How to Think, Not What to Think – with Kristina Vourax [Ep. 54]

Linda J. Hansen: Welcome, thank you for tuning in to this episode of the Prosperity 101 Break Room Economics Podcast. My name is Linda J. Hansen, your host and the author of Prosperity 101, Job Security Through Business Prosperity, the essential guide to understanding how policy affects your paycheck, and the creator of the Break Room Economics online course. The book, the course, and the entire podcast library can be found on Prosperity101.com. I seek to connect boardroom to break room and policy to paycheck by empowering and encouraging employers to educate employees about the public policy issues that affect their jobs. My goal is to help people understand the foundations of prosperity, the policies of prosperity, and how to protect their prosperity by becoming informed, involved, and impactful. I believe this will lead to greater employee loyalty, engagement, and retention, and to an increased awareness of the blessings and responsibilities of living in a free society. Listen each week to hear from exciting guests, and be sure to visit Prosperity101.com. Thank you for joining us today. In honor of School Choice Week, I am interviewing Kristina Vourax. Kristina Vourax is the board president and founder of Lake Country Classical Academy, a new independent, public, tuition-free charter school in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin. Opening in the fall of 2021, LCCA will be the first affiliate school of the Hillsdale College Barney Charter School Initiative in the state. With a double major in journalism and psychology from Indiana University, Kristina has more than 20 years of experience in public relations and marketing. In her role as official spokesperson for United Airlines, and later the Denver Humane Society, Kristina gained invaluable experience pitching stories and providing weekly live on-camera and radio interviews. In addition to her strong media relations skills, she possesses a broad range of experience in strategic planning, crisis communications, and marketing. Kristina was also an account executive at Bozell Public Relations in Chicago, providing PR and marketing support for health care and consumer clients, including Abbott Laboratories and Harley-Davidson Motor Company. As the mother of two teenage children, Kristina has taken her love of education and combined it with her public relations background to hopefully bring forth a school choice option for not only her family, but for many other families concerned about the education of their children and those within the country. So with that, I welcome Kristina Vourax. Thank you for joining us today. Kristina Vourax: Well, thank you for having me. Linda J. Hansen: It's great. So you have quite a varied background, and then you have these two teenage children. What was it that led you to think about starting a charter school? Kristina Vourax: Right, yeah, it's a good question, and part of me is glad that I was so naive in going into this, because quite honestly, it's a very big undertaking. However, it's so, so important right now, and what really sparked this for me was that when my children—you know, I've always supported public schools. I wanted my children to be part of the public school system. We had a very good experience in elementary school, but when my son entered middle school, this was about four years ago now, and my eyes were wide open to what was going on, because it was very digital. The learning environment—we thought we had signed up for what was considered a traditional learning environment, and instead, almost everything was done online. I knew that kids were getting Chromebooks and so forth, but I didn't realize what was happening at the time was that teachers are actually no longer teaching and being the center of the classroom and providing the lessons and content. That is now shifting to where children are—they call it self-directed learning or competency-based learning or personalized learning. Those are terms you'll hear that sound great on the surface, but what they really mean is digital learning, where kids are on the laptops, really navigating their way through these platforms and learning online and teaching themselves, essentially, where the teacher is now the facilitator, guiding them through this content online. So, to me, that wasn't what I wanted for my children, and I knew a lot of other parents did not want this kind of learning either. We expressed our concerns to the school district and really pressed them to provide a more traditional option—again, where teachers were actually the center of the classroom. Is there any chance we can actually use a textbook instead of having them do everything online? Pencil and paper—almost old-fashioned, the way we had school. The school district really did not want to go down that road. They made it very clear that their mission was digital, and they are gradually rolling this out K through 12. It really wasn't in the elementary schools when we were there, but I think that is now happening as well. To me, this was really a terrifying thing, and I thought, you know, this is not okay—not for my kids. We can't afford private school, and I know there are a lot of other families out there that can't afford private school. There are a lot of families that can't homeschool, which is a wonderful thing to do as well, but if you have to work, that's not an option. They may not qualify for voucher, so there's really this large segment of the population that is stuck with what they're getting when there's no other option other than digital. I started researching other schools in the area to see, well, can I just shift them to another public school in the area? But