How can an idealistic educator revolutionize teacher training and instill a holistic approach to childhood development?
In this episode, Tamar Andrews, a trailblazer in early childhood education, shares her bold mission to transform how teachers are prepared and how children are nurtured from the earliest ages. As the long-time preschool director at Temple Isaiah and a driving force behind the groundbreaking programs at American Jewish University, Tamar offers an incisive critique of the traditional education system’s factory-like model.
Tamar reveals how pivotal moments, such as witnessing high graduate school dropout rates and her own child’s special needs journey, fueled her passion for innovative change. She takes us behind the scenes of AJU’s unique teacher training approach, which emphasizes cohort-based learning, continuous practical application in the classroom, dedicated mentorship, and intentional “pressure” to drive lasting behavioral change.
The conversation dives into Tamar’s boldest undertaking – designing an entirely new university experience to holistically nurture creativity, collaboration, social-emotional skills, and moral development alongside academics. She shares inspiring examples of fostering student ownership, like allocating classroom budgets for teachers to manage.
Tamar also imparts key lessons from two decades leading Temple Isaiah’s preschool, including creative strategies to boost revenue, adapting to demographic shifts like California’s transitional kindergarten program, and prioritizing social-emotional learning from the earliest ages through methods like literature and modeling.
Resources that inspired Tamar’s innovative approach:
- Insights from educational philosophers and child development experts
- Mentorship from respected peers and senior colleagues
- A voracious reading appetite spanning topics like leadership, decision-making, and the complexities of the human mind
Tune in for an inspiring vision to revolutionize education by empowering the next generation of teachers and nurturing well-rounded, socially adept children primed for success.
LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE HERE
Transcript
Intro
Welcome to another edition of inspired stories where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes, how they’ve overcome adversity, and explore current challenges they’re facing.
Anthony Codispoti (01:41.166)
Welcome to another edition of the inspired stories podcast where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired by how they’ve overcome adversity. My name is Anthony Cotaspodi and today’s guest is Tamar Andrews, preschool director at Temple Isaiah. Located in Los Angeles, California, the preschool portion of the temple has been open since 1957 and Tamar has been director for a little over 20 years.
She’s also a professor at the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. She is a university instructor at Cal State University Dominguez Hills. She is a college instructor at Santa Monica College. She’s also the director of the Early Childhood Education Department at the American Jewish University. And we’re going to hear how she has now fixed everything that’s wrong with the American education system. She’s conducting research on professional development called Teacher Addictive Behaviors.
which explores why we’ve got professional development all wrong. We’re gonna hear a lot more about that. Before we get into all that good stuff, today’s episode is brought to you by my company, Ad Back Benefits Agency, where we offer very specific and unique employee benefits that are both great for your team and fiscally optimized for your bottom line. One recent client was able to add over $900 per employee per year in extra cashflow by implementing one of our proprietary programs. Results vary for each company and some organizations may not be eligible.
To find out if your company qualifies, contact us today at addbackbenefitsagency .com. Okay, now back to our guest today, the preschool director at Temple Isaiah. Tamar, I appreciate you making the time to share your story today.
Tamar Andrews (03:21.194)
Hi, thanks for having me.
Anthony Codispoti (03:23.181)
So we’ve got a whole bunch of really good stuff to dive into here today. I’m really excited about. So maybe let’s just get a truncated, an abbreviated version of what was the inspiration for you first getting started in childhood education.
Tamar Andrews (03:37.578)
this was not supposed to be my career. I was actually accepted to a, at the time, a specialized program at UCLA where you would do your undergrad and grad school and then go straight into medical school. And as you know, all Jewish parents want, I was going to be that proverbial Jewish doctor. And while I was going to school, I was working at a childcare center and loved it. Loved it.
Anthony Codispoti (04:06.285)
So this is like a daycare, this was a school for young children.
Tamar Andrews (04:09.917)
Yeah, it was a preschool right near UCLA’s campus. I would go to school in the morning and I was the afternoon kind of like, you know, watch the kids, watch them play around in the playground. And I was looking at these little kids going, God, they’re so strange. They have no basis in logic or reality. They’re, everything is make believe. And I just found myself observing them and going, God, this is so strange. Why don’t they think normally?
Anthony Codispoti (04:37.899)
And so was that the time where you said, okay, I’m going to change my direction, change my major.
Tamar Andrews (04:42.794)
yeah, yeah, I wanted to know more. I wanted to know, you know, I had taken one of those, you know, required psych classes and the whole Freud, tell me about your mother and tell me about your childhood. And I thought, wow, there’s so much wrong in the world. Imagine if I could get them when they’re really young and fix them when they’re young. Maybe I could fix the world. I’m an idealist. I mean, quite obviously.
Anthony Codispoti (05:06.828)
We need more of that. So that’s a great lead in to my next question. I want to hear more about the work that you’re doing at the American Jewish University and to use your words, how you’ve now fixed everything that’s wrong with the American education system. You’ve got listeners on the edge of their seats to tell us.
Tamar Andrews (05:25.674)
Well, so turning on my professor hat for a minute, our educational system in the United States was actually created in the late 1800s. And it was created by these really rich white men, if you will, who had also created auto factories and other kinds of factories. And so our school system really resembles a factory. You go into one room, you get your English, you come out, you go into another room, you get your math, you come out.
And it’s this not at all connected buffet of stuff that you have no choice over what to get. And if you’re blessed and you can master what’s in every room, you come out with that perfect car. But if you’re not, your life almost feels like you’re sent to the junkyard. And if you do get through it, you’re then sent to another factory called College.
And the first two years of college is really a regurgitation of your last few years of high school. So you’ve got to take that same psych class again and the same English class again and the same math class again. And for many people, especially nowadays when our job market is really looking to the future, not looking for skills you developed over a lifetime, but hoping that you are going to be the one inventing skills for the future.
Our school system is not really set up for people to work creatively, collaboratively, collegially. Our school system was set up to simply regurgitate, have a test, take it on your own, and do things independently, void of all of those Cs, right? The creativity, collaboration, et cetera. And so having gone through college, and especially when I did my master’s at a school called Cal State Los Angeles,
I started off with 45 students in my cohort. Now, not everybody was in the same class with me because you were able to take whatever classes you wanted, right? And by the time I got to sit down for my comp exams, there were six of us. And again, being an observer of human nature, I thought, God, this really, wow.
