cate mentioned two things that are, you could consider 'em as two initiatives of the same coin.

Which is dual enrollment and CTE, both are designed and set up to be relevant. To the workforce, but also in terms of moving students through the programs, getting, maybe unnecessary, classes. There's a lot of prerequisites once they get to the college level, removing, setting the students up for as much success as possible.

and especially where CTE comes into play. my wheelhouse is visual media art. So I am a visual artist by trade. I used to work in the animation industry, illustration, graphic design, sequential art, and then my pathway into education was the cusp of that charter movement. 

Cate: Mhm 

Amarpal: I started in K 12, then moved into higher ed. and so it's interesting where I'm at right now at LACC, we have dual enrollment programs that are super robust. We have dozens, I think two dozen, high school partners. And we both do dual enrollment and CTE programs. Now they're aligned with what the college offers. So the school and visual media arts, for instance, like we have photography and graphic design and illustration and eSports and game arts and design, and animation.

In terms of certificates and degrees that we offer. And so there's a request, Nick had mentioned there's no more auto shop. 

Cate: Yeah. 

Amarpal: That there's no more of these kind of, professional level, blue collar, hands-on types of jobs. So those things have been replaced by the digital, I don't wanna say the digital equivalent of that but the digital skill sets. So our students, if we're talking practical, are they learning Adobe Illustrator? Are they learning Adobe Photoshop? if they wanna go into the animation industry, what apps and programs are relevant to that field if they wanna learn photography, so those same things, those particular disciplines.

So we introduce, the foundation level of those courses for dual enrollment. Combined with the CTE requirements. So students are getting those skill sets. Now, here's something interesting. we've done both dual enrollment that is out at a school site. We send an instructor there. They work on site. Sometimes those campuses have CTE grants already in play, so they might have full computer labs. Sometimes they don't, sometimes they just have Chromebooks. but here's the interesting thing. We also have CTE dual enrollment on site, on campus over the summer, and what I found is that students who enroll in those classes, A, they're super highly motivated.

B, the idea of the pathway and those offerings is oh, they're gonna use it. And then they fast track into a community college, maybe not even necessarily LACC, get the AA and then transfer out. 

The kids who are really savvy. They're taking those classes and a lot of them, they skip the community college part.

They use it to front load, to jump right into a four year university, 

Cate: but two years in. 

Amarpal: Yeah. 

Cate: Wow. 

Amarpal: But because a lot of the rules and regulations around that have been loosened. 

Cate: Uhhuh. 

Amarpal: but the other thing is we're finding is that they're super tech savvy. They may already, because they're digital natives, right?

So they may not know the terminology or the vocabulary, the technical pieces of, okay, here's how you do something in Photoshop. But they're using an off-brand app on their phone already doing some of those things. They just don't know what the professional application of that is. 

Cate: Yeah.

Amarpal: So they're really way advanced and I have, there's less heavy lifting to do. At the front end, they come in as true digital natives. We don't have to do any technical instruction. here's the app, here's the tool set, here's what you do. They just dive in. Whereas the older students, the more experienced students, I'm talking, you wanna say older?

I'm saying 18 and up. 

Cate: Yeah. Yeah. 

Amarpal: That, that come to us. Okay. What do I do now? Let me work through the first two modules. Let me watch the video. Am I doing it right? 17 and below. Boom, they're there. 

Cate: Yeah. 

Amarpal: So it's really interesting to see that dichotomy. 

Cate: Yep. 

Amarpal: Because essentially, and let's be clear, their 21st century students. 

Cate: Yeah.

Amarpal: They're 21st century learners. They were born in the 21st century, and they are like, oh. You're from the 20th century. Yeah. You're from the 19 hundreds. So education as a system, just to extrapolate out and get back to, talking about general academics. 

Cate: Sure. 

Amarpal: As a system, the system has not caught up to 21st century students who are from the 21st century.

It's still stuck in the 20th, it's still stuck in the 19 hundreds. 

Cate: Yeah. 

Amarpal: So that's another big problem. And I'm seeing it just because of the tech aspect of these instructional disciplines. we're really on the front end, Moore's laws that tech, evolves every six months. Now it's sped up, it's probably every two months cycle.

