Mariah: Today on This Educational Life . . . (00:00:05)
Tracy: Can I be honest with you? It's overwhelming. I couldn't see a big company doing this for inner city kids. Now we get a chance to really get these kids prepared for not just college, but skilled trades. And then they can make a conscious decision of which way they want to go. (00:00:23)
Mariah: One school district changing the narrative. From a fractured community with tons of unrealized potential to trailblazer for student success. And they'll save $2.6 million in energy savings in the process.
I'm your host, Mariah Presley, Education and Industry Programs Leader for Trane, and this is a show about the challenges and opportunities in education today told by the people who have dedicated their lives to improving it. In this episode, we're in St. Louis, Missouri. Fondly known by many names: the Lou, Gateway to the West, it is a city that happens to be close to my own heart, having grown up just about an hour from its boundaries. So, I'm very excited for today's guests, Tracy and Jennifer.
St. Louis is a city that's seen its fair share of challenges. But today's conversation will show us that with just a little bit of hope and the right collaboration, a challenge is simply an opportunity to change things for the better. Let's get into it. (00:01:24)
Tracy: My name is Tracy Hykes. I am a St. Louis City Public School product. I went to Sumner High School and right now I am blessed to be a retired sheet metal worker. (00:01:37)
Mariah: Retired from sheet metal work, sure. But retired from service? Definitely not. Today, Tracy is a school board member of St. Louis Public Schools, where he's passionately advocating for nearly 20,000 students. (00:01:52)
Tracy: I would like to give our kids the opportunity to know what the skill trades are all about and what the skilled trades can do for them as they try to figure out how life is going to be for them. (00:02:04)
Mariah: And Jennifer is a senior account manager in Trane’s energy services and comprehensive solutions business. She works with institutions like St. Louis Public schools all the time. She also collaborates closely with people like Tracy to make learning environments more energy efficient, comfortable and sustainable.
And the great thing about Jennifer? She knows what it's like to be on the other side of a public energy project. (00:02:29)
Jennifer: Before I was with Trane, I actually was a customer. So, a really unique path to the company. I worked in a local government in St. Louis County, Missouri, as an assistant city manager and the city that I was with, actually did a comprehensive energy project with Trane and that started me on my pathway and learning about energy performance contracts and just a different way for funding projects. (00:02:53)
Mariah: Every school district across the country has a shared mission to equip our kids with the skills they need to be successful, confident contributors in the worlds they are entering when they leave school. But even though they have the same mission, every district has a different journey and unique set of challenges. (00:03:15)
Tracy: From my perspective, St. Louis, it has the potential to be great, but it's fractured. I was blessed. It was five kids. We had both mother and father in the home. They both worked. I'd be 1st to tell you my parents didn't have real good jobs, but what they had they made work. I see that a lot of kids don't have that. So, if you don't have that, it's hard to tell a kid to go to school, get education when you go home, and mother and father is not coming from work. But they already at home.
So, our community, we have to find a way to nurture the kids, to see when you become an adult, this is what you have to do. And sometimes you have to educate the kids so the kids can educate the parents. So, we gotta make school, like, work for them. I know I'm somewhat unique, but a lot of kids won't be able to go through this. Weren't able to see what I see. (00:04:20)
Mariah: What I'm hearing from Tracy is that it's all about meeting students where they're at. And to make that happen for a school district like St. Louis, the needs are twofold. One, students need better access to information and experiences that expose them to all that's possible. And two, districts need to simplify and innovate the resourcing for this kind of learning. The two biggest barriers in this wheelhouse: acquiring the right teacher and accessing the most relevant learning tools. And as Tracy emphasizes, it's not just about jobs, but providing life, sustaining career opportunities for kids. (00:05:00)
Tracy: With skilled trades, not only do you have a job, but then you have insurance. You have a 401K. You have all these things and I always tell people, if you do right by your money, you will have a good life. Just because you make good money don't mean you supposed to spend it all!