Tamar Andrews (07:40.426)
how horrible for those people, not even being able to finish this degree that they started, many of whom had done at least a full year or more, but not being able to finish that degree for whatever reasons. And I thought, one day, one day I’m gonna build this perfect university experience for folks and nobody’s gonna fail my program. And that’s how that was born.
Anthony Codispoti (08:06.985)
So that’s how the idea came about. How many years ago?
Tamar Andrews (08:09.194)
Yeah.
I’m a grandma. A few years ago, the idea was born. I actually pitched it at Temple Isaiah many times. I said, let’s just build a university program here. I can do it. I promise I can do it. And, you know, people, I think people doubt.
Anthony Codispoti (08:14.537)
So a few years ago.
Tamar Andrews (08:33.642)
sometimes your ability to create something from nothing. And I was doing such a successful job in the preschool program. You know, why rock the boat? Until one day I was at an awards banquet. There’s this great program on the East Coast called Matan. And it’s teaching people how to do better at special needs in school. And for me, having a child with special needs, it was really something that touched my heart. And I went in as a
trainee. And so they were giving an award to this woman, Meredith Polsky, who had started this program. And this woman came comes up to me and goes, are you Dr. Andrews? And I said, Yeah, hi. And she said, I’ve heard about you. We have a little program at American Jewish University. Do you want to come teach a class for us? And I said, you know, the light bulb went off that proverbial. And I just spilled it out. I said, No, I want to make a degree program. And she laughed.
And I think she was waiting for me to laugh back and I didn’t. And it took her a moment and she said, no, you’re serious. And I said, yeah, I’m serious.
And that was in March and in August. We were WASC accredited, the regional, the highest level of accreditation. We opened our doors to our first 18 students in a master’s degree. And so you might ask why a master’s first, because I needed to prepare the next cohort of college instructors to then open a BA and have them teach my BA students, because they would know how this program works. And sure enough, that’s how it is today.
with our BA Master’s in Doctoral program.
Anthony Codispoti (10:13.736)
And so what does somebody notice differently about this program as they’re going through it? What have you fixed?
Tamar Andrews (10:18.698)
So yeah, so you mentioned my research. My research is teacher addictive behaviors. And at Temple Isaiah, before COVID, we had about 75 teachers. And some of them were there for 25 or 30 years. And I came in college instructor and professional development. I do professional development all over the world. And I’m going to come in and I’m going to fix them all.
And I would do these professional developments. I remember one in particular I did on STEM in early childhood. I even wrote the book on how to do STEM in early childhood. And they were all really excited. And I was feeling like, I’m going to be great at this. And after about a week, I walked into the classrooms and maybe two classrooms are doing STEM, nobody else. But what did I do wrong?
I mean, I did such a great lecture and hands -on and I set everything up, I did it all right. Why is nobody doing STEM with their kids? They’re all doing what they’ve been doing for the last 10, 15, 20 years. And that’s when the idea started to foment for me, which was, wow, they’re addicted. They’re just addicted to the old ways. Okay, and it took a while because I had to observe.
Anthony Codispoti (11:40.84)
Changing habits is hard, yeah.
Tamar Andrews (11:43.274)
I always say that the hardest thing a human will do is change. And if it was easy, you would never see a doctor smoking outside of the hospital, right? Because they know better. And so what I realized was I’ve got to change the way we do things. So, you know, diamonds are only formed by pressure.
Now, too much pressure gives you anxiety and stress. Just the right, and it’ll crack, right? It’ll totally crack that piece of coal. But the right amount of pressure, you have to figure out, you have to really figure out what that right amount of pressure and who the pressure comes from. So for example, at AJU, the way we’ve changed our education system is you start off with the same group of students you matriculate through the entire degree with.
So that provides peer pressure, right? Just a little bit of peer pressure. And then the other problem is that in most teacher prep programs, you don’t do your student teaching until the end of your degree. By then, you’ve forgotten everything you’ve learned. So our program has, you have to document and do your practicum work every single semester.
documenting how you have implemented what you’ve learned in the class into your classroom. And the third thing that we apply, which is pressure from somebody who’s more knowledgeable, like your sponsor at AA, somebody who’s been through it, is you have a mentor. Everybody is assigned a personal mentor who will also exert just that right amount of pressure.
So in the last six years, we’ve only had one student not make it through our degree program, which is very different than what you see in most American universities.
Anthony Codispoti (13:36.263)
So what I’m hearing, tell me if I got this right, there’s a little bit of peer pressure because they’re in the same class with everybody going through the whole program. And I’ll skip to the third thing. You’ve got the mentor who’s also helping them through all of this. And the thing that I think.
kind of stuck out to me as maybe the most impactful or perhaps the most novel is that regular practical application of what it is that they’re learning. Not just you learn it here as a theory in week one and then two years later you’re expected to retain that and put it into practice, but we’re teaching you a new way of doing things over here and then very shortly afterwards you’ve got to put that into play.
Tamar Andrews (14:19.786)
Exactly. You got it exactly right. And after two or three years, it has now become internalized behaviors.
Anthony Codispoti (14:28.838)
So the work that you’ve been doing in the research into the professional development, this is all dovetailed into the work that you’re doing at the American Jewish University. This is sort of part and parcel, one and the same.
Tamar Andrews (14:42.986)
Well, yeah, exactly. You’ve got it right. Because now after six years, we see the success, right? You can only make a hypothesis, but you have to see the hypothesis either proven or disproven in action. And so I think after these six years, we have seen that hypothesis proven in action. And it’s proven by our graduates having earned more money, having higher positions.
being given much bigger raises. And also, we’re very blessed by having a lot of foundations give us money to fund this in order for more people to afford to attend our program. Call it a day.
Anthony Codispoti (15:27.622)
And so at what point do you feel like we can start to see and perhaps even measure the matriculation of this knowledge down into high schools, grade schools, et cetera?
