SAUSD's Amplifying Leadership Podcast

4. Heartfelt Leadership: Principal Bertha Benavides on Cultivating Community and Compassion in Education

• Bianca Barquin • Season 1 • Episode 4

Share episode

Welcome to an episode brimming with wisdom, resilience, and a generous dash of cultural richness. Ever met someone who turned a disparaging comment into a beacon of motivation? Meet Bertha Benavides, the dynamic principal of Willard Intermediate School, who turned a dismissive sentiment from a counselor into a propelling force for her educational journey. From Mexico to the U.S., her story unfolds in a saga of relentless determination and an unwavering commitment to empowering students through education.

Bertha's leadership is as inspirational as it is heartwarming. Imagine entering a school where the principal's love for cooking spills over into her approach to education. Where making mole is not just a culinary expedition but a metaphor for a leadership journey that intertwines patience, process, and endearing love. Bertha's recipe for success involves a careful blend of restorative practices and emotional nurturing, creating an environment that fosters both academic and cultural growth. She believes that resilience isn't just about bouncing back; it's about rising together. 

Diversity, for Bertha, is not a buzzword but a lived experience. On this episode, Bertha peels back the layers of her work with the Ethnic Studies Steering Committee, fostering a culture where every student’s ethnicity is not just recognized but celebrated. She willingly acknowledges the powerful female mentors who've shaped her journey, turning their teachings into tangible actions within her school community. This episode is more than a conversation; it's an invitation to a world where compassionate leadership can transform lives and empower students. So, ready to be inspired by Bertha's journey? We promise, it's a journey worth joining.

Visit us at our Buzzsprout site for more ways to listen, links to our social media sites and any referenced materials, and complete transcripts of our full-length episodes: https://bit.ly/SAUSDAmplifyingLeadership

Bianca Barquin:

Welcome Amplifiers to another inspiring episode of SAUSD's Amplifying Leadership. I'm your host, Bianca Barquin, and joining us today is a leader whose approach to school administration is imbued with care, passion and unyielding dedication to nurturing not just the academic but also the emotional and cultural wealth of every student under her wing. Bertha Benavides, principal of Willard Intermediate School, leads with a wealth of heart, generosity and a dash of culinary finesse. She has created the conditions where every child feels seen, heard and inherently valuable. Bertha, it's an absolute joy to have you with us today.

Bertha Benavides:

Oh my god thank you so much. I want to really, really thank you for thinking of me and being part of this amazing movement you're starting and having the community hear about us leaders in Santa Ana and people in general in Santa Ana, so I truly appreciate you having me here.

Bianca Barquin:

Bertha, your journey in education is steeped in compassion and action. Can you share with our listeners what kindled your passion for education and ultimately propelled you into administrative leadership with the Santa Ana Unified School District?

Bertha Benavides:

Well, I was born in Mexico-- Tijuana, Baja California and I was brought to the States when I was three years old, lived in a garage in Inglewood with my mom, my dad and my little brother, and we ended up coming to San Juan Capistrano, and there I remember in a little community that was full of Latinos in that area and during summer I would have all the kids come to my house and on the wall of the dining table I would put like a piece of paper and teach all the kids the ABCs.

Bertha Benavides:

I was just like this is fun. So I continued my education and in high school I was told by a counselor that I wasn't going to do anything but flip burgers at McDonald's. But I have an older sister that actually proceeded to go to college--honor student, I was not an honor student, she was. She went on to community college. I went on to community college and I found a community of people there-- counselors, people from the ELB to help me,

Bertha Benavides:

think a little bit more of who I am as a human. First, because I didn't believe that I was going to be anybody, because I was just told that I wasn't going to be anybody. My sister ended up going to college. She went to UCLA. So I go, "I guess I have to follow her. So I went and I had the best time of my life. Then I realized I wanted to make a change with people that looked like me, and that moment where that woman told me, that counselor told me that I wasn't going to be anybody, really was a major trigger. But I converted it into a positive for me to empower me to continue on. So that's what led me to be an educator.

Bertha Benavides:

Once I was in an educational field as a teacher, I realized I loved what the administrators were doing, the community liaisons, and so I became an outreach consultant.

Bertha Benavides:

And when I became an outreach consultant at the fourth year that I was in teaching, I'm like, oh my God, this is me, this is what I want to do working in communities, helping people get resources and what they need and support and develop an SST process a cost process and it was just so powerful.