But with these jobs, that card, once you get it, you can take their card around this country. You can go to any state, including Canada and work. You can stay within that profession and work wherever you need to work to support your family. Give a good life. As long as you do right by the companies you working for and your money, you can have a very good life. (00:05:40)
Mariah: So earlier you talked about you leaving school, becoming a sheet metal worker and so you've kind of overcome some of the obstacles we mentioned and kind of realized this life sustaining career journey for you. So, will you take us back to that moment? Like, what was it in your reality that allowed you to overcome some of what we talked about? Like what got you from being in St. Louis Public schools to realizing and having access to this opportunity? (00:06:06)
Tracy: Well, I'll be totally honest with you once I got out of high school, I did go to college. And I realized that I'm gonna have to stop wasting my parents money. So, I came out of college and started working for a manufacturing company. And a friend of mine, he said, “Tracy, Local 36, is hiring.” I'm like what’s Local 36? And I'm being honest, I didn't know what it was. (00:06:29)
Mariah: Just in case you didn't know, Local 36 is the Sheet Metal Workers Union in St. Louis that provides apprenticeships and training in everything from sheet metal fabrication to HVAC. (00:06:41)
Tracy: So, while I was working for the manufacturing company, they called me. And you know what? I turned it down. I said “Nope” because I was young and naive. I didn't understand the process of a job and a career. 'Cause then I was 21 years old, making $5.00 an hour. I'm like, I'm alright. I had one son, but I was fine, so I just kept doing that. But they laid me off. So, I'm like, oh, man, what am I do now?
So, then I remember Local 36 did call me. So, I called them and I asked them is that job still available? They said yes, it is. So after that, he said, “OK, be at Local 36 at 10:00 the next day. So, I went up there, did all the paperwork and he sent me to my first company, which it was terrible. It was the dirtiest place in the world, but hey, it's construction.
I'll be honest. The first, like man, I was overwhelmed. I'm like, I hope I can handle this. But the guys that were really nice to me and stuff and I’d progress really well. And then one of my journeyman friends say, Tracy, you gonna be fine. And I think once he told me that that, calm me down and I went on through my apprenticeship and I can see that this is a very good opportunity for me. I know I'll be able to support a family with this job, so two years into my apprenticeship I asked my wife to marry me 'cause I felt confident that I would be able to take care of a family. So, I guess if you was asking that was my “Aha!” moment. (00:08:09)
Mariah: Yeah, And something you just did for me in that moment, Tracy, I'm getting, like, way too excited over here because we talk a lot about, like, challenges, obstacles, things that stay in their way. But I think really what you just said, enlightened me to like this is such an opportunity because you talk about like the confidence to know that you can right having that mentor, that person that's supporting you having someone in high school that like introduces you to this at first, right? So, it's not brand new. You leave high school and it's all of a sudden something that's coming out of nowhere, left field. Like you had at least some kind of confidence and efficacy that you've seen it before and it's possible. And so it's just such an opportunity, I think and you demonstrated that in so many ways just in that one short story, because I mean, man, what if we could just give every student that one experience right in high school? It gets them confident to take the leap afterward.
That's one of the things we appreciate about you, Tracy, is like you really do have this full picture as a product of what's possible, having gone to Saint Louis Public Schools. And so I really love that you give us like insider lens to what it's like for the family, what it's like for the student to maybe not have access or exposure to some of these things.
And so Jennifer, if our goal is to bring as many options or access to options for students to succeed, maybe in the skilled trades and then something else later, but really meet them where they're at, you've done a ton of work on the project end working with Tracy and the district. Can you tell us just a little bit about some of the work behind that project and how we're working together to kind of overcome some of the obstacles we mentioned and realize this life sustaining career journey. (00:09:41)
Jennifer: Yeah. And as we were throwing around that word possible, I was getting really excited over here because those that I work with know that one of our tenants is, “challenge possible”. And so, we're so excited to hopefully launch a pilot program for data analytics to get these students connected with the National Coalition of Certification Centers NC3, to get industry recognized certifications before they even leave high school.
And for the core infrastructure upgrades, when this opportunity came to us St. Louis Public Schools was in really a unique opportunity with some generational funding. So, they had just passed a very sizable bond issue. They had received a tremendous amount of ESSER funding. And so two years ago, when we started talking with the district about this opportunity, we knew that we had the resources and the bandwidth to help a school district like St. Louis Public Schools, who has over 60 buildings.
And so what we are doing currently is a $25 million infrastructure project that focuses on primarily 6 buildings and includes lighting upgrades, building envelope upgrades, which includes tightening up their building, making sure there's no air leakage. Your traditional HVAC replacements that Trane’s known for - so rooftop units and chillers and pumps and controls. State-of-the-art, right, state-of-the-art products are going to be going into these buildings focused on a design for energy performance for the long term.
And that's a real key here because the district doesn't have unlimited funds. And they needed to make that $25M stretch as far as possible. And so throughout this project, with designing with energy efficiency in mind throughout that whole process through the products and the selections that we made, we are going to save the district approximately $2.6 million in energy savings alone. And so through that they were able to accomplish a lot more through these schools.