Especially, another topic. Generative ai. 

Cate: Yeah, right 

Amarpal: General AI and how that's impacting. 

But, CTE dual enrollment is amazing. It's great. it's helping the students go through, but at the same time, I don't know that we're moving fast enough to keep up with the students..

Cate: Oh my gosh. No. And honestly, no, I think that's a really good point. And it makes me think of too, Toutoule how you were talking about, are we doing, are, is all this innovation happening? And including all learners, like truly all learners. And especially like with our story, with your story going back 20 years to the upheaval of school design to now, what have you all seen as far as what's working?

if like we can sit in a space of challenge or we can sit in a space of opportunity. And so when we are looking at this, what do you think is working that you would say, let's double down for our black and our brown students. Let's double down here. What would you say we could start with?

Toutoule: I have to, if I had to say anything, I would say first is access. 

And what does access look like? I'm just thinking about the schools that we're just at today. 

Cate: Yeah. 

Toutoule: Nick, that middle school, 99% African American, and then they go on to the high school, which is also 99% African American.

And what access do they have to some of this new technology? 'cause computer labs are obsolete, right? Now it's the, one-to-one Chromebooks, right around one, one-to-one, computers, laptops, those are becoming obsolete. Yeah. what is the access point for the technology? Not just sitting a student in front of a computer and saying, press the button and go. But what access do we have? do they have to create? So that's my first thinking, how do we get more of that type of access 

Cate: Yeah. 

Toutoule: Into our schools. So Am was saying, these kids are doing all this cool stuff. 

Cate: Yeah.

Toutoule: On their phone without any guidance. Now how do we come along as the instructors, the experts in the field, offer that guidance to them and us move together. I think that's, the big part. I was thinking when Am was talking, us moving together with students and teachers or everyone into this new space.

Because it's happening. I think even us who are, in the tech space, we're still having a hard time keeping up. 

Cate: Yeah. 

Toutoule: So like, how do we keep up together so we can all figure this out? Access and give kids opportunities to get into these next generation fields. 

Because, we're all afraid of AI, but AI is gonna create brand new industries.

Cate: Yeah. 

Toutoule: So where do our kids start to plug in now so they're ready for those industries? 

Cate: Yeah. 

Nick: I'll piggyback on that because I do think this idea around access is really important. It's like also just like this base of just like. How do we do that in a smart, thoughtful way?

And how do we actually are able to do this at some degree of scale? 

Like, it was like, thinking about like the tutoring, thinking about tutoring. yes, we all know tutoring helps kids. But it's also like, how do you actually make it work for each school? How, and it's like it's, and I'm using tutoring as like an avatar for other things.

Like how do you bring in community members to come in to do, art and theater and dance and what have you. Especially when you have limited real estate, how do you actually provide, how do you actually, okay, we have AI We have an ELA class, how do we provide the training for that access?

So it's like here, we're in a space where we know the things, but it's like how are we smart and adaptive enough to get it into a school to make it work for the students. And I do think we've gotten smarter in a lot of ways in doing that. But as the things are continuing to come in, we're always having to think about this and squint and figure it out.

Cate: Yeah 

Nick: like the mental health initiatives have been really important. if you think about that, like we all know, yes, students probably need more support around mental health. We've known this for 50, 60 years, right? And now we think it's important, like how does that work? How does that work with each school and each community?

So I think it's like thinking about that access and like thinking about like how we actually implement that in an effective way. 

Cate: Yeah. And in a sustainable way because we know the money isn't reliable. The money comes and goes. And yes, who could argue that mental health is not one of, is not the top need of our students, and yet at what loss?

Like what are we losing to get there? And from my perspective being in ed tech, the assumptions are made left and right by school boards and school leaders and organizations that the teachers can do it on their own now. And I get it. I think it's all coming from a nice, positive place, but that is not the case, right?

This is not the time to get rid of your ed tech support and, no I know. My heart bleeds from the like tutu and I spent a year working with these 40 educators across the state to get them ed tech, to become California state certified ed tech specialists. 

And most are back in the classroom or not in education at all.

And it's, and that was four years ago. It wasn't a long time ago. 