Bertha Benavides:

Then I was sent into high school, then into the alternative education system. When I got into the alternative education system I said, oh my God, this is where my heart belongs. All these students, all my babies, all these students need a person that looks like them to be able to believe in them. And that's when I realized I have to blend what I learned as an outreach consultant and as an educator leader inside the continuation school system and become somebody more so to help our student and communities believe in themselves. And that's what I felt I needed to be a leader, because I needed for kids to see that there was people like me, like them, like us, making a difference and making education a place of safety, a place of love where you can go and feel like you're at home, with that abuelita, with a tia, with a mom, with the same kind of structure and discipline that they have at home, and if I wanted to mirror that in an institution like a school.

Bianca Barquin:

Bertha, thank you for sharing that and thank you for being vulnerable. I think it's really important for all of us to remember that words matter and what we say actually matters, and it's disheartening to me to hear what that counselor said to you, but it also makes me reflect, as an educator and as an educational leader, that we should all be very cognizant of everything that we say to students each and every day, and we all have to have that fundamental belief in them. So, Bertha, from baking treats to developing a nurturing environment at Willard Intermediate, how does your intrinsic spirit of generosity and caring shape the experiences of your students and staff?

Bertha Benavides:

Well, I just said a little bit about that is I wanted to bring home to school. I wanted there not to be any kind of barriers where the kids and as well as teachers didn't want to come to an institution of education. I wanted them to come to home. So we started the motto of the Willard familia, and so the Willard familia is what it is and I tell kids and I tell the teachers that in families we have the black sheep, but we have the one that succeeds and here we're all going to be successful. I go, but sometimes we fall together and we're going to get up together, and so I try so hard to give the educators at Willard an opportunity to feel loved and cared for.

Bertha Benavides:

So I will make treats for them, as you said.

Bertha Benavides:

I love baking and I show, and a lot of Latinos show their love through cooking, and I will bring, and before Thanksgiving, I will make 50 little muffins and pass them out to all the teachers. For Christmas I will make them bracelets and little towels for their hair and just little things that they're similar to when you go home right and you have a birthday party and they give you little gifts and they make you feel loved and for our students we'll dance together, we'll be like having a great time and in our announcements we use Spanish and English and if we have any students that are Vietnamese, I will empower the students to say good morning at Vietnamese over the loudspeaker, because I want them to feel connected to the culture and the beauty of who they are. And yeah, I know that at times our family unit or what's going on at home may not be the best or may not be perfect, but you know what it's perfect for our kids and if we can come to school and feel that we are loved and cared for, then I think we're doing a good job doing that at Willard.

Bianca Barquin:

Thank you, Bertha. Your pivotal role in the Ethnic Studies Steering Committee has seen you work tirelessly to support students in meeting this graduation requirement. Can you share how this initiative is personal to you and your plan for Ethnic Studies at Willard Intermediate?

Bertha Benavides:

I love that question because it goes back to what I told you earlier: how a counselor did not believe in me. And I truly believe that In my heart it probably wasn't her fault that she didn't believe in me, that she wasn't aware of the community change that's happening in that community where I went to school at. She didn't understand how it was to embrace people of color, students of immigrant status or people that were vulnerable or had low socioeconomic status. So I go back to that incident of negativity and turn it into a positive, to give our students the opportunity to see the beauty in themselves and that it's not a big deal if we might not have money and live in a big mansion or we might not fit into society. I feel that when I talk about Ethnic Studies with our students and I bring it in, I want my students to understand how their culture, their identity, is important and educate them to understand that when we learn about ourselves or others like our Native American brothers and sisters, or African American brothers and sisters, our Jewish brothers and sisters, our students that are identifying in the LGBTQ plus community, we need to empower our students to know each other but, most importantly, know themselves.

Bertha Benavides:

And if I, as a leader, can bring in curriculum that empowers them, they can be allowed to feel vulnerable to who they are in their stories, I think that it is the biggest change for them. So they won't have the counselor that I had oppressing me, because they're going to understand how to stop that oppression, because they're going to be superheroes within their own skin. They will be able to empower themselves and say I can advocate for me and I can advocate for my brother and my sister. That people don't truly understand what our struggle is and our beliefs are.