Tamar Andrews (15:33.546)
you
Tamar Andrews (15:41.77)
that’s…
Anthony Codispoti (15:43.463)
So it sounds like you’re focused on the top, right? Which is kind of where it needs to start. You need to teach the teachers, right? And you’re teaching at the highest level the master’s teachers so they can then teach the bachelor programs. And then when do you think we start to kind of see this, you know, for kids my age who are eight and 10.
Tamar Andrews (15:49.802)
Right.
Tamar Andrews (16:02.794)
Yeah, that’s another hard one to crack. So part of the problem in our school system as well, you know, I always, we actually have a class in our master’s called social justice, colon, the unintended consequences of good intentions. And I think that for many of our legislatures,
and organizations, NGOs, whoever they are, the idea of having these standardized tests and measuring children’s performance was a good intention, right? They thought it would keep teachers in check by making sure that they got all children to read and all children to do math and science, et cetera. But it was to the exclusion, I think the complete exclusion,
of social, emotional, and moral development.
Anthony Codispoti (17:07.205)
And so what’s to be done about that?
Tamar Andrews (17:11.034)
if I don’t, you know, I have this little line I say to people all the time. If I was queen of the world, I would.
Anthony Codispoti (17:17.573)
I’m making you queen for the day. What would you do?
Tamar Andrews (17:22.741)
You know, the nice thing about our school system in some regards is that we already have the cohort model, right? We have that cohort model. Kids matriculate through school unless you move together. But I’ll preface this by adding this line. When you go to prison, you are identified by your crime. And when you go to school, you’re first identified by your special need. That’s a really sad
foundation to begin with. Imagine if our school system started you off in a cohort and first identified everybody by their superhero skill, right? So I have a child who is special needs, although now you would never know it. I think in part I was blessed he was my number four. And so I knew what to do with him at the time. But he was always, and my daughter is probably gonna get mad at me for saying this, but I think he’s the funniest one in the family. And…
He always made us laugh. Even, you know, in the throes of his autistic behavior, he has level two autism, he always made us laugh. He always know how to put everybody at ease. That’s his superhero strength. And also because he had autism, he perseverated. And because perseverate is when you, you know, you can’t get off of something, you kind of hyper -focus. And because of that, he is now a master coder.
And his brother built an app that is now in almost every state of the country. And they’ve got government contracts. And I’m very proud they made Forbes 30 under 30 last year. Sure, it’s called Playground. They built it for me. It’s a child care management app. I had gone to them one day and said, hey, my app’s not working. Can you fix it? And they said, mom, that’s not a good app. We’ll make one for you. And they did. And now it’s everywhere.
Anthony Codispoti (18:59.141)
That is impressive. Can we quickly call out the name of the app? Give him a little.
Tamar Andrews (19:17.802)
And,
You know, the idea that you can take a child’s superpower and actually focus on it, right? Just absolutely focus on it and turn them into real life superheroes is what we should be doing in our school system. And so.
You know, you’ve got to have teachers talk to each other. And so you say things like, in math, we’re going to be learning about triangles. So in history class, why don’t you learn about pyramids or learn about something related to triangles or shapes. Make things more interconnected. Make it so that children see, you know, the application of the theory in some classes to the real life application.
in other classes the same way we do at the university where you have to actually work on what you’re learning in the classroom. Make it real. Make it exciting. Make it something that is not just on Xerox sheets.
Anthony Codispoti (20:16.836)
So going back to the fixes that you’re implementing for the American education system.
Anthony Codispoti (20:27.075)
How does this scale? How do you get this out more? I know you said you’ve got some people who are giving donors, who are giving you grants, they’re giving you money that are helping to expand the education system there at the American Jewish University. Do you see taking this program to other higher learning institutions?
Tamar Andrews (20:47.754)
FERPA will not allow me to name names, but I will tell you that our incoming cohort for our doctoral program has the chairs of many early and education departments in the country. So that is one way I think we will be able to eventually spread this out wider and farther.
Anthony Codispoti (21:11.268)
So this means that the ways in which education is being taught at universities now could begin to change significantly in the next several years because of this new relationship that’s forming.
Tamar Andrews (21:31.85)
Well, I don’t know that I would say significantly in several years. You know, I was just asked by one of our donors, if you have such a long waiting list, why don’t you expand your program? So we went from 18 students six years ago to now just about 200. And I really believe in building the structure one brick at a time to make sure each one is perfectly positioned.
Anthony Codispoti (21:34.819)
Okay.
Tamar Andrews (21:56.106)
I think the changes will have to be slow and methodical in order to take hold. Again, doing that ongoing, just enough pressure to where you don’t break things, but you slowly start to see those changes. You know, don’t forget our American education system has been ingrained in this way for over 150 years. It’s not going to change in five.
So it’s going to have to change slowly and methodically. I am hopeful though that through the courses that we created at AJU that the more immediate changes will be in the addition of the social, emotional, and moral development teaching in schools at any age. Literally at any age.
Anthony Codispoti (22:44.291)
Do you feel like there needs to be a component of this that’s not just teaching the teachers, but teaching their bosses, the administrators, the principals, people they report to?
Tamar Andrews (22:56.074)
Absolutely, and not only that, but at AJU, we’re also gonna be opening up a parenting institute because parents have to be our partners. I’m gonna ask you actually a question. I’ll put you on the spot. From the time, but you gotta answer kinda quickly. From two to 18, what percentage of your life did you spend in school?
Anthony Codispoti (23:15.842)
I’d say 25%.
Tamar Andrews (23:18.922)
So it was less than 10. Even an eight hour school day would be 33%, right? But then take out Saturday, like weekends, holidays, vacations, sick days, et cetera, it’s gonna be less than 10. And so the most important person that we teach until a child is about eight is not the child, it’s the parent. Because if the parents, again, that just the right amount of pressure.
Anthony Codispoti (23:29.666)
weekends summers
Tamar Andrews (23:47.946)
Right? So whatever we are teaching at school has to be continued at home so that just that right amount of pressure is continuously applied. You know, it’s kind of like CPR, right? You only build up pressure in the body when you’re doing CPR. If you stop CPR for even a second, blood pressure goes down to zero. You’ve got to keep it going so that body stays alive. And the same thing is true about moral, social, and emotional development.