they're really all headed down the same path—this digital path. It's just a matter of how quickly. So my thought was, rather than beating our head against the wall and trying to change a system that really doesn't want to change—and some parents are happy with this digital world, which is fine. I'm not trying to take it away from them—but for parents that want something more traditional, more content-rich, more rigorous, there should be another option. So I suggested to the group of parents I was working with at the time: how about let's focus our energy in a positive way and create what we want for our children, rather than putting all this energy into something negative and fighting? Let's do something that's going to make our world better and a better opportunity for our children. So that's what really kind of led us down the path of creating a school. I’m not an educator, so I’ve never started a school before. How do you do that? I just started researching and talking to other charter schools in the area to find out—how did this happen? How was this created? Talking to some founders of other charter schools and doing some research. So it's been quite a journey, and we spent a good year sort of fighting the system. And then after it was clear nothing was going to change, really the forming or founding process for the school took the past two years. Linda J. Hansen: It's an amazing journey, and I give you credit for your comment where you said instead of just complaining about what is negative and fighting against what is negative, let's do something positive to create a positive change. I know I always seek to do that, and I know that many of my listeners would be applauding that right now—especially in the climate of the cultural divide we have in our nation right now. People who are looking to create positive change in a positive way that helps people are so appreciated. So I applaud you. I applaud those who work with you to really try to come up with some great solutions—not just for your own family, but for others as well. You have a rich professional background, so you have great skill sets and experiences that helped you navigate this world—finding donors and getting contacts and getting the word out. So with that, I just applaud you. You have a great website. Would you like to give the website? We'll give it at the end of the broadcast too, but just in case people want to look it up while they're listening, what is the website? Kristina Vourax: Sure, yeah, it's www.lakecountryclassical.org, and yeah, I appreciate your words of support. This has definitely been a team effort, and it's been helpful to have the marketing background and just being well organized and trying to get all the pieces in order of what we need to be doing. But it truly does take a village when it comes to this, because finding all those right people with the right backgrounds who know the people in the political landscape, in the world of education—there’s so much to it that there’s no way one person could do this all by themselves. So I'm so appreciative of the support we've had from other fellow board members, but also from donors and people who are helping us to bring this up the ramp. Especially, I'd like to mention two groups in particular that have really helped us with this. In order to become a charter school, which is a public school, you have to be authorized. Within the state of Wisconsin, there are really two avenues you can go for that. You can talk to an existing school district and try to get a school district to back you and then be your authorizer and you are accountable to them. Or you can go to a list of independent authorizers on the Wisconsin DPI website. They’re mainly colleges and universities that have the ability to authorize charter schools. Our authorizer is actually an independent authorizer on that list. It's the LCO Ojibwe College, which is a Native American college up in Hayward. They took a great interest in our classical model and believe in what we’re trying to do, and I think our missions really align because one big piece of classical education is character development and really instilling what it is to be good and true and all those traits that make good humans and good future adults in this world contributing to society, and I think that that fits really well in line with the Native American belief system, that they have those same values that we do. In fact, they said to me, we have what they consider educational sovereignty and that parents have an inherent right to raise their children the way they'd like, and that includes how they're educated, so they too very much believe in school choice, and it's just a really nice partnership that we can work together on to make this a better education option for children. But the other one I wanted to mention is the Hillsdale College Barney Charter School Initiative that we have. We are going to be the first school here in Wisconsin of the Barney Charter School Initiative. It is a K-12 program where they support other charter schools like ours, founding groups, with their curriculum, so we'll be a licensed user of the Hillsdale curriculum. They provide all our teacher training, board training, and guidance throughout the founding process and beyond, so they are there every step of the way to help us figure out what we need to be doing and what we need to do to be successful, so we are honored and extremely pleased to be able to offer this curriculum to families in Lake Country. Linda J. Hansen: That is really great, and I'm sure there's people listening who are thinking, “Wow, I wonder if I could do that. I wonder if I could start a charter school in my area,” and I think it's important. A lot of times