Interview with SBCSS Assistant Superintendent, William F. Roberts IV

This month’s focus will be an interview with William F. Roberts IV, Assistant Superintendent with San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools. 

Transcript

Don 0:06

Hello, my name is Don English Director of Children Deserve Success and Executive Director of the San Bernardino County wide Gangs and Drugs Task Force. And I want to welcome you to our children deserve success podcast. Monthly, we will be sending out these recordings regarding all things related to child welfare and attendance, school attendance Review Board, foster youth services, McKinney-Vento homeless programs in our county and the San Bernardino County wide gangs and drugs Task Force. This month’s focus will be an interview with William F. Roberts IV Assistant Superintendent with San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools. Rob, I'm so glad you're here today. If you would please tell us a little bit about what you do for San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools. 

William 0:52

Yeah, certainly Don. Well, first of all, I appreciate the opportunity to be here. You know, HR doesn't get invited, you know, we are considered kind of the dark horse of the organization. But along with internal business services, we're really, we provide the operational background that allows people like yourself to do all the good work with the children across San Bernardino County. My role, obviously, I'm Assistant Superintendent, human resources for Mr. Alejandre. There are six assistant superintendents slash Chief Technology Officer type positions. So, with that, we have approximately 2,530 employees. And with that we are responsible in human resources for recruitment retention of talent. So, it's all about talent acquisition and finding people to come into our public school system to provide the best possible service to our kids. And with that, you know, the flip side of that are the operational items. Obviously, employee discipline, dismissal release, that's the uncomfortable part of the role. But we also have workers compensation, we have employee benefits, we have property and liability responsibility. In addition to that. Human Resources for San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools handles all of the credentialing assignment monitoring. So, if a person a teacher has a particular degree and credential, we want to make sure that they're properly assigned in throughout the entire county. And so, you're talking about approximately 35,000 teachers with that, we also do unemployment. So obviously, during COVID, that was a big challenge. Because many, many people filed for unemployment, we have 70, just over 70,000 public school employees in county schools on a kind of a, you know, they come in and out not only county schools, but in our LEA partners, our local educational agencies, our districts. So that is also a responsibility as well. So, with that, you know, we provide a support service to all our district partners in human resources. So that kind of is an all-encompassing snapshot of what we do in human resources. But really, it's the operational side. We do, I do encourage all of my managers, our team members to get out into the field, see what our kids are doing. Because their amazing work and what you've done in children deserve success is amazing. With our book of business, basically, our direct services in student services within San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools, about 90% of our book of business is we provide special education on low incidence, incidences, things like deaf and hard of hearing, visually impaired. And so, we operate on a model of economies of scale. Marlene Pierre, who is the Assistant Superintendent in the area directors will determine, you know, maybe bring students from three or four different school sites into one school site will provide a teacher the paraeducators, the support mechanisms in place, but about 90% of our book of business is special education. And then the other 10% is those mandated services and mandatory expelled students that are detained and we, we provide services and sometimes many times for a very short period of time, but we are the lifeline for those students. We provide hope, more than anything else. And also, you know, working with you and in our homeless and marginalized kids, but all of our kids I should say are marginalized. And so really, it's a particular type of talent. We go after human resources.

Don 5:03

Outstanding, thorough answer, Mr. Roberts, did you always see yourself in this role? And if so, why? And what was your journey to human resource?