You’ve got to keep that pressure going. So that way when the child is engaged in a novel experience and they don’t yet have it internalized as to how to respond to that experience, that little bit of pressure will make sure that they respond appropriately to eventually become an internalized response.
Anthony Codispoti (24:39.362)
You know, something you said that I really liked, it resonated with me, is focusing on the child’s superhero power instead of their special need to start with. Obviously, you can’t ignore the special need that needs attention, right? But if you lead with, this is what makes you special, this is what you’re amazing at. You know, it’s a much warmer invite to the student, right?
Tamar Andrews (25:07.018)
Yeah, this is what makes you special instead of you have special needs.
Anthony Codispoti (25:10.114)
Right. I think, you know, as human beings were naturally wired, especially, you know, I can say I am to look for the problems. What’s the thing that needs fixed today? Looking around the house, the refrigerator is acting up, the toilet’s running. These are problems that need to be fixed. And just by default, I look at my kids the same way. You know, you’re not paying attention. You’re, you know, leaving your clothes everywhere. You’re fighting with your brother. But.
When we focus on all the bad things, that’s all they hear is bad, bad, bad, negative, negative, negative. And if you can’t ignore those things, they don’t go away unless you’re teaching and coaching. But if we can reframe things in a way that, you know, hey, I really love it when you pick up your clothes. You know what you’re really great at is X, Y and Z.
Tamar Andrews (25:53.29)
Yeah.
Yeah, you know, I watch my daughter and my son -in -law, they’re raising my three grandkids who are five, four and two. And whenever one of them does something inappropriate or starts crying for a reason that they shouldn’t really be crying, the first go -to line that they say to their child is, I think you have other choices to make right now. What could be another choice for you to make right now? And it’s such a neutral statement, right?
There is no good or bad to what my kids are saying to my grandkids, but their answer is just, their line is just, and I thought, wow, imagine if every parent simply asked their children what other choices you could be making right now. That thought process will take you into the future going, okay, I’ve got a problem right now.
What is another choice I could be making that will yield a better result for me? what a world it could be, right?
Anthony Codispoti (26:56.417)
And they’re saying this to their five -year -old? To their two -year -old even?
Tamar Andrews (27:00.33)
To their two year old. yeah. And not only that, but it causes them to stop dead in their tracks and think for a minute. So you go out of that limbic, right? That emotional state, because I’m asking a question that causes you to have to, like it forces your decision -making to go up to your logical brain and consider your options for a minute. You know, think about the person who’s road raging. They’re not considering their options at the moment.
Anthony Codispoti (27:28.801)
And how do you get an elevated, a person who’s in an elevated state to even consider that question? Especially a child, but I mean, even an adult, like you mentioned road rage, they’re not accessing that part of their brain.
Tamar Andrews (27:37.866)
Yeah.
Tamar Andrews (27:42.634)
So two tips that your child development expert, number one is put your eye gaze to the child, make your eyes lower than the child’s because the child always wants to be in a position of control, right? That’s what a young child wants more than anything in the world is to be in charge or in control.
And as soon as your eyes are lower than your child, so you’re kind of at a kneeling position, your child already physically feels, okay, I’m in control of this situation. And that helps lower some of the cortisol and the adrenaline for the moment. And the other thing is talk low and slow.
Most parents, when they see their child misbehaving, their adrenaline and cortisol starts increasing as well. And they’ll talk much quicker and raising their voice. But you’ve really got to stop and listen when somebody speaks low and slow. You’ve got to really kind of focus on those words. Yeah.
Anthony Codispoti (28:42.655)
I’m taking notes both for follow -up questions but also to share with my wife later because these are some gems. I think I’m going to take that one question that you just gave me and put it on a t -shirt. What are other choices you could be making right now? I’m going to make one for everyone in the family because I need to ask myself that same thing at times as well. So I do want to talk about Temple Isaiah and your role as preschool director there. But before I get there, I…
Tamar Andrews (28:57.386)
yeah.
Tamar Andrews (29:03.626)
Yeah.
Anthony Codispoti (29:11.935)
You know, when I was Googling your name and prepping for the interview tomorrow, Andrews kept seeing a lot of references to Kanye West. What, what is that about?
Tamar Andrews (29:19.754)
Yeah.
Tamar Andrews (29:26.218)
I, there are not many of us in the field who both are professors and know the theory as well as build schools. And one of the things that I enjoy doing is helping people open schools or help build up existing schools to be more successful. And so I got a call from a lawyer one day who said, hey, is this Dr. Andrews? Yeah.
We’ve got a school. We’ve just opened. We’d like to hire you to help, you know, kind of help the admin and take it to accreditation and run it for us. And didn’t know until I walked into the building and had accepted the job. And I said, wow, everybody here wears black. It’s kind of interesting.
And somebody said, yeah, yay only lets us wear black here. And I said, what’s a, I didn’t know what a yay was. I thought it was like some organization and lo and behold, it’s Mr. West. And…
It was a job that at the time I didn’t know anything about him. I actually don’t listen to that kind of music for anybody that wants to know. I am an EDM affectionato. I go to ultra and all of those kinds of things, electric daisy. And I wear my candy on my wrist all the time. And…
I had met with the principal. She was a lovely woman. She had never really worked in a school before. And can you please help us? They really didn’t know what they were doing. And so I started working there. It was a great gig. And just as a consultant, I’m still director at Isaiah.
Tamar Andrews (31:14.634)
The cool thing about the job was that I was allowed to start from scratch. I mean, how often do you get to start from scratch with a preschool through 12th grade school? And I brought in concepts like restorative justice, which is something very near and dear to my heart. I also brought in something called UDL, which is universal design for learning, which again, gives every kid their superpower. And
Aside from wearing black, which I generally didn’t do anyways, the school was really, it was amazing until I got a message from a friend of mine on LinkedIn saying, my gosh, I just saw that you’re working for Kanye West. You shouldn’t be working for him. And this was literally at the same time on the same day that I get a call from him that he wanted to talk about something. And he said, you know, I’ve had a really rough day.
you know, can we please discuss whatever it is about the school? And I said, you’ve had a rough day. my God. Like, hello, I’m the only Jewish person that works in this school. And realized at that moment that I probably shouldn’t be working there. And so I called the principal up the next morning and I said, I’m sorry. Yeah.