Nick: I actually have to sign off, but 

Cate: Oh yeah. Nick is gonna go do back to school night, so thank you. 

Nick: No, my pleasure. Thank you for having me. 

Cate: You got it. 

Nick: Take it easy. 

Cate: Continue forward. Thanks, Nick. 

Nick: Thank you. 

Cate: Oh, what were you gonna say 

Amarpal: Oh, so looking over your prompt also, 

Cate: Yeah.

Amarpal: That in terms of talking about tier one 

Cate: Yes. 

Amarpal: One instruction; and it's part of it. But this is an approach, that's folded into and sits alongside all these other things. We know EdTech isn't the magic bullet. Tier one education as a framework has its issues. And, one of the main things, I was watching, a video. There's a, I guess education influencer, Casey Watts and was, talking about, one of the problems, in tier one education. 

One of the main things is whether it's tier one education or whatever you can, put in, fill in the blank.

I think teachers chronically feel that they don't have enough knowledge in these new systems. 

Cate: Yeah. 

Amarpal: And the schools aren't, or the systems aren't necessarily providing them with enough professional development. 

And then once they get it, discussing with your colleagues, collaborating with the people, your peers, that you're gonna be implementing this thing, whether it's tier one education or ed tech or anything.

So it's like the shortage of time. To really plan and do the thing. I came, I had an interesting phenomenon, so myself, I'm an LMU grad. Plug. Plug, 

Cate: Plug. Plug. LMU. Yeah. My husband went there. My dad, my brothers and sisters. Yep. 

Amarpal: Yes. Both Nick and I, education leadership for social justice. 

Cate: Nice.

Amarpal: and, Toutoule's program is excellent as well over at SC. 

Cate: Yep. 

Amarpal: but there was a moment in researching and pulling together all the things for my dissertation, and it seemed like magically all the stuff I was pulling together, there was all these solutions in these journal articles written by people much smarter than I am.

And I was like, and I'm also working in education at the same time, and I didn't see, it's oh, here's all the answers. And there's really great people in the classroom and administrators, and they didn't have access to these answers. 

Cate: What's wrong here? 

Amarpal: And it's there's a lot of research, there's a lot of stuff out there.

It's just, maybe it's, the perception like, oh, that's academia, that's education, research, it's theory. What application does it have? But I was able to take a lot of that and implement it. But I think there's also, there's a, when we talk about knowledge gap, I think there's a knowledge gap of, from your everyday, person in the classroom, administrator at a school site and some of them have gone through their own dissertation programs, but then taking what is known and applying it.

Cate: Yeah. 

Amarpal: and implementing it, and then also making it consistent and as you pointed out, Cate. Sustainable. So I think there's these, there's pieces, if we think of a train track, there's pieces, but then there's pieces of the track that it's not all connected together. So I think that's another big thing where they're talking about tier one education or, another thing. 

Cate: Yeah, what you just shared makes me wonder. Toutoule, you have spent a lot of time in maker education, and one of the things I admire about you is your ability to make everybody who you are with feel like they're capable. They're capable of creating. And I, think that's a gift that you give the educators you work with.

I admire you so much for that. And so where did that come from and how does it go full circle for you when you think about your close friends that you've stayed connected with? It's not just 'cause you guys worked together 20 years ago, right? there's a reason why you're in each other's lives and why they all, why you all came on today.

Toutoule: They invite me out to drink beers. I can't say no to that. Just beer. Can't say no. We have beer summits 

Cate: Now, I know. 

Toutoule: No, it's, I'm a science person at heart and, in order to be a scientist, you're always testing out new things.

And anything is possible. Just put your mind to it. And you can make it happen. And when I was in the classroom. That was what I would always want to, instill in my students that anything is possible. You can do whatever it is you wanna do. And now that I work with teachers and consult teachers, it's just amazing when you're able to just break things down.

Did the kid, you're excited, the kid just wrote his first piece of something on a paper? That's great. Let's celebrate that. And this whole journey, you, find yourself connecting with people who have a similar ideology and belief in others', belief in our students.

I think that's where the camaraderie comes together. and, I just like being around good people and I'm always enamored by people's stories and, being able to just be around good, smart people. Yeah. And we, Nick, Am and I, every time till today when we come together, we're always talking about these big problems in education.