people don't understand exactly what a charter school is. You mentioned that it is a public school. I think sometimes people don't realize there's all these different options in education. So we have public school that everybody knows about and we're all familiar with, charter schools—which I'd like you to explain a little bit about that difference—but there's private schools, and they can be secular or religious, home schools, and there's a blend of all of those sometimes within our society. But just for clarification for this particular broadcast, I would really like you to make clear to our listeners what is the difference between, say, a private school and a charter school, and why is a charter school considered a public school? Kristina Vourax: Okay, sure, so a charter school, as you mentioned, it is a public school, and the difference between what a charter is and say, a mainstream school district—we are still accountable to the certain statutes within the statutes for public schools, requirements that we have to uphold like a public school does, but we do have a little more freedom, more autonomy. There are certain statutes that we don't have to necessarily follow quite as strictly, such as the curriculum that we're using and this also is what's really great about partnering with the LCO Ojibwe, who's an independent authorizer—our board for our school can set our own policy, so we don't have to abide by the same policy as a school district, per se, because we're our own independent charter school, but we're also essentially our own school district. We have no superintendent. Our principal is essentially the principal and superintendent of our school, and then we are accountable to the LCO Ojibwe. So we still have to do state testing, just like a mainstream public school does. There are certain things that we still have to do and report back to the DPI on, whereas a private school doesn't have to do that. They can really kind of decide their own testing, they have a lot of freedom, obviously. They can also have a faith-based curriculum. They can do a lot of things that a public school can't. So we're sort of in the middle between the two. We're still accountable to the state. We do receive state funding, although we don't receive as much as a mainstream public school does. The mainstream public schools—it depends on the district as far as how much they get per student, but all charter schools in Wisconsin get about the same amount. So, for example, nearby public school gets nearly ten thousand dollars a student. We will be getting about eighty-five hundred dollars a student, so we will be working with a little bit less per student, but we will make it work and do great with what we get. The other thing I'd like to add to that is because we are state funded, that funding doesn't come in until after we're open. So we have to have everything up and running. We have our school location. We're paying rent, all the furniture, all the supplies, paying for utilities, hiring teachers, paying salaries, insurance. I mean, there's so many things that go into this. We have students already in their seats learning before we get a dime from the state. So that is where we need help from the public right now is really helping us to raise the money that we need, and we're hoping to raise about a million dollars by this coming July to really have that seed money in place to help us open successfully. Linda J. Hansen: That is a great explanation of where a charter school fits into the public school family, shall I say, but it also is a great segue into why I wanted to bring you on, because people may think my podcast is about how policy affects paychecks and connecting boardroom to break room and really helping the business community in a sense understand how policy affects business and commerce and things. However, I have focused a lot of episodes on just general things like this within our culture that have this enormous effect on not only businesses now and in the future, but families, which affects if families are healthy and children are doing well and they're in a good school environment, then the business owners or the employees can focus on their jobs more. I mean, there's just such a trickle-down effect when everything is going well for education of our children, as we can see in this year of COVID-19. And the educational system has been so upset and it's on again, off again, children in school, children out of school, digital learning versus virtual learning versus classroom or whether it's a hybrid. And I've talked to so many parents, as I'm sure you have, that just feel like their head is spinning. Not only are the parents' heads spinning, but the employers have to figure out how to help accommodate those employees when they understand they've got family commitments. They've got kids at home. They're trying to—it's hard enough for these employers who have had so much stress on them in this year of lockdowns and mandates that now they're trying to figure out how do I manage this and keep these employees so that they can actually take care of their families. But it's just such a mess in so many ways because of COVID-19 and everything that's been happening with that. But this is an ongoing thing. The need for school choice didn’t just appear in 2020 or 2021. And many of my listeners know, I began homeschooling back in '84, '85, right in that timeframe. So I was one of the early pioneers. And for many of the same reasons that you talked about, I mean, there were just some needs not being met. And you felt like you tried to address it, but then it's like well, let’s do this. And that was what worked for our family. But there were others who did things like start charter schools