Anthony Codispoti (32:27.005)
So just for context here, this was a time when he was going off on some anti -Semitic rants online. So that’s what triggered all of this. Yeah, please continue.
Tamar Andrews (32:34.058)
Yeah, big time anti -Semitic. Yeah, and I am, I am, I was born in Israel. I am a very proud Jew. And, you know, I’ve dealt with anti -Semitism my whole life and it doesn’t bother me when people say, yeah, I don’t like Jews. They probably just don’t know enough of us or haven’t experienced enough of us, or they’ve only had a bad experience with a Jewish person. So.
Being around anti -Semitism, you know, I’m a product of Holocaust survivors, doesn’t, you know, doesn’t shake me, but it wasn’t a school where I, to this day, I have not received one phone call from a parent in a very Christian school, not one call from a parent or the pastor.
Nobody. The only ones that I got calls from were one of my closest friends, Kelly. Shout out to Kelly, who quit with me and the principal who also quit. And kudos to them. Just, you know, it wasn’t something that I wanted to stand for. I will tell you, this is the first time that I’m ever talking about it publicly. Never granted any interviews. I didn’t want to make any money off of him anymore.
I actually got calls from lawyers, you want to sue him? And I was like, no, not going to make any more money off of him. Let him be in peace. I’m going my own way. And that was it.
Anthony Codispoti (34:01.533)
So you were able to help get the program off the ground. You were still there working as a consultant. And then all of this blows up. And you were like, man, I didn’t know I was signing up for this. I’m getting interview requests. I’m getting probably people offering to pay you, people who want to.
Tamar Andrews (34:15.594)
Tamar Andrews (34:21.834)
My kids were actually bombarded by paparazzi. My work was called every job, every consulting job I’ve had. They pulled photos of me from my Facebook where I’m like baking challah. I guess it says, Jui, a picture as they could get for their cover story. Yeah. You know, it’s not something I’m ashamed of. I’m actually proud to have, you know.
been the Jewish educator that quit his school. But at the end of the day, it didn’t define me or anything about me. I’m just, you know, I focus on the future. I don’t spend any time on the past. It’s wasted energy.
Anthony Codispoti (35:00.476)
And so that was a big part of your decision not to grant interviews around this, not to take part in any lawsuits. You were like, wow, that’s hurtful and painful. And the best thing for me to do is focus on tomorrow and just step aside and put my energies on things that are helpful and building and creative and constructive.
Tamar Andrews (35:05.13)
Yeah.
Tamar Andrews (35:20.01)
yeah, and the school doesn’t exist. I mean, once I quit and the principal quit, it crumbled. It doesn’t exist.
Anthony Codispoti (35:25.34)
also the school it it it it it fell apart it’s no longer there
Tamar Andrews (35:29.626)
yeah, there is nobody running it.
Anthony Codispoti (35:31.548)
Okay. And so I’m curious, as you look back at that experience, how has it informed or shaped decisions that you make going forward? Do you look at new opportunities differently?
Tamar Andrews (35:48.234)
I have turned down several consulting jobs.
I will vet everybody or I’ll have somebody vet people for me. It has also really made me focus much more on the program at AJU, realizing that, you know, it’s not just antisemitism. There are people who are racist and prejudiced in many ways. And, you know, prejudice, no matter how much information you get to the contrary, it’s still ingrained in you, kind of like those addictive behaviors.
And we just may have a lot more work to do as humans. And at least for me in the institutions of education, it’s where I can try to make some of those dents.
Anthony Codispoti (36:40.924)
I’m curious with the Kanye West situation, if you had had that sort of vetting process in place at that time, was there anything prior to the big blow up that we’re talking about that would have indicated his feelings, his tendencies in those areas, his prejudices, his
Tamar Andrews (37:02.666)
No, you know, I had actually contacted a relative by marriage who had been studying Jewish texts with Kanye. And I said, hey, have you heard what’s going on? And he said, no, I’ve been like, no, because I think it’s just the paparazzi making noise about him.
or taking things out of context. And the truth is I don’t get TV in my home, so I don’t watch news. I…
Really am so busy with the work I do that I I don’t really know what’s going on in the bigger world and let somebody You know shares it with me My head is really in academia. I I don’t have a you know, I am I’ll give you a little I finished three years of chemo about a year ago. I was told that I had stage four, you know cancer and I wasn’t gonna make it past
a few more years and I was very blessed. I was a patient number two in a clinical trial. And here I stand today and I’ve got this renewed perspective about how I spend my time. So I try really hard not to waste time. It’s very precious to me. So vetting process, no, there was no, I’m an idealist, remember that. I think everybody is wonderful.
Anthony Codispoti (38:27.675)
We need more of that, please don’t lose that. Okay, so let’s shift gears away from that into fun things, good things, areas that you’re having lots of positive impact like Temple Isaiah. You’re the preschool director there. You’ve been there for 20 years. Tell me, what is your day to day at that institution look like?
Tamar Andrews (38:29.962)
Thanks.
Tamar Andrews (38:44.714)
Yeah.
Tamar Andrews (38:49.13)
so I’ve actually handed the reins of directing over to, a woman who has become one of my best friends. Her name is Avi tall. And she is now, I am the director emeritus. So I still play a role there. I’m actually going to do professional development there in a couple of weeks. and she is the one that has taken over the day to day.
I will tell you, using that app that I talked about before that my kids made for me has made it, you know, even when I was going through chemo, that app has made it so simple to run any educational, early childhood educational institution because the whole school resides on your phone. And so she now gets the fun of going in and hanging out with the teachers. And I’m the one that really gets called for the big problems.
but there aren’t any. We’ve got a staff now that has been there forever. There’s very little turnover at Isaiah, which is, again, unheard of, because in childcare, the average turnover of teachers is 40 % a year.