Bianca Barquin:

I love that. Superheroes within our own skin. I'm going to think about that. I love that, and I think our students will be better for it too. So, Bertha, you're also known, and I know that we've had this conversation before, but I want our listeners to hear as well, you're known for being a staunch advocate for restorative practices. How have these practices transformed the social and emotional landscape of your school, and can you share an instance where this approach profoundly impacted a student or a situation?

Bertha Benavides:

I am a big believer of restorative practice and I think it comes back to the same traumas and triggers that I have internalized and I want my kids not to have internalized. And these issues on hate, the cyber-bullying, the negative comments and the fights and the degrading and the use of negative words are so hurtful and kids don't understand that. And restorative practices gives you an opportunity to have a conversation that's authentic with two individuals, three individuals, four individuals, and break it down and think about and talk about what is that word or action that you caused that pain toward another person. And my job is to touch upon that hurt, put a little sprinkle of love and connection and belief into the power of being okay with feeling and being okay with the person that's causing the hurt, to understand that you are the one that caused the hurt, but it doesn't make you a bad person. It makes you a bad person when you're not aware that that's happening. But the beauty of restorative practices is when you make that child's light of power and love come to life and say, yes, I hurt you, but I want to apologize and I didn't know that my words hurt you that much.

Bertha Benavides:

Just recently I had a situation where one of my students at the beginning of the year, outside of school, they got in an altercation with another child and these two young men that attacked the other student had just witnessed, two days prior, police officers beating up on his friend. And I 100% believe that the reason these two young men reacted the way they reacted was because of what the actions they learned through an incident that happened in their own personal life in society. Now, when we sat down and we had a conversation with the child that was attacked and the two children that attacked them, it was so powerful when I actually turned around and looked at the young man and looked at his face and I said mijo, you know that it hurt you when you saw your friend being attacked. Tell me, did it hurt you? And at that moment that child broke down, started crying and he's a kid that never cries and he was literally crying and he couldn't hold his tears and I said it's okay. At that moment we had our restorative partners, an AP and myself in the room and we all started crying with him and we said it's okay, because we can hurt together, but we're gonna heal together. I go, but what you did is what you saw your friend go through. How does that make you feel?

Bertha Benavides:

So at that moment, when I said that to this child, he instantly started crying again. I go, did it hurt to see your friend beat up? He said, yes, but you did the same thing to your peer that you went to school with and he turned around and, literally at that moment, apologized to him without me even asking him to say sorry. And that is the strength of the restorative practice. It's the strength of believing and touching into that pain, that internalized pain that our students have, and we, little by little, sprinkle the love that we one has to help our students become vulnerable to feel and come out with that pain. Because once you see that child cry or the child get angry, you see their hands in the fist and then you see them relaxed, you know as an adult, you know as a facilitator, you've done your job. You touch that part of their heart that is going to restore the pain that they have internalized through whatever they have gone through in their past.

Bianca Barquin:

Thank you, Bertha. It's exactly what you said before-- healing together, and I think by doing this we all become more reflective, right? And we're teaching children to be reflective about their own behaviors and to really deeply think about things and to think about others. Okay, now I want to switch gears a little bit. Your culinary prowess has notably made waves, even being featured with Jerry on the premiere episode of Leading with Flavor. So my question for you is how does your love for cooking and baking intertwine with your leadership style, and what, in your view, is the secret ingredient to creating a wholesome learning environment?

Bertha Benavides:

It was so much fun being invited by Mr. Almendarez is to be in his show. I made enmoladas, made the mole from scratch. And it's interesting you said that because a lot of that was, most of the topic was oh, how is this connected to your leadership? And the mole has 23 ingredients plus some, and the process is hours and hours to make it perfect. My leadership is me leading with so much of my heart. And not only that, but I looked at it like there's 23 ingredients where there's hundreds of kids that I have to deal with, right, and each child has to be dealt with individually and I have to see each child with their individual story.

Bertha Benavides:

So when I cook, I cook with individual ingredients and make them shine inside the actual recipe. And when I lead, I lead knowing that this student needs this from me and this student needs this from me. So now how can I become a chameleon and just become part of that world of every single child, and not only the children, but the teachers? What do teachers need from me so I could be connected to them? What am I gonna do that is going to spice up that mole, to connect with that teacher? What am I gonna do to give that extra sweetness to the mole that is going to make a difference to that child that is hungry? That is sad, that is frustrated? What am I gonna do to blend all this together to make the perfect culture, the perfect identity within a school to feel safe?