What is it gonna take for us to solve it? What is it gonna take for the problems to be solved? And that all the three of us, we have this level of, professional curiosity and that pushes us to do the things that we're doing. And it, there's no, Am, he's not gonna toot his own horn, but he's gonna be Dean over there at LACC.

That it? 

Cate: Congratulations. 

Amarpal: No no 

Toutoule: There's, no secret to why it's gonna happen. there's no secret to why that's gonna happen. Nick just started his tutoring company where he's working in spaces and all these people are coming in and they're signing up to do his tutoring program.

There's no reason, there's no guessing how that happened. It's all because we have this level of professional curiosity and we go after those things. and I think that is how we all get connected together and we all, we are constantly pushing each other to be the best that we could be.

Cate: Love it. I love it. 

Toutoule: That's what we do. That's what we do all here. Cate. 

Cate: I know, but you also, you exude it. Like you can't be, I can't be in a room with you and not be smiling, ready to try something and, doubling down on that safe space and, professional curiosity. Like again, thinking about, the educators that are in classrooms right now that maybe haven't been there that long, or maybe they have.

How often do they get a chance to just pause and wonder? Just, 

Toutoule: yeah, 

Cate: pause and wonder. Ask why? lean into that. It's like we're all moving, we're on this hamster wheel. go, And the nature of classrooms is that we just stop and then we start the next, and we go to, and I, admire that about the relationship you guys all have, which is that you have this outlet and not everybody does, but that doesn't mean they can't create it or make something that looks right to them just by wondering and being curious. I love that. 

Amarpal: Yeah. I think also to add to that thanks Toutoule and that, that was really insightful and very generous.

I appreciate that. Thank you so much. Toutoule has been, both Toutoule and Nick for me have been sounding boards. Have been, a safe space. You mentioned safe space. You could share the dream no matter how audacious. And you're not gonna get a negative answer. You're gonna be like, that's great.

Do it. Go for it. And then also because of where we both, where we all started, Each level, like the level up has been, like we, are able to bounce off each other energy. We're able to bounce off each other. Oh, you're doing that? Okay, you go home. I need to think about doing that.

Cate: Aha. 

Amarpal: Lemme figure out. And it might not be the same thing. 

Cate: Yeah. 

Amarpal: But it's okay, we are pushing each other as comrades, as peers, as colleagues, as friends. to our greater potential. 

Cate: Yeah. 

Amarpal: Because it's one of those things where I mentioned before, like when we started in education there, there was very much the thing of we were true believers.

And to clarify that it's not so much that we're true believers in the charter movement per se or, any given system, but true believers in the transformative power 

Cate: Yeah. 

Amarpal: Of education in students' lives, no matter what the discipline area was, whether it's, the arts or ELA or math or sciences.

Cate: Mhmm 

Amarpal: that there's a true power there. And then a recognition of maybe there's something, some little spark, something that we could bring to the table to help facilitate that. 

Cate: Yeah. 

Amarpal: And then with all of that, it's okay. There, there's, other people that feel that way, like that, the dream of the idea of education.

Forget the systems part of it, right? Because I think we've all been through whatever systems and we understand that systems are manmade and they can be broken, right? But education is a universal constant, right? There's no constant but change, How do we roll with that? How do we get that to students?

Like my personal journey, one of the questions I, saw was, what's our story? Why, I think it was like, why did we stick with it? Or what did we bring to the table, through our personal story. I personally went to eight different schools in my K12 career. Wow. Not because my, folks were in the military or anything like that, but they were, both immigrants to the country.

So they had no, inherent privileges . There was no, money sitting around. There was no hedge funds involved. 

There were no businesses to inherit. 

There wasn't any of those kinds of things. My father, English was his, third language behind Punjabi and Hindi and German.

Cate: Wow. 

Amarpal: Actually, English was his fourth language, so he started over, like in this country, in his late thirties. 

Cate: Wow 

Amarpal: So imagine starting over from scratch with nothing. You're learning a new system in a new society. 

My mom was a little different. She went to Catholic school in New York, but born of, Jamaican immigrants.