And you know, there was a great study for any of you listening that might be in the field of education. There was a great study done a long time. God, we’re going back maybe 15 years. And they asked school administrators, why do you think teachers stay in their jobs? And the administrators all said money. And then they went to those same schools and asked all the teachers, why do you stay in your job? Not why you take the job, why you stay in the job?
And the number one reason was a feeling of being in on things. And what that meant was that if you feel ownership of the school you’re a part of rather than being a renter, right, renters move from place to place. And if the water is dripping, renters don’t care. But if you’re an owner, you care when the water is dripping.
Tamar Andrews (40:52.17)
And so when you’re an owner, you feel like, I have, there’s a problem. I can fix it or I can tell somebody and they’re going to fix it because they trust me. And so we have built up a staff there that is consistently of the highest caliber. Many of whom, by the way, have taken the degree program at AJA, including Avi tall. And as a result, we’ve got a staff that is.
I’m just very proud of them. Incredible staff.
Anthony Codispoti (41:25.85)
Tell me more about how you instill that sense of ownership in the team. This is always one of my favorite questions to ask people in a tight labor market. They got tighter coming out of COVID. It’s hard to find good people. It’s hard to retain good people. And when I ask this question, a lot of people, well, we focus on benefits. We try to pay them well. We try to treat them with respect. I think these are all important boxes to check. But you’ve touched on something I think really important here.
And yet you want you want to feel valuable you want to feel like you’re a part of a team and in your words you want to feel like you’ve got some kind of ownership in the process. How do you how do you build that culture? How do you communicate that to people?
Tamar Andrews (42:08.81)
That’s a great question because I think if more people did it, you wouldn’t have the what we call what the news is calling a teacher shortage. There is no teacher shortage. It’s that people are leaving the field because they don’t enjoy it anymore. And so the ownership comes from several components. So number one, it’s making people feel like they have a superhero strength, right?
making them really understand that you are valued here because there is something that you are contributing that we don’t think anybody else can do. And really catching them behaving in that way, like catching them while they’re using their superhero strength. I remember once there was a teacher named Sharon, shout out to Sharon. And she was, again, eye level lower than the child. The child is having a really hard moment outside the hallway.
and she’s talking in her low and slow voice in a patient way. And she got that child to calm down faster than anybody I’ve ever seen a child calm down. And she respected that child so much in that moment where most people would have been like, my God, that kid is driving me nuts. She respected him in that moment. And she gave him so much unconditional love while he was having that meltdown. And so afterwards, I simply went over to her, touched her on the shoulder and said, I saw you.
I just want you to know I saw you. She didn’t see me watching her. She had her back to me. I said, I saw you. And I wish every child could experience what I just saw you do with that child. And I think for her in that moment, it was more valuable than any money I could have possibly have given her, because I recognized her superhero strength. And so that’s number one. Number two, and here’s a monetary thing.
You know, at Temple Isaiah, again, before COVID, we had like 350 kids. We had a budget up the gazoo. We had so many kids. I gave ownership of part of the budget back to the teachers. And I said to them, I said, listen, I don’t work in your classrooms, you do. So I’m gonna give every classroom, you know, $1 ,000 on top of all the supplies and everything else that we get.
Tamar Andrews (44:20.554)
each class and you can spend it however you want. Now, if you want to take that thousand dollars and all of you guys go to Hawaii, so be it, but you’re not getting any more money. So use it wisely. But you know, like one group, they were having some infighting in their group and one of the teachers came to me and she goes, you know, we don’t spend all this money. Can I take a hundred of it? Would it be okay? We’re all going to go out to dinner because we’ve got to get some bonding going. I said, your money. I think that’s a great idea. Perfect use of the money.
but great, and so they have ownership that way. The other thing that we did was we created a very transparent salary scale. So nobody ever has to wonder if the person who’s sitting right next to them is making more or less than they are. They know exactly how much everybody makes. And they also know what the teacher levels are and what you have to do to get to the next level so that…
You are in control. You are literally, you take ownership of your salary and your position in the school.
Anthony Codispoti (45:24.122)
You know, hearing your story about the the call out that you gave to that teacher, private little call out, you know, and, you know, complimenting them for how they respond to that child. I think parents listening to this is a good reminder for them. They can provide teachers with similar types of affirmation. I did this on a private Zoom call with one of my son’s teachers and really thanked her for the way that
she was able to help him through some challenges that he was going through. And I knew that she was going to be good at that because I had witnessed her in a classroom two years ago with my older son helping an autistic child calm down and keep himself sort of centered and doing it in a very subtle way that didn’t draw a whole lot of attention.
And I could tell that that meant a lot to her in the moment, but a few months later, she ran into my wife at a social event and she brought that up and how much that meant to her to have felt seen and appreciated and validated. Right. And so I think, you know, as, as parents, right, we’re a lot of times we’re in contact with the teachers when something’s going wrong, our child has misbehaved or we feel like.
Tamar Andrews (46:31.978)
And validate it. Yeah? Yeah.
Anthony Codispoti (46:43.194)
they’re not getting the attention or the services that they need. And then a lot of the good things that happen aren’t getting called out because, hey, good, things are going smooth. I’m going to get back to what I was doing. I’m going to go on about my day. But I think whether it’s a boss in an education situation or a parent in an education situation, it’s really nice when you can call attention to those.
those positive things that happen because there’s a lot more of those in almost every scenario than there are the negative ones and everybody likes to hear those. That’s good food for the soul.
Tamar Andrews (47:16.586)
I don’t think we compliment enough. I was in the elevator the other day and there was a woman who had put together just the most perfect outfit. And I said to her, I said, you know, I don’t know how long it took you to get dressed today, but you have literally put yourself together in a way that is perfect. You are like Vogue cover ready. And she looked at me and she goes, my gosh, do you think my husband will notice?
Anthony Codispoti (47:41.626)
What’s his number? I’ll text him now. That’s funny. You know, you mentioned budgets. Another question that I like to ask is, you know, as leaders of different types of businesses, education institutions,
Tamar Andrews (47:42.154)
It was so cute, yeah.