or start private schools. And now homeschooling is so much more common than it was then. But so thankful for others like me and others in the school choice movement who have led the way so that we can do this. Explain a little bit about the Barney School Initiative. Could you explain what that is? Many of my listeners, I'm sure, are familiar with Hillsdale College and are very familiar with the quality of education and character development and everything that Hillsdale is known for. So how does that translate into what your charter school teaches and how Hillsdale is involved? Kristina Vourax: Right. So Hillsdale College started the Barney Charter School Initiative—I want to say their first school came out and was open around 2014. I think it was right around there, and has since grown to be 20 schools currently up and running right now. We will be one of four more schools that will be up and running this coming fall. I'm not sure which other states, but we will be the first and only one in Wisconsin. Hopefully, I would love to help other parents start something similar. If we could have other BCSI schools in the state, I think that would be fabulous. But I think we can really be a shining example of what public education can and should be in the state of Wisconsin. So their curriculum—they have a team of teachers, essentially, who have created this curriculum at their school on site, the Hillsdale Classical School. That’s where it all started. And people really loved that model and wanted to see, “Hey, can you duplicate this elsewhere?” That’s kind of how this program started. So they’re providing this curriculum, but it’s not just giving us the curriculum and then saying, “Good luck.” They want to make sure our teachers really understand what classical education is and know how to use it and how to properly present it to the children—get them excited about it, help them understand and learn from it. They have their stamp of approval on us, and this is their name, so they want us to be just as successful as we want to be. They provide this curriculum and the training. Our teachers will be going to Hillsdale in July to be trained. The Hillsdale team will come to us in August before we open to train again. Our principal is going to Hillsdale in February to attend a school leader training and conference. Also, our board—Hillsdale has two board trainings every year where we have the opportunity to go and learn how to be a good governing board and what that means. So there’s just a lot of support there that they provide to help us be successful. One of the things with that curriculum—what makes Hillsdale unique—you’ll hear “classical education” and wonder what that means. It can take different forms. There are some private schools that use classical education and have been for some time. The Hillsdale model in particular focuses on the four core subjects: math, science, english, and history. History in particular is very steeped in American history, which is very typical of what you would think of with Hillsdale College. So the idea is students need to really understand our own history before they can appreciate the history of other cultures around the world. We start at home and work out from there. That’s really the backdrop to everything we’re doing. That, along with Latin—which is common with most classical schools—as well as foreign languages, art, and music, are all big parts of classical as well. Then there’s the character development piece, which is woven throughout everything we do with the children. So it’s going to be a really content-rich, strong curriculum that’s provided by Hillsdale. And as I said, they not only give us the curriculum but really work with the teachers so we know how to present it and be successful. Linda J. Hansen: That’s excellent. That’s a great explanation for our listeners. This initiative is so intentional and high quality. This is not haphazard. When we talk about classical education, I know that many people don’t understand what that is. They don’t really know what it means. This whole emphasis on academics, the arts, foreign languages, history—it’s really about helping to build a well-trained mind. For those who might not know, there’s a great book called The Well-Trained Mind, which is a great tool and resource for parents. No matter where your children go to school, it gives an introduction into classical education. However, being able to look at this and compare—so often, I think what parents need to understand is that by building this rigorous academic education and helping young people understand not just how to learn digitally or virtually, but to learn the discipline of reading books, to train the mind to take in intense, difficult-to-comprehend information and process it. We have not taught this generation to critically think. And we see what's happening because of that. We see what’s happening in our culture, as it appears many people don’t critically think about what they’re seeing or hearing. They just react. And hopefully, by educating these children in rigorous academics, they learn to train their mind to look at things from all angles—not just make snap decisions or take the easy route. We’re really building leaders for tomorrow who can truly lead through difficult situations because they’ve learned how to approach things that are difficult and work through them, and to have the character development that helps them forge ahead to success. So what would you say about that? Kristina Vourax: Yeah, you hit a very, very good point. That’s what classical education does in a nutshell—it’s really teaching children how to think, not what to think. Being presented with information, analyzing it, coming up with their own questions