I think the favorite thing that I like to talk about in regards to this is just really a renewal of the learning environment for the staff, for the students. Because we know that the learning environment really does impact student performance and certainly teacher performance as well. (00:11:57)
Mariah: That's awesome. So, I noticed also one of St. Louis Public Schools, that you guys have your core beliefs online and I was kind of perusing through those earlier and something that stood out to me was this idea of overcoming obstacles for every student. Can you talk a little bit more about that? (00:12:12)
Tracy: What's most important to me is a lot of these kids do not know what they're going to do after high school. And if Trane can get in and start these classes and these kids can see how things work. 'Cause I think most of these kids are very inquisitive. And with Trane Technologies, Trane can open up so many doors for these kids. Because you got to realize with HVAC you got the installer. You have the technician. You have the person that, in some cases, that has to maintain this equipment daily. And see some of that is computer based. And we know a lot of kids like to play on their computers. It's gonna be really, really exciting for our kids to see this. I mean, just think if you at school and you taking these classes and you at your school and your lab watching how the HVAC system in your building is working - Trane don't understand they can blow these doors wide open.
St. Louis Public Schools, we never had this. But now we get a chance to really get these kids prepared for not only college, but for skilled trades. We can get them prepared for both, and then they can make a conscious decision of which way they want to go. (00:13:25)
Mariah: The vision that Tracy is describing is Trane’s way of creating access to relevant tools for learning. We call it a Virtual Living Learning Lab, or VL3 for short, and the concept is simple. By leveraging building upgrades to integrate work based learning and certifications, we help schools achieve an educational return on their infrastructure project. And what's more, there's a whole team dedicated to making sure teachers feel confident offering these real world learning experiences to their students.
The possibilities from this sort of collaboration are endless. (00:14:04)
Tracy: With these kind of jobs, you can go far. You can be a CEO, eventually. (00:14:10)
Jennifer: Absolutely, yes. (00:14:12)
Tracy: Focus and this is what you want to do with your life. You can be a CEO easy.
It's astronomical and I don't want to go further without saying this - Trane is a global company. Trane could have just came in here, fixed all our buildings and left. They could have did that, but they decided to reinvest in our schools. That's huge. They didn't have to do that. Basically, Trane is being a part of the community. They're staying. You know, a lot of people don't stay. That's huge, this day and age, you know. (00:14:44)
Mariah: Thank you, Tracy. And I'll second that was saying it also takes a district that's open to this kind of collaboration and innovation. I think of St. Louis Public Schools serves just under 20,000 students. 25% of those students are in transition, meaning they're homeless at the moment and working with the school district through some of their awesome programs to help them get back on their path and get back in a safe environment. And so it's a district that is also going above and beyond to serve a unique community full of potential and students who deserve all that's possible in that future, and so it takes both Trane and the district, a district like St. Louis Public Schools to innovate that way.
So, I think to get some of you guys’ perspective on kind of the future, I do think a gentleman named Doctor Seabrooks that I met from Dallas College in Texas and he's standing on stage giving kind of this final keynote at a conference. And one of the things he said stood out, stuck with me and will stick with me, like through the end of my days. But it's similar to you what you're saying, Tracy, when we talk about life sustaining careers. But he said we're not just getting students jobs, we're putting them on paths to prosperity. And to me, that means kind of life changing, completely flipping what's possible for a student and someone who has every opportunity and advantage to not just succeed at life, but to feel sustained, to feel confident that they can have a family and that they can be contributing members of that community in which they live. So that's what it means to me.
I want to ask what it means to you if we're thinking ahead as far as impact in two to three years. What kind of impact do you hope that this project will have on students lives? (00:16:23)
Tracy: Well, two to three years, I believe that's a tight window. But, two to three years that gives them a start of what they can possibly do, or possibly see themselves doing down the road. Cause in three years, I'm hoping that these kids are really seeing what they can do with their lives. And see themselves having a good future. (00:16:46)
Mariah: Yeah, and a future they can see themselves in, right? This is for you. Just like it's for anybody else. (00:16:1)
Tracy: Right?
Mariah: For sure.
Tracy: Right? That's what we have to give these kids, cuz I tell people all the time. If you take a person's hope away, they're lost. You have to find some way to give these kids hope, especially the ones that are in transition, that 25% you was talking about.