Bertha Benavides:

So when you eat something, I put my Mexican sazón right, seasoning, and I go bam bam, like you know, used to do, bam bam, and I do my, amor amor, and I feel that when I cook, I love, and so when I lead, I love. So they go hand in hand. Because as much as I love spending the time cooking and baking and it's my therapy time for me, leading and looking at kids' eyes and when I do restorative practice with the kids, when I have conversations with teachers, I wanna do it with love and compassion and connectedness because when you do that it becomes a beautiful cultural love inside the school. But when you do that when you cook, it just gives it that blessing so the flavors can come out really, really good.

Bertha Benavides:

It's very interesting when I was making the mole and I was in the process of putting the chicken into the broth and we were gonna salt it, I told Jerry, look it, when you salt something, my mom always told me to put the salt, that make the sign of the cross and because it blesses the food and it makes it taste a lot better. You know, I noticed the cafeteria manager. She was supposed to stay there. She turned around from doing what she was doing and looked at me and went two thumbs up. She then calls me last week and tells me you know, I didn't realize that people actually did that, because I have taught that to my children and I connected with you at that moment because I knew that you were truly doing this with passion and love.

Bertha Benavides:

And when I go home I ask my ancestors, my mom's mom, my dad, my parents, to bless me, to continue doing what I do every day, which is love and connect, because one word that comes out of my mouth could hurt a child, but one word that comes out of my mouth could make a difference, and that's what I wanna do every day as a leader, and that's what I wanna do when people eat my food, feel the love that I have for them and feel the love that I put into the food that I have and the work that I do on a daily basis.

Bianca Barquin:

Bertha, thank you for your vulnerability. I have had the honor and the pleasure of working with you, and love, passion, care, connectedness is exemplified in every single thing that you do, and I've also had the pleasure of eating your food, and it's exemplified there as well. So thank you. Next question, Bertha: what would you say is distinctively unique and special about Willard Intermediate, and how does your approach to leadership accentuate and celebrate these characteristics?

Bertha Benavides:

You know, Willard is very, very special. We see kids with trauma, we see kids that hurt, but, most importantly, we see and we have children that love, that love with their heart, that love with their soul, and they care. Our community cares. They truly do care. I have amazing, phenomenal educators that are willing to make a change in kids' lives in those classrooms. The teachers wake up in the morning and wanna be at Willard. They make a difference on a daily basis. Yesterday we had conferences and teachers were together as a team working in efforts to make sure our kids are successful.

Bertha Benavides:

But people focus on the negative instead of the positive and we need to stop.

Bertha Benavides:

We need to stop and think of the amazingness that's happening in the schools, the opportunities that our kids are getting to make a change in their own personal lives, the fact that we're having open ending conversations with kids, we're having restorative practices done by counselors, by teachers, by administrators that is huge.

Bertha Benavides:

The fact that we have all our eighth grade ELA doing eighth grade ethnic studies ELA is powerful.

Bertha Benavides:

We are giving our students the power of orgullo, of being proud of who they are, and when we give that to students, they in turn become empowered and in turn behave and, in turn, feel loved and in turn, make sure our community feels that they are worthy of being at that school. And the message that I constantly give our students through assemblies, through morning announcements, is that we matter and what happens inside the school is important, but what happens outside, in our community, it's also important and it's an image of who we are as a community, as the Willard Familia, but it's also an image of who we are as the community around Willard, and so when kids have fights outside of school or they do things during the weekend, it matters to us because it's part of our family. I take it very personally, the team takes it very personally and we try to solve problems as soon as they are in front of us, because when we wait it just gets worse. We do not wanna put a bandaid on hurt, we wanna solve the hurt.

Bianca Barquin:

I agree with you wholeheartedly. There is a beautiful sense of familia and community over at Willard. Your teachers are amazing and your staff, they work tirelessly alongside you to meet every child's needs. So kudos to all of you for doing that great work, thank you. Now can you walk us through the core values that steer your leadership and how these values navigate the decisions, initiatives and approaches you undertake at Willard?

Bertha Benavides:

The values that are embraced in my heart are definitely love and connectedness and empowering and I think when kids feel, like I said before, when kids, children, students, humans feel loved and connected, they feel worthy. And when a student or a human feels worthy, they perform, right? And this year we've seen a lot of the behaviors going down in the classrooms and I truly believe it's because our teachers are doing amazing, amazing lessons in the classrooms that make our students become authentically engaged, that they feel worthy of who they are, because, hey, you know what? I'm getting a good education and, yes, I might be reading at a third grade level, yes, I might be reading the second grade level, but my teacher cares. She cares because she makes me feel worthy and that means that we will continue to be successful. They will continue bringing in safety into the school and my values of that are very mirror to what the kids are doing and what the staff is doing on campus.