William 5:12

Yeah, thanks, Don. Well, the answer to that did I always see myself in this role? I never aspire to be assistant superintendent for Mr. Alejandre. I was fortunate to work myself there. I started as a walk on coach in 1985. I was a substitute teacher, regular education teacher. I went back to special education for nine years, and my forte was dealing with the most difficult students. The label of kids in a comprehensive high school was those kids send those kids to Rob. And so, I had a special day class setting for nine years, it was really a robust and rich experience. Had you know, having that background when I transitioned into administrative services, you know, although all the while I was teaching, I was coaching a course. And so that provided me a rich experience working with a lot of different types of kids. I worked in high school and community college system. And so really, no, my goal was to be a division one football coach that didn't work out I transitioned I did three different roles in administration in high school comprehensive setting, I was a high school principal for six years, I competed successfully for demotion to Director of Human Resources for 16 months, but I was shortly thereafter, I was appointed assistant superintendent and I served that school district one school district costly and La Puente for 30 years. And then another short stint in another school district before this guy, Mr. Ted Alejandre, caught my eye on LinkedIn, and Facebook and saw the work going on here and thought, hey, I'm a resident of San Bernardino County. I came in. And so, I came to work for Miss Linda Fabray, as a director in human resources I've been now I'm closing my fifth year, I just crossed over my fifth year in human resources. So that's been my journey.  But you know the highlight of my career will always be working with kids and families and impacting the lives and I still get Christmas cards, I get, you know, text messages from former students. And those are meaningful things that keep us alive and well. And I don't have to tell you, you've been there.

Don 7:35 

Rob, I tell you, your experience is evident and just a pleasure, thus far talking to you. Since our organization, our schools have returned from distance learning in the pandemic, there has been a shortage of staff, especially teachers. What is San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools doing specifically to both recruit and retain teachers?

William 7:55

Well, that's a loaded question. You know, Don, there was just an ED count article that was released last week that I sent to my colleagues here in San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools, and they're estimating a teacher shortage of 50,000. Where does that come from? Where does that number? Well, if you look at year over year, what we do is we look at CalSTERS numbers. CalSTERS is a retirement system that all the certificate employees participate in year over year between 2021 and 2022. There were 18,600 Less teachers year over year. The interesting thing about that is only 12,400 were retirees, where are the other 6,000 teachers, they basically left the profession and that is work. This is this is a crisis situation. And it's no different when we look at our support staff that are critical, our classified employees, the people that work with our kids on the ground face to face, you know that that group is represented by CSEA. And they also are participants in PERS. Last year, there were 59,000 appointments for retirements. So, we’re, you know, I'm finishing year 37. I just finished year 37. Never seen anything like this. So, what are we doing? Well, we've done a few things. Number one, we've started a talent acquisition Task Force started out as a task force, it was designed just to target substitute teachers to come into the work. And we did up an increase substitute rate from basically $130 to $200 a day so we've done some monetary things. We've instituted a hiring incentive in CSEA, Teamsters and teaching ranks. But really, it is a structural issue. And what I mean by that is it started in 2009. With the downturn in the economy, you had less and less because of the lack of funding in public schools, he didn't have a lot of people in the teacher pipeline. And that's just been exacerbated over the years. You know, if you want to hear something good about public schools, go to the SBCSS website or tune into Ted Alejandre. Other than that, if you see something on the front page, regarding public schools, it's generally negative. And we need to change that. And we need to turn that tide. So, we're working with that very intentionally in the boss has done a great job with that. We also have written competitive grants. Both were issued by CDE and CTCs. Commission on Teacher Credentialing commission. I mean, the California Department of Education don't mean to be using acronyms. But anyways, we the California classified school employee teacher credentialing program is something that helps transition classified employees such as paraprofessionals, or a fiscal clerk into certificated. Service and we pay tuition, we have the grant, we have a means by which we can assist people with that. We also have local solutions grant the local solution grant, because I mentioned that about 90% of our book of business, what we actually serve our kids with IEP is kids that have special needs. And so, we want to grow those internally. So, we have, we have four district partners in that the classified grant, we have, I believe, three partners in local solutions grant. And so, I'm saying all that because now the tide has turned the largest state budget in history of the United States of America was this year, they are pouring a lot of money into resources that will recruit, retain qualified teachers, and bring people maybe from other fields into teaching. So those are a few things that we're doing, it's not going to happen overnight. Basically, what we are seeing internally in SBCSS, and this is very much like my 33 colleagues and our other LEA school districts are seeing is it's about three to two resignations to hire sheets, meaning that we get three resignations, we make two hires or offers of employment. We are very challenged because San Bernardino County is booming. That's a great thing. I mean, you look at the air cargo that goes in and out of Ontario, and San Bernardino. The Big Three you know Amazon, UPS and FedEx are out pricing us right now for entry level employees plus they have competitive benefits and signing bonuses. So, you know, it's a very challenging market. But it's a very collaborative approach. We have a cross disciplinary Task Force, the talent acquisition task force that's run by Violet Gutierrez when my director, but that encompasses a lot of different people from different areas across the organization. And, and every time I get an opportunity to go out and I was up at Cal State San Bernardino in different places. And the bosses well are we're really recruiting people to come in to service. And it is calling to come into service in public school. So that's a mouthful, but that's the labor market. It's challenging.

