I do.

But, um, spent a, a chunk of time in Chicago and spent a chunk of time in Ireland with the family.

What I'll say about that is that it was my father-in-law's 75th birthday.

He is from Ireland.

And, um, my husband lived there when he was very young for a short period of time.

And my father-in-law, who's a very stoic, kind, lovely gentleman, um, said that he wanted all of us to come for his 75th, and he wanted to show us his, his homeland.

And there were 22 of us.

Mm-hmm

So we're seeing these numbers go the wrong way statewide, but what is DPSCD doing that their numbers are actually improving?

Yeah, and I will also say that MDE would point out that the shift downward from 38.9, like you said, to 38.2 is nominal.

So in essence, it's flat, and it's not going in the right direction in terms of the slight decrease within the 38%.

But I think that it's important for us to remember across the state, we have work to do.

And it isn't on a sharp decline.

But you are right.

DPSCD is this incredible bright spot in not so great news.

What's happening in these middle school classrooms that's kind of helping move that needle?

And how do we get people to connect on issues and advance them? What does it look like in a purple state? And in this political moment, like, does it require something different? Like where is Gilman positioned in that sort of like ground building and bridge building in a purple state?

Yeah.

So our strategy in terms of funding is called people-powered education.

And really, it is a bet on how change happens anywhere, but especially inside of a purple state.

So you mentioned ground building.

That's one of the four pillars.

Invest in community power.

Where should the foundation sort of communications or narrative be focused on to sort of like bring that like the fuller picture together? I feel like we don't see enough of that.

What's something that young people are telling adults right now that you think maybe we're still not hearing clearly enough?

Yeah, you know, I think that young people are saying, don't leave us out of the solution.

You know, there's a lot of focus right now, which I'm grateful for, that Michigan needs to do something about public education.

We've heard now from several places that we're 44th in terms of education outcomes in the nation.

We didn't get there overnight.

It actually isn't an incremental solution.

It's going to take a lot of folks revamping curriculum, getting a vision together, getting our structure together and more.

Tell us a little bit about what you've learned on how to make that work.

What's something that young people are telling adults right now that you think maybe we're still not hearing clearly enough?

Yeah, you know, I think that young people are saying, don't leave us out of the solution.

You know, there's a lot of focus right now, which I'm grateful for, that Michigan needs to do something about public education.

We've heard now from several places that we're 44th in terms of education outcomes in the nation.

We didn't get there overnight.

It actually isn't an incremental solution.

It's going to take a lot of folks revamping curriculum, getting a vision together, getting our structure together and more.

Tell us a little bit about what you've learned on how to make that work.