That from day-to-day they don't know where they're gonna sleep. So, from day-to-day, if you don't know where you gonna sleep, once you graduate out of high school, you pretty much know that you're on your own. So we have to give them something that they can cling to or they can feel that, “I got a chance”. And that's what Trane’s really helping us to do. Give these kids just some hope. (00:17:31)
Jennifer: I love that Tracy. And I and I agree with everything that you said and I think for me as the facilitator here, I just want to help minimize those barriers, make sure we're having the conversations with the right people. When I say minimize barriers for the district to implement these programs, but also for the students to be able to select this as an opportunity. I really love just that idea of sparking interest. My son says the other day to me, he's six years old, “Mom, did you know that the Earth's a rock and it's floating through the universe?” You know, it's like, it's amazing what these kids are interested in at such a young age, and then you can layer on top of that the impact of climate, right, on the planet. And you can distill down even further, you know, what carbon means in the atmosphere. And so just making these kids aware of opportunities that exist. And of course, the certifications programs are high, high on my list to get launched and I really love that we have the data analytics certifications, but also decarbonization in AI now. Like we're really moving at such a pace of investment in these programs, it makes me really happy to be on this team. (00:18:39)
Mariah: So final question, Tracy. You're on the school board now. I know we're building these programs together and aligning them with that project Jennifer mentioned earlier. Still definitely in the building phase, but how does it feel to bring this opportunity kind of full circle, back to an entire district now in your role. (00:18:59)
Tracy: Can I be honest with you? We do not honestly understand how good I feel that, I'm happy that I'm involved in it, but I'm more happy that Trane is willing to do this. Because I mean when I was growing up, I couldn't see a big company doing this for inner city kids. Our community is fractured and I think this is a way we can bring our community back together 'cause we can teach a lot of people how to be self-sufficient and how to renegotiate their life in a better direction. It's overwhelming.
That's why I'm doing everything in my power to get this thing going for the Saint Louis Public Schools 'cause I know that this opportunity will not always come. And when we have the opportunity, as they say, must seize on this opportunity because it might not come again. And we had to take full advantage of a global company willing to take the time to give our kids a step up. And this leg up can really project these kids to anywhere they want to go. I really appreciate this opportunity allowing us to go forward in St. Louis Public Schools - it's gonna be a game changer. It's gonna be a lot of these other school districts I'm telling you now, it's gonna be a lot of these other school districts looking at us. They're gonna be looking at us, watch, and I really appreciate that Trane is doing this for the Saint Louis Public Schools 'cause we need it bad, and not only the city needs it. 'Cause this just don't help the school, this helps the city grow. (00:20:30)
Jennifer: Well, and you want them to feel invested in their city too, right? You want them to stay if possible. (00:20:36)
Tracy: Right!
Jennifer: And reinvest in the community just like you. Which again, which makes that a whole full circle moment. (00:20:41)
Tracy: What they're doing is just not helping St. Louis Public Schools, it’s helping the community. (00:20:47)
Mariah: That's awesome. And a lot of employers looking at your students too, because you're right, it is a competitive edge. It's the most relevant technology aligned with an industry recognized credential, and I can't think of a better way to give your students a leg up. So, thank you for being kind of the carrier of the torch for these programs, Tracy and thank you, Jennifer, for being the bridge. (00:21:07)
Tracy: I just want Jennifer to know that I'm on her team! (00:21:09)
Jennifer: I'm grateful. I'm very grateful! And I will shout out to, there, there's a whole team of people that support me, not only in the Saint Louis office, but nationally on this project. This is sizable project for Trane and I want to thank everybody that's been involved with it. (00:21:26)
Mariah: I can't wait to see what happens when this project is finished. This is what education is about - providing students the opportunity to see what else is out there to lead to meaningful, fulfilled lives. And after school, well, that's up to them. Whatever they choose. But the important thing is that they have options.
Thank you so much to Tracy and Jennifer for sharing their story with me today.
And thank you for listening. That's a wrap for Season One.
Throughout this season of This Educational Life, we've met inspiring leaders from across the country who are tackling education's hardest questions by simply being resourceful and innovative. We've talked budgets and funding, explored how rural communities are reshaping futures, and discussed ways schools can prepare students for careers we haven't even imagined yet.
I'm Mariah Presley and it's been a privilege exploring these stories with you. Let's continue to challenge what's possible for education, for industry, but most importantly for our students who are leading us into the future. If you've got an idea for a topic or know an educational leader who exemplifies the resourceful innovation we have featured all season long, let us know. E-mail us at ThisEducationalLife@Trane com. We'd love to hear from you. Until next time! (00:22:54)