Don 13:29 

Well, Rob, I tell you talked about changing the narrative. And we know that our county Superintendent leads the way in that and doing that not only for our county, but really, we got to look at it nationwide as it relates to this being a profession attracts talent, as you say. But as an organization, we know it's important for our students to see themselves within our system. Is San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools doing anything specifically to recruit minorities and male teachers?

William 13:56 

Yeah, great, great question. So, the answer is yes. One of the things that we're doing, I already mentioned the classified grant. That was very appealing to me, I had some familiarity with it before I came to county schools. But if you look at classified ranks within public school systems, not only county schools, but LEA's generally speaking, if you look at the demographics within classified ranks, particularly they most closely represent the children that we serve in that community. So, we target those that talent and help them bridge the gaps that may create barriers and roadblocks to them becoming successful public-school teachers. And what I mean by that is one of the structural challenges that we have is our profile of a paraeducator is a single female head of household. They come to work for county schools because of the benefits. Well, if you go through a teacher, Ed program, how exactly do you do student teaching for free and maintain your benefits and your salary that you need to sustain your family. So, we've been, we've been looking at those structural constraints, trying to find ways to bridge. But most, you know, notably what you said, we want people in front of our kids that look that represent that understand culturally, that understand the socioeconomics of the local community. And that is strategically, what we're doing with the classified grants. Now, the other thing, the next step that we're doing is, we're going to go out and look at after school programs, because those kids, many times you have kids that are involved in, they might be getting their undergraduate degree, working our after-school programs, etc. But you look at the kids, and you look at that profile, you got to be a special individual to work with somebody's child, you can't just accept that as a so-called job. It's not a job. That's a vocation. And so that's another area that we're going to go to really target. And so, I've had some initial conversations. And of course, with higher ed, we're working with Cal State San Bernardino. They have project impact, Project impact, specifically targets, males, African American black, if you will, Hispanic Latino, males to assist, support, and bring in we make a financial. Marriage, if you will, to a contribution from Cal State San Bernardino, we're not the only ones. We have other partners in business communities that have a vested interest in as well, because we need an educated next generation labor force in San Bernardino County. If you walk into Amazon, and you look at what's going on there, as far as you know, people running millions and millions of dollars in machinery or ammo, you know, FedEx or UPS the air operations have, it's amazing. But we need people that really have soft skills as well, responsible good citizens, work ethic going to show up every day. So, all those things, you know, we're looking to grow all those things, but particularly with people in front of our kids that look like our kids that that have those same experiences.

Don 17:37 

Yeah, Rob, I, you know, you talk about Cal State San Bernardino. And so, I was recruited to be a part of the program that you're discussing by the chair of administration. And I was asked a question about recruitment and retention. And one of my responses was that we have to remove barriers. I think that's really, really important. But I really like what you're saying. And I really know that that is your focus, and you're intentional about it. And the county schools are intentional about it. What would you say is the biggest misconception that a potential SBCSS employee may have when looking to join our organization?