Bianca Barquin:

I love it. You, your staff, you all lead with heart and you make every student's individual story matter, and I so appreciate that. So, Bertha, your generosity extends to staff, families and colleagues, creating a robust community, and you've talked about this a little bit already. Tell us a little more. How do you cultivate and sustain this community spirit and how has this interconnectedness been pivotal, especially in challenging times?

Bertha Benavides:

You know, I'm glad you said the last part, challenging times. It's not all perfect and, yeah, even though we want the Willard Familia and the culture in our community to be positive and inviting, there's still those ups and downs and we have to admit it, we're not all perfect. I'm not all perfect, the staff is not all perfect. But we can try and I think that there's times where, like example of last year, toward the end of the year our eighth grade class was struggling emotionally, a lot of social-emotional issues with our students and our community of teachers were very upset at the admin that we weren't doing enough, to the point where somebody said I know you want to do it the long way, but we want discipline now and that was, that's not who I am. I have to give students the opportunity to grow. I have to give students the opportunity for change and I think that this year we've talked so much about our way of performing in front of the classrooms, the way we talk to our students, the way we interact with our students, that our students are knowing and now believing that it's authentic. We're not just doing it because that's what the principal said or that's what the assistant principal said or that's what we all agreed to. Now it's really authentic and I can feel the culture changing. Yet, even though it's not been perfect, it's getting better and it hopefully will get better, right?

Bertha Benavides:

But it doesn't mean that we're not gonna fall. But if we fall, as any Person of Color and any person in the world, we're all resilient and I think as a team, as a group of teachers, as a group of students and a group of community members, we are building resiliency in our students to get up and move forward and if we fall, we fall together and we all will get up together. For example, the last altercation I had was two weeks ago and I said I had an assembly, 10- minute assembly, saying this is going to stop and we're all our family here. So what are we going to do? During lunch, sixth graders will sit with sixth grade, seventh with seventh grade, eight h with eighth grade, because we're going to take it as a team. Not one child fought it. They all sat where they were supposed to sit. It was beautiful because they knew that we had this together. One person, two people messed up, we all messed up, and so it's the cultivating, that orgullo and the connectedness that we have within our community of teachers, community members and students.

Bianca Barquin:

Brilliant. Okay, Bertha, so as you gaze into the future, what aspirations do you harbor for Willard Intermediate and how do you envision its growth and evolution in the coming years?

Bertha Benavides:

We've done a lot of work with the group of teachers on the Graduate Profile and the Board priorities and I think that that's our ultimate focus is to have our teachers understand that our students are required, and not only required, we should embrace the Graduate Profile because that is what SAUSD wants our kids to leave when they're 12th graders and they go to college. We want them to be literacy-focused, numeracy- focused. We want them to be good communicators. We want them to be those amazing individuals that are going to make themselves look amazing but yet also make SAUSD amazing. So I think the focus of Willard is to continue the path of change and believing and empowering and not only just empowering kids, empowering teachers themselves to become the best of them, because if they're not the best of who they are, they can't be the best for the children they are teaching. So empowering teachers and the love they have and maybe the biases that come with into their classrooms, and really focusing on who they are. I think it's incredible. We just had a pullout day for all the teachers, but it was scattered through departments and I was telling the team the Dashboard coach and the Future Ready coach that I wanted the PD to be a time for reflection. I didn't want it to be a PD where we're just going to vomit strategies and information to them. I said it's time for them just to have a reflective moment for themselves. And within the training I said let's do a poem. We're in a Turnaround Arts School and a couple of people went to a retreat and they had mentioned a while back one of the activities, and so I said why don't we do a similar activity where we're looking at an image and they had to do a poem with that image? So I said I'm going to go here and I'm not going to lie the Future Ready coach was a little hesitant because I said I want you to print out two pictures of the same Latino kid, two of an African American child, two of a Native American child, two of an Asian child, Pacific Islander child and a community member from the LGBTQ plus community, and then you're going to put them in a folder and you're going to pair two, you're going to give those two images to two teachers and you're going to have them write five words that they know when they see that picture, what are the five words that come out of looking at that image and five phrases and with those five words and five phrases they got a construction paper, they glued the picture of the image of the individual child and then they organized their poem. Then they had to share it with each other.