But again, it's that idea of like, how do you make something out of nothing? and my mom was, always a firm believer in education, so we moved to wherever the economy was good. It was that simple. 

Cate: Yeah. 

Amarpal: So, it put it another way. Right now there's a lot of talk about economic migration and there's a, lot of talk, we're in California about outflows and inflows. People leaving and going to states where, they perceive there might be better opportunities, et cetera, et cetera. My parents literally were that before the conversation was in the, so I always got had the question, why did your parents move so much? And it was like, it's the opportunity, right?

so in that, migration from New York to Florida, to Texas, to here. I went to eight different schools. 

Cate: Wow. 

Amarpal: So I got to see literally eight different systems. They were all public education. It was all public school, but how it was affected regionally. 

Cate: Mhmm 

Amarpal: What was funded, what was valued. some schools, arts was really funded and they had theaters and music rooms and art rooms and studios, others.

There was dust on the instruments 'cause and the things were falling apart, others had great computer labs, other had, others had two computers. So you got to see what was valued, what was funded. And what that meant for the outcomes of students. 

One experience I'll share, just to leave it at that. When I was in Texas, the counselor, this is high school mind you, didn't even counsel per se. I showed up, my mom looked at, the, schedule of classes that I had after the week one. She said, why are you all in remedial classes? 

And it was basically like, oh, that's a black kid. Put 'em all in remedial classes.

Cate: Yeah. 

Amarpal: And then my mom went down. She said, have you seen his grades? Have you seen, and you need an advocate. I think that's another important thing. Yeah. At that point in time, when you're young. 15, 16, you don't know how necessarily know how to advocate yourself. 

but then, you go to other places and maybe the counselor has more resources or is able to talk to, or maybe the teacher takes interest in you, or maybe there's wraparound services programs that are able to push through the system. I got, I think that affected my, outlook of why I became an educator. 

Cate: Okay. 

Amarpal: Even all the way up into higher ed. My undergrad experience, even though it was a quote unquote, private art school, small classrooms, you would think that, it would be this amazing nurturing thing.

But, there was a lot of. What is an inherent racism and classism, especially in the arts field of who is and who isn't able to practice art and participate in that professionally. So I think all of that, affected it, and no pun intended, but I wanted to be a bridge between, industry, what was happening in industry and students who may not have access to getting into industry and getting this type of education in the arts. That's been my driving motivation, modus operandi for my whole career. 

Cate: So if I can just go lean in more, if you could go back to Amarpal, year two, year three in the classroom teaching. 

Amarpal: Oh, wow. 

Cate: What did you teach, by the way? 

Amarpal: it is funny because it was completely by accident.

Cate: Perfect. 

Amarpal: I, so senior year undergrad, there wasn't, there was a internship class and we had an opportunity to either reach out to a school or a company to get an internship. 

I did pick a company, but then later the opportunity presented itself, to volunteer at an after school in an hour a week.

I was like, yeah, I can, I could volunteer and do arts projects with, kindergartners and pre-K, 

Cate: oh babies 

Amarpal: completely free. And it was like, it was very fulfilling. Very, 

Cate: yeah. 

Amarpal: all that good mushy feel good stuff. Yeah. Who doesn't like little kids. 

Cate: Yeah. 

Amarpal: And doing art. And, but then the founder, Mike Pisco was like, Hey, we're gonna turn into a real school.

I wanna hire you. 

Cate: Oh, wow. 

Amarpal: You have a college degree, don't you? I was like, yeah, but I'm an illustrator and I work at movie studios. What could I possibly know about the classroom? he said, fine, you'll design the programs and we'll hire qualified teachers. So I actually learned from the qualified teachers I was hiring as I designed these programs.

Cate: Oh, I love this. 

Amarpal: And I was teaching, I was probably teaching above their unquote standards grade level, but I was like teaching things that I thought that, elementary school students would be interested in. And I was designing programs like that. 

Cate: So what would you go back and tell that younger Amarpal?

Amarpal: I think at that point you're always a little anxious. You don't know what you don't know, like it's gonna be okay. And yeah it's like hindsight's 2020. I don't know. I wouldn't change anything necessarily. I don't know that I'd give, I don't know that I'd listen to myself than me then. He was really stubborn. I didn't wanna, I don't know what got, 

Cate: Are you not stubborn anymore? 