William 18:16 

Well, I think one of the challenges is that this is the largest county in the lower 48. So sometimes, there is a reluctance, like we will hear at different job fairs, etc. Teacher fairs it, well, I could be transferred anywhere I could be living in in San Bernardino and end up working in Victorville. And the answer is absolutely. But we flip that script. And, and we look at the potential opportunity. The opportunity, not only in entry level positions, but promotion, and I use it boss as an example. If you look at our Superintendent, Mr. Alejandre, started out in classified service in the business side of the house in a local school district. Right, moved up a couple positions and figured out you know, he was in the Air Force Reserves figured out, hey, you know what, wow, I kind of like, you know, might think about teaching his mother-in-law was in education. So, he made the transition, right? And into to public school service on the certificated side, moved up to principal and then transitioned and was a director, a chief business official. Now, as a superintendent, that's a robust experience. And that's something that you carry with you just like I do, I've had some of those experiences. So, when people say, wow, it's a big county don't know where I'm going to be, for the most part, that's really not true regionally. We really try and keep you close to home. It doesn't always work out that way. Especially if there's a downturn in the economy where we have to, we want people to maintain their livelihood, their jobs, we may have to move you for a period of time. So that's one of the big, I guess misnomers is that that exists. But for the most part, we flip that script and say, wait a minute, look about look at the opportunity. You know, we have a, we generated that 65,000 W2'S, last year, okay, somebody has to process those down at the Brier office, the weekly or the monthly warrants that go to all of our vendors, our employees, the EFTS, all of that is generated, that's on the business side of the house, yet our largest division is student services, student services to teachers, psychologists, principals, all of all of the direct services that we push out into place like Hesperia, or Apple Valley etc., our single largest division is student services. So, if you look at those opportunities, it's almost Well, it's very different than, than a place like a local school district where you're very compartmentalized and departmentalized. about roles and responsibilities, much like the County Sheriff's Department, you can work in corrections, you can work or custody corrections, you could work at, you know, Colorado River detail, diving, you know, mountain detail, search, and rescue, we have the same opportunities. So that's, that's really, we encounter those challenges. But we also provide a really rich environment for upward mobility.

Don 21:35 

Absolutely. I like what you say about opportunity. As a 28-year employee of San Bernardino County, Superintendent of Schools, I served 22 of those years on the west end. And so, we're fortunate enough to be there. However, I do know that as you move around and understand just the different environments be a different climate and culture of different areas, it just couldn't really make you more real, well rounded. Individual. So, the next question I'd like to ask you is, and you kind of mentioned it when you came many times human resources can feel cut off from the rest of the organization? How do you keep your brand feeling included in what other parts of the organization are doing? Number one? And then secondly, what can we do in other brands departments to make sure our SBCSS Human Resources family feels connected to the work we're doing with San Bernardino County students and families?

William 22:32 

Yeah, thanks, Don? That's, that's a great question. Because it is challenging, as I said, you know, I look at, I'll always look at my roles, and my impact with students directly as really the highlight of my career. And but I understand the importance and the function of human resources, especially when it comes to talent acquisition, because that's critical. You're only as good as the people that you bring into the organization, the heart and soul is people. It is not about compliance. It is not about the buildings, those things enhance, but they don't make a difference in the life of a child. So, with that said, we are very compliance oriented, Title Five, ad code, collective bargaining agreements, okay, labor code. And I could go on and on with the list, you know, there are 19 different leaves in, in the state of California, that are statutory in nature. And the single largest article in a collective bargaining agreement is the leave article, how not to be at work. So, with that, it's a challenge, right? We balance an employee's rights with providing an optimal service, and people have asked me, you know, what do you expect from me? Okay, well, if you're asking me, right, so I'm, you're not talking to HR guy. But if you're asking me, part of me, as a parent, and part of me of an HR guy is I want you to provide the exact same service that you would expect for your own child.

Don 24:17 

Absolutely. What a great answer.

