Episode 2: District Theme “Find Your Swing”

Wendy: Welcome to this week's episode of Provo City School District’s What's up with the Sup’ podcast? I am Superintendent Wendy Dau, and this week I am joined by our Assistant Superintendent over Secondary Education, Darrell Jensen. Before I introduce him more, let's go over this week's updates. First day of kindergarten is Wednesday, August 23rd. Please be sure to check your school's website, calendar or social media for all important updates for your school's start times and other information. Elementary schools will continue to release early on Monday and Tuesday, where they will release at 1:00 PM.. If you qualify for free or reduced lunch, remember to send in your application within the first 30 days of school. This must be done every year, so please make sure you get those applications in. Remember to update your information in PowerSchool. This needs to be done annually and allows us to contact you and to keep you updated on important school events. The next school board meeting will be our study session on Tuesday, August 22nd, beginning at 4:00 PM. We will also have a short business meeting beginning at 5:15 p.m.. Study and business meetings will be held in board Boardroom one and they are open to the public. The Foundation's Links for Kids golf tournament will be held on September 28th, so if you are interested in participating, please visit foundation.provo.edu. Weekly video cast from me will be coming today both to our employees and also out to our community. So stay tuned for that. Timpview High school is still under construction. We will have an update after our meeting with our new project management team on Monday, August 21st, and more information will come as to our dates of occupancy for the new wing of Timpview High School. And now onto our episode. Today as our guest on our podcast, we have Assistant Superintendent Darrell Jensen. He is our Assistant Superintendent over Secondary Education. He has been an administrator and a teacher for 27 years and most recently was the principal of Corner Canyon High School in Canyons School District. And now he has made the jump to Provo City School District. And we're very excited to have you here. Thank you for joining me. Darrell: Hey, thank you, Superintendent. I'm happy to be here. Wendy: So tell me a little bit about what your job is like. Darrell: Well, you know what? It's been really good. I've been here on the job a little over a month. I've got to meet a lot of really great people, a lot of great individuals at Provo City School District. I'm really happy with what's been going on. I'm happy to be part of the team here. You know, I'm over secondary education, meaning I'm over the high schools and the middle schools here in the district. And I'm looking forward to just supporting them and helping them with their goals and their school initiatives and just pitching in where I need to be. Wendy: I've noticed you've been out in the schools a lot and people have commented on how great that has been. Yeah, that's one of my goals is I don't like to be a cave dweller. I want to be visible. Darrell: I want to be approachable and at the end of the day, that's what I'm here for, to take things off their plate and try to make their job easier out in the schools and make sure they have the support for the students and teachers that they need. Wendy: Perfect. We're here to talk a little bit about the book that we've decided to read and focus on as a district. It's called The Boys in the Boat. And we settled on this book as we were talking as a Cabinet about some of the needs of Provo City School District and really our desire to align our work between the district office and our individual school sites. And so you suggested this book and have done it in the past and kind of talked about the theme of “Find your Swing” and I kn