Amarpal: My partner would disagree, but maybe a little less stubborn.

Toutoule: I got a story. I got a story. My, okay. My younger self, my fifth, I was, before I came to ICEF. This is all coming together before, before me and em, and, Nick met. I was gonna quit education. I was gonna leave. I was at a school. 

Cate: What year were you? What was going on? 

Toutoule: It was year five.

Cate: Okay. 

Toutoule: So I started in Pomona. I was a middle school teacher in Pomona for three years. It's fantastic. I wanted to teach high school and I wanted to coach basketball. At the high school. I couldn't do it at Pomona High School, any other school. So I was like, I'm gonna leave and go somewhere else. So I left.

I got recruited to go teach to start a physics program at Charter Oak. Third year, my fourth year started at Charter Oak. The lady who recruited me made my life like just terrible. It was terrible. Okay. She was on me. I hated going to work. Oh, I would, my wife made me at the time, my wife at the, she, when we were talking, having this conversation, she made me, Why stay or leave? I have to think a list of things and I'm like, this is terrible. This is horrible. I felt totally alienated. Then I was like, I'm gonna give it one more shot. I'm gonna give it one more shot. I'm gonna find a school to go to. Glendora gave me the job a biology job, and then I got a job to teach downtown at this charter school.

And I, was telling my friend, I was like, yo, I wanna go to. I'm gonna go to Glendora, it's a high performing school, whatever. She was like, Toutoule, Glendora is so white. I was like, oh, wow. That's interesting. Because I would've, been teaching any students of color. The school I was going to was 100%, African American decided on going to that school and it really shift shaped what's happening right now.

And I think, yeah, if I were to tell. If I were to talk to my fourth and fifth year in teacher self 

Cate: uhhuh, 

Toutoule: I would tell him, find your people. Gotta find your people. Stick with your people. And, for some reason, this analogy always rings true to me. Like a screwdriver is horrible at being a hammer.

A hammer is horrible at being a screwdriver. So you gotta find your thing. Whatever your thing is, you'll be the best. Once the screwdriver finds a screw, it's the best thing in the world. 

Cate: Yeah. 

Toutoule: Once the hammer finds the nail to knock it in, it's the best thing in the world. So you gotta find your 

thing 

Cate: Yeah 

Toutoule: Whatever your thing is, find other people who also like, yeah, similar things. You come together with them because that's what's gonna propel you through the tough times. 

Cate: Yeah. 

Toutoule: Through the times when you may not feel as, as valued. Maybe you are unsure of what direction you're gonna move in. 

Cate: Yeah. 

Toutoule: But you've got that thing and the people who are gonna help you with that thing and that is what's gonna keep you moving.

Cate: I love it. 

Toutoule: Ever since meeting Am and Nick, we came together. Then I left that situation and, other things happened, but they were still with me through that time. And then, I found other people online who I connected with and I was like, these people were with me when I started my journey.

It would've gave me excitement. It would've gave me things to look forward to. It gave me things to, to strive for what, to get better at, how to hone my craft. But I think you need to find your people and find your thing. 

Cate: Find your thing. 

Toutoule: If you find those two together, that's what's gonna propel you to longevity.

Cate: I love it. I love it. I can't thank you, all three of you, but you too, gentlemen. Enough, story is power and I am grateful that we were able to. Get a little bit of your story in here and I'm excited that you're in my life, Amarpal and Nick, and that's the best part of doing these episodes is I'm walking away with my own network, growing and evolving and very self-serving of me.

But I am a connector, right? And. So thank you for the time and Toutoule. I can't wait for our next project, whatever it may be. We're not done with each other though. I don't think we're done. 

Toutoule: No way. No way. No way, 

Cate: Well, thank you both. We'll make sure to put all your contact info in the show notes and, I think that's a wrap. I think we're gonna wrap it right there. 

Amarpal: Awesome. Thank you, Cate. 

Cate: Thanks, gentlemen. 

Amarpal: for having time for us. We really appreciate it. 

Cate: Amazing.