William 24:19 

So, with that, how do you do that? How do you stay in touch, because we are so mired down with I mean, we follow, you know, through Sandabs and other organizations and IPC and Pasco, different organizations, we file follow the constant flow of legislation, and it's endless. In the state of California. This is a blue state. And so, labor has a large influence. And so, to keep up with that, you know, we in human resources have to monitor track, etc. And it can be mundane, and it can be routine, and we don't get any pleasure. There's nobody all of my directors, both my directors and classified Suzanne Hernandez and Violet, myself, we've all been building people. We've all been programmed people, we have a different mindset, we have a different urgency. But with that, we can't brush aside the compliance issue, people's due process rights, etc. So how do we balance that? I really encourage my team, all of my team, including not only directors, managers, Joe and to get out and see events, go to the veterans Diploma Project, you know, go to the wellness conference, expose yourself go out and Superintendent Mr. Alejandre. You know, I think you measure successful leaders by the number of shoes they wear out. And if you look, the superintendent, his schedule I, I thought, you know, I was up to when I left the principal's see 80 to 120 nights a year depending upon, you know, how busy it is with extracurricular, but superintendent does that as well. He always welcomes people to accompany him. When you go into a classroom, right, if I want to get my cup filled, I go out with Superintendent with Rich with the team, with the teacher’s association, and see what's happening in classroom. So, they maintain connection, what we also find out is, like, for example, I mentioned the labor shortage, and its springtime, I was in West End operations, you know, walking into a classroom, there's, there's like 10 kids that that are happen to have some autistic challenges. And there's two paraeducators and teacher and they're literally they have four centers, they only have three bodies, right? So that resonates with me, that makes it that that creates a greater sense of urgency. So involving ourselves in the greater, you know, the outward facing activities, immersing ourselves in other people's Task Force, whether it be strategic planning, I encourage him to get out, get out, get out of the office, because in our Brier building, right in our in our northwest corner, it can it can sometimes get very routine and compliance oriented and we need to, to ripen our heart and sharpen the saw. But we need to also get out to see what we are doing in our school systems and how we are producing people. I go back to something early on. Stanley was a paraeducator, and he had he had I think three or four kids. Anyways, we helped him transition. He had a bachelor's degree; he was working as paraeducator $25,000 a year. And anyways, we helped him and supported him in up He's a great teacher to this day. And but anyways, when he finally finished and he signed his contract for $64,000 I'll never forget that the difference that we were able to connect, he's a great teacher to this day. And what was the roadblock? He was living so close check to check. He had a lien against his college account and couldn't get a transcript. Because he, he just didn't have it. And when you have an opportunity to really find these opportunities, find it find these challenges for people, that to you and I are small to them. It's a chasm. Yeah. And so, by doing that, that's another way as I talk to you, you know, how do we how do we stay connected, informed? How do we want you know, strive in a very compliant related environment to provide the very best, that's what we do.

Don 29:11

Yeah, two things you talked about that I think are important one is when you get out and do our facing, which we do a lot of work in CD's with that, but also in the director of child welfare and attendance, which is, as you talked about compliance, following legislation, two things I think getting out, helps people rediscover their why that's important. The second piece and I know you know this as a coach, we're only as good as the people around us. We're only as good as the talent we have. Really quickly because we're running out of time here. Mr. Roberts, what is the ultimate goal of our SBCSS human resources department?

William 29:52 

So, the goal obviously, is to provide our students when I say our students not only SBCSS, but also to assist my colleagues, there is a tremendous turnover in new human resources across the county, roughly a third of the top officials in those human resource seats. And the credentials area are new people. And when I talk about new Don, they're like brand new. They're going from principals, that don't have any human resource experience. So, I'm including them in what I say. And we want to find the most passionate, brightest, compassionate, care caring and loving individuals possible on the planet. To put in front of our kids. In San Bernardino County, we had so much momentum, the boss had created so much momentum prior to COVID. I'm sorry, it bled off because of competing priorities, but we're going to be right back. But that's what we want to do is put individuals that look like our kids in front of our kids to create a level playing field, one starting line, adults do not separate kids, they do not determine destinies, we put them on one line. And we help those young people, young America, young kids in San Bernardino County, launch off from that starting point to wherever they want to go. And it's going to take a lot of talented people, because it's very frustrating, working with kids that don't have a belief system or don't have maybe a system of support that maybe you and I did. And so, we assume kind of tabula rasa, we're going to start there. And we're going to get a bunch of people that care deeply about kids, and we're going to put them on that trajectory, to create a great place in San Bernardino County to live, work and play.

Don 31:50 

Rob, your passion is evident. Your leadership and your vision is strong. And I want to thank you today and I want to thank you all for listening. We hope you find this information valuable. If you have any topics or questions that you'd like addressed, please email them directly to CWA at SBCSS.net. As always, we hope you stay well and continue to transform lives through education.