Anthony Codispoti (47:56.378)
We’ve always got to keep our eye on the bottom line, right? The P &L, because that matters to keep the doors open and keep things running smoothly. And I’m curious, in all of your years of experience, there’s sort of two levers that we can pull there. One is how do we drive more revenue? And the other is how do we lower expenses? Can you think of creative ways in which you’ve pulled one or more of those levers in the past?
Tamar Andrews (48:01.162)
yeah.
Tamar Andrews (48:19.85)
sure. Well, first of all, benefits are a much more bottom line friendly way to spend or allocate a certain amount of money because you don’t have to add the other 25 % that you would to a payroll increase when you add in, you know, unemployment and health and all these other taxes that are tied to payroll.
And the other thing too is I don’t think employees recognize how much benefits cost a company. So when we create contracts, we don’t put in just your hourly salary and say, and we’re going to add health benefits. We put in the actual dollar amount that all of that stuff is going to cost us. Again, full transparency over the budget because ownership and
You know, revenue is a fixed number in most schools because, you know, tuition is tuition. You can always try to fundraise, but those dollars are now, you know, being spread. I think families are spreading those donation dollars across multiple places. I like to bring the employees in, the teachers in and say, look, I want to give you guys, I only have money for a 5 % increase next year or a COLA increase. I would love it to be 10%.
Can we brainstorm ideas of ways to bring in more money? Because when you get that hive mind going, you get many more lucrative ideas than if I try to think of them on my own and impose them on my teachers. So rather than me imposing them on the teachers, if I get them to think, these new creative financial ideas are my ideas, then again, there’s that ownership component.
and they are then in charge, right, of how to earn more money in order for you to make more money.
Anthony Codispoti (50:16.981)
that. How is the movement towards the transitional kindergarten program in California affecting you guys?
Tamar Andrews (50:26.758)
well, it’s going to be everywhere. I think eventually the government is going to fund three and up. It’s affected schools because obviously their fours and fives are going to public school. Most schools, if they saw this coming, as we did, you started creating spaces for younger children. And I think especially now post -COVID, we have more and more families who are
you know, dual income earners, or there are people who are single, you know, parents and need to make more money. And schools have to adapt. So where schools used to be open from nine to three, you’ve got to be open from, I’d say, seven to six. And ways to increase the bottom line is to offer flex, you know, flexible opportunities for parents to enroll their kids.
And by doing so, you also increase the number of spaces you can actually put in. So if I’ve got a kid coming from, let’s say, seven to three, and another parent needs somebody from 12 to six, I have almost like a one and a half full -time enrollment going in for one space.
Licensing has also been doing some creative stuff. For example, in California, here’s a tip if you don’t know this. If you’re licensed child care provider in California, you can actually almost double your capacity if you get the fire department to sign off on you not using the yards with the whole school at the same time. So if you can show that you’ve got a yard schedule where half are outside and half are inside,
you can almost double your capacity. So we were able to go from 176 to 300 and something overnight by doing that.
Anthony Codispoti (52:13.875)
Wow. So with a transitional kindergarten, this is affecting what’s the age group? Four and five year olds are now in public? Of course.
Tamar Andrews (52:21.386)
Right now it’s fours, but it’s going to go down to threes.
Anthony Codispoti (52:25.779)
And do you think that’s going to completely do away with threes and fours in preschools because now there’s the public component or some people are going to continue to stay in a private institution like yours because you have more services, better offerings, longer hours perhaps than a public school would?
Tamar Andrews (52:44.874)
Yeah, I think it’s the same thing like any kindergarten, right? You still have private and public kindergartens. Families are going to put their children where their friends are for religious beliefs, for community involvement. And public school enrollment is actually on a decline. So here, I’ll give you the problem. Take a school like Westwood Charter, which is one of the big public schools in our neighborhood.
Families will move into that neighborhood because they want to send their kids to a great public school. They’ll move in and then their kids are going to go to school there from K through eight and then junior high and high school. So they’re not moving out. So if there isn’t any inventory for new families to move in with kindergartners, they’re going to have to move to another area where there is housing and go to that public school.
As a result, that family staying in Westwood Charter, right, in that location, Westwood Charter had a very low enrollment a few years ago. They had no choice but to offer the earlier class, you know, the four -year -olds, because they had to get kids in in order to get their state funds, their tax dollars, if you will, in order to fund their school. And as those families start to stay,
There’s no inventory. They’re gonna have no choice but to go to three -year -olds in order to fund their school. And on top of this, the double whammy is that we had the Jarvis Initiative, Prop 13 in California. So that family that might have moved in 10 years ago, excuse me, and is staying there for now for life, their property tax will remain the same for the duration of their staying in that home. So the public school dollars come from property tax.
So now the schools are also cash strapped because nobody’s selling their homes, right? And they’re still getting the same amount of tax dollars that they got 10 or 20 years ago. And it’s not enough for the raises the teachers need, the infrastructure, the capital improvements we need to make, et cetera. So that is part of the huge, the much larger problem with the public schools in California. And as a result,
Tamar Andrews (55:00.746)
Many parents then are sending their kids to private school because the only way the public schools know how to fix this is to pack more kids into a class.
Anthony Codispoti (55:10.962)
How does maybe what’s the class size at Westwood Charter compare to what somebody would find at your school?
Tamar Andrews (55:18.41)
so our school has a teacher ratio of one to four or yeah, or one to five. Yeah. We have an amazing. Yeah. Well, you get what you pay for, right? When tuition is 25 ,000 a year. That’s, that’s what you get.
Anthony Codispoti (55:22.162)
What?
Anthony Codispoti (55:33.777)
Okay. That’s impressive. Tell me, paint a little bit more of a picture of what the day is like for one of your preschoolers.
Tamar Andrews (55:37.546)
Yeah.