Bertha Benavides:

I wanted the teachers to look at the lens they're looking at this human from and realize that the other partner may have seen that image in a completely different way. But that doesn't mean it's bad. They're both correct. But how we communicate about that is what we make and empower. So that is the movement we want for Willard to have our teachers feel loved and connected and understand that the community of students that we work with it's just not one type of student, it's many students. And yet, even though Santa Ana is predominantly Latino, it doesn't mean that our kids that are Latinos, are not Jewish, are not also partly African American or partly Native American or partly white. So the ethnicity component in conversation needs to continue happening, because that is what's going to develop open minds and awareness into the community of teachers and students.

Bianca Barquin:

What a great reflective exercise. Not only did you help them look inwardly and to really think about diversity, but then you actually had them share, so then they could hear each other's perspectives. I think that's a fantastic exercise for your teachers, and hopefully they were really excited about it and were able to open up their own minds in a way by hearing from one another, so I think it's fabulous. The last question I have for you: what's a personal story or perhaps a little-known fact that you'd like to share with our listeners today to know the woman behind all of these remarkable deeds?

Bertha Benavides:

That I'm a person with a lot of emotions and a lot of what happened in, my when I was in elementary, in my youth, it wasn't perfect, it wasn't the best, but I converted the worst to become the best. That's my superpower. To be able to, when I get oppressed or when I am oppressed, I turn that oppression to a powerful experience in that I convert into I am going to do what you just told me I can't do, and I think that that helps me become really strong and resilient and keep believing in myself and, like I mentioned before, in stopping that imposter syndrome that I constantly have, because I feel that, as an immigrant, Mexicana, chicana, I shouldn't be a leader, I shouldn't be in education, I should be flipping burgers, like my counselor told me. But I'm not. I'm here to empower, to make a difference and to love with my heart.

Bianca Barquin:

And you are doing all of those things. Bertha, before we sign off, it's time for our Amplifier Acknowledgement segment. So if you could amplify the message or lesson of one educator or leader who's made an impact in your journey, who would it be and what is that resonating message?

Bertha Benavides:

I have to say that it was my counselor at the community college. Her name is Mariana de Saracho.

Bertha Benavides:

She believed in me. She believed in who I was and who I am now. But I also want to thank my sister, Corina. She's the professor at Domiguez Hills.

Bertha Benavides:

She also empowered me to believe who I was and who I am, and they told me never allow anybody to put you down, because you're stronger than that foot that's oppressing you, and I strongly believe that, thanks to them, I am who I am, as well as one of my mentors that I met during my education career, which is my true friend, Mary Thamen. She's an amazing woman.

Bertha Benavides:

She was an outreach consultant when I was and she, I would always struggled with reading and writing.

Bertha Benavides:

Being a second language learner, I wasn't good enough and she was like, she saved me to believe that I could, that I am worthy, and she's retired and I love her to death. And I go visit her in Oregon all the time and she tells me you have taught me so much. But I really think that she has taught me. So we've taught each other. So we've gone through this journey of growth together and I take everything that Mariana, my sister, Mary Thamen, has given me and I put it in a little bottle and every time I feel that I can't, it's like that, the Little Train That Can't, I said I open it up and I get empowered by those three women that have told me I could and, of course, my mother, having always believing in who I am and believing in my loudness, my charismatic energy and just the laughter that I bring into the world in my family. So that is who I am and that's what I love to be.

Bianca Barquin:

Thank you, Bertha, such powerful acknowledgments. Our dive into Bertha's world has not only showcased the tangible impact of compassionate leadership, but also has reflected the essence of creating an environment where every child and every educator is seen, acknowledged and valued. Her tales of culinary joy, strategic advocacy and ethnic studies and the adept application of restorative practices within the educational space echo the profound truth that leadership is, at its core, about service, care and fostering a sense of belonging. Bertha, your journey and the initiatives at Willard Intermediate are like the cherished recipes you share, filled with love, thoughtfully crafted and intentionally designed to bring warmth and togetherness. You've shown us that the key ingredient to successful leadership and an engaged school community is, without a doubt, love. Love that is expressed through actions, decisions and every batch of treats that you share in the spirit of community. Until next time, stay inspired, stay compassionate and continue amplifying the positive echoes within and around you.