Tamar Andrews (55:43.722)
well, you never have to leave your car if you don’t want to. We’ve got a car line in the front and a car line in the back. We’ve got armed security as all Jewish programs do. The kids will say hello to the guards, say hello to the teachers that take them out of car line, and then they’ll come in. Again, half inside, half outside on playgrounds. We’ve got four huge playgrounds, which are amazing. One playground alone is just a giant sandbox.
with playground apparatus on it. Another one is the size, I’d say, I’m not very good at measurement, but about the size of three quarters of a football field. And it’s got basketball courts and jungle gym and bikes and huge blocks and shade and all kinds of building stuff. Another yard is really more for the younger kids. And another third yard is for loose parts.
and STEM. The kids will play in their classrooms. They’ve got, you know, there are three or four teachers in a class. They’ve got their friends. We do STEM. We do literacy. We do social, emotional, and moral development. They have, you know, music and dance and art and happy laughter pretty much all day.
Anthony Codispoti (56:59.601)
Tell me more about the social, emotional, and moral development component. How is that introduced to this age group?
Tamar Andrews (57:09.034)
Well, you know, the beginnings of social and emotional development really come from learning how to take turns, cooperating as you build friendships and making those friendships more meaningful and deeper and respecting and accepting others. I have to share with you, this is, my gosh, maybe 10 years ago, we had a child who would never be able to actually walk or talk. He had a genetic defect. And the kids, as he came in with his,
with his mom and his wheelchair. The kids were sitting on the floor in circle time. And two of the kids immediately said, my gosh, move over, move over, because he needs enough room. But they actually picked him up off the wheelchair and put him on the ground with his assistant. He had like a helper. And the mom was about to walk out. And one of the kids shouted out, wait, wait, you can’t leave yet. It’s his first day. We need to know if he has any agulies. And what she wanted to say was allergies.
But they’re all so sensitive to the needs of one another. Understanding boundaries, both physical boundaries, language boundaries, learning to negotiate, learning to solve problems together, learning how things connect and how there’s a cause and effect. So when you learn all of those things, you then see how they affect one another.
And the teachers really model it and talk about it throughout the day. There’s a great book, by the way, How Full Is Your Bucket? And I remember one day walking in, I had done something to my hair and one of the little boys said, Tamar, your hair looks really nice. And then he looked at the teacher and goes, I filled her bucket. And so, you know, again, reading books, talking about it, telling stories.
Anthony Codispoti (58:55.759)
Hahaha
Tamar Andrews (59:05.418)
And then, and again, just going through those things and making that social, emotional, moral development an intrinsic part of every day, partnering with parents, loving conversation, things like that.
Anthony Codispoti (59:21.903)
Tamar, you’re obviously responsible.
Tamar Andrews (59:24.506)
I don’t hear you, sorry.
Anthony Codispoti (59:29.422)
Okay, you’re obviously responsible for educating a lot of the educators, right? Teaching the teachers. I’m curious as part of your own education process coming up, you mentioned one book in particular, How to Fill Your Bucket. Are there other specific books or mentors that have been particularly helpful for you in your career?
Tamar Andrews (59:29.546)
Yeah.
Tamar Andrews (59:51.754)
wow. I’ve got like a stack of them here. Here, I’ll tell you what I’m working on right now. I read several books at a time. Here, there’s a good one, The Connector Manager. This is a great book. And it’s written by Roca and Wilde. And it’s why some leaders build exceptional talent and others don’t, which is a great book.
Anthony Codispoti (01:00:13.711)
Okay.
Tamar Andrews (01:00:16.394)
The other one is by Shane Parrish called Clear Thinking, Turning Ordinary Moments into Extraordinary Results. And again, I am so, I think of time as so precious, right? And then the other one is, I’m gonna start with the why. I mark up all my books and it’s by Sinek. It’s how great leaders inspire everyone to take action. So my goal in reading these books right now is,
Anthony Codispoti (01:00:34.191)
Simon Sinek.
Tamar Andrews (01:00:44.426)
Again, knowing that my time here on earth is limited, it’s how to help others move forward with the same kind of work.
Anthony Codispoti (01:00:54.415)
great. Simon Sinek also has a great TED talk that he did years ago about the same topic that I think it was the first time that he kind of hit my radar and I think it drew a lot of people to his attention.
Tamar Andrews (01:01:07.626)
Yeah, there’s also, if I can share, there’s a great podcast also. I want people to listen to yours, but there is a great one. I’m going to butcher his name. It’s called the hidden brain by Shankar Vedanta. I believe that’s how you pronounce it. And the hidden brain is all about, he has great people on there talking about all the different ways in which our brain can work or gets tricked or how to, you know, use.
Anthony Codispoti (01:01:19.791)
Okay.
Tamar Andrews (01:01:34.41)
what we know and how we think and to live better.
Anthony Codispoti (01:01:38.959)
We’ll make sure we find that podcast and include a link to it in the show notes. Tamar, I just have one more question for you, but before I ask it, I want to do two things. First of all, if you’re listening today and you like today’s content, please hit the subscribe, like, or share button on your favorite podcast app. Tamar, I also want to let people know the best way to get in touch with you. What’s the best way to make that happen?
Tamar Andrews (01:01:43.274)
There you go.
Tamar Andrews (01:01:58.442)
best way to get in touch with me is email. My email is tamar .andrews .aju .edu. That’s easiest.
Anthony Codispoti (01:02:08.975)
Great. Okay. Last question for you, Tamar. We’ve already touched a little bit on this, but maybe there’s some additional ways for you to expand on this. How do you see your industry evolving in the next five years? What do you think some of the biggest changes are that are still coming?
Tamar Andrews (01:02:27.21)
Ooh.
Wow, you know, I have this professional development I’m doing now called Finding the Right Pitch. And the pitch stands for the four environments a teacher creates. So it’s the physical, interpersonal, temporal, and curricular. And if you do it right, you get the H, which is harmony in the classroom instead of dysregulation. I think the biggest change, I’m hoping the biggest change, is along those lines, which is
Not to look at the reading, the writing, and the math, but to really look, you know, use a 360 view at what your role is as a teacher, as an administrator, and focus on all aspects of human development so that people don’t come out just really smart but really dumb, but come out really smart and really capable.
of being able to affect change.
Anthony Codispoti (01:03:33.102)
Tomorrow I want to be the first one for thanking you to share your time and your story with us today. I really appreciate it. Folks, that’s a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories podcast. Thanks for learning with us today.
REFERENCES
Linkedin – https://www.linkedin.com/in/tamarandrews