and conclusions, and wanting to dig deeper. Classical education is not about a finish line. They graduate from high school, but this is just the foundation. When these kids leave and go out into the world—whether college or straight into the workforce—they’ll have that strong foundation and the ability to be successful in whatever they do. It’s really about creating the well-rounded person. It’s truly a formation of the soul—who they are as a person—and making them confident without arrogance. It’s making them feel that their life has purpose and that they can hold a conversation with an adult, look them in the eye, and feel totally comfortable doing so. Financial literacy—all the things that youth have been missing for some time—we’re trying to bring that back. It’s really what’s old is new again. Bringing that solid foundation to students is so important. And interestingly, we’re finding this resonates: our enrollment has already begun. We have about 240 students enrolled right now, and we’re hoping to add another 100 or so in the next couple of months. A lot of these families are coming from homeschool situations—families that have already been doing classical curriculum on their own. And now they see there’s a public option for this. It’s really a great opportunity for those families that want a more traditional environment but also want to ensure their children get a content-rich curriculum. This is also a good option for families in public school who want something more than the digital world most kids are in right now. Linda J. Hansen: You brought up a great point. And it was one of the reasons I chose to homeschool as well. You're teaching children how to think, not what to think. I know when I started homeschooling, I wanted my kids to love learning and to read well. That was my initial goal. I also wanted to introduce them to God and the Scriptures, of course. But I really felt that if I could teach them a deep, passionate love of learning, and I could give them the skill set to do it—if I got hit by a truck—they would survive and do well. It’s so important. I can’t remember the author, but I remember a book from 20 years ago or more called The Closing of the American Mind. It was really about the dumbing down of our education system. I’ve talked with employers over the years—they really see a difference in new employees fresh out of high school or college. And I’ve spoken to college admissions officers who explain how preparation has changed over the decades and how well young people were prepared for the rigors of college. So we really need to prepare these children to be adults. I always told my kids, “I’m not going to let you be a grown-up child.” Because there are a lot of them around. I wanted them to be strong adults. And with this type of education—focusing on character development, rigorous academic curriculum, and parent involvement in the school—it’s really great that you have the standards and accountability that parents look for. Kristina Vourax: Yes, just to really reiterate what you're saying—the whole point is to hold these children to a higher standard and higher values than they’ve ever experienced before. It’s going to be a shock for a lot of kids entering the school. Unless they’ve been homeschooled in this type of curriculum, coming from public school will be hard. These kids are going to have homework. They’re going to be held to higher standards. And that’s important—as you said—to help them become successful adults. These are the kids who will take care of us when we’re old, and I want to make sure they’re strong, thinking adults who are making the right decisions and thinking for themselves. It’s interesting as I dug further into this, I’ve found that there really is a renewal of classical education happening across the country. This is just the beginning in Wisconsin. There are some private schools already doing this, but I think we’ll see more and more of it. And the more parents stand up and say, “Hey,”—I would encourage you, if your kids attend public school and you’re not satisfied with the curriculum—go to the board meetings. Let them know, “We want another option.” Hopefully our school will be the catalyst for starting a more classical, traditional model in public schools. Because a rising tide lifts all boats. And that’s what we’re hoping for—not just to offer this option for students in Lake Country, but to make education better everywhere. Let’s work together to make this a great experience for all children. Linda J. Hansen: Great thoughts there. And you said something I’d like to go back to: it might be tough for some of these kids who aren’t used to such a rigorous curriculum. Some people might say, “Oh, that’s too hard. They can’t do that.” But I want to really encourage parents to encourage your children to reach higher. Because when we set the bar higher, we’re telling young people, “We believe in you.” We believe in you, and we know you can do this. And if you’re struggling, we’ll be with you. We’ll help you. You can learn this. Kristina Vourax: Right. Linda J. Hansen: Right. Speaking of learning, how does this school adapt for children with special needs or learning disabilities? Anything—please explain that. Kristina Vourax: Sure. So that is one other difference between a public charter school and, say, a private school. As a public school, anyone can apply. Everyone has equal chances of getting in. That includes children with special needs. So if a family applies and there's an IEP or any type of special need, that is something we will need to figure out how to accommodate. We'll have a better idea of how many students have special needs once they register, and then we will set up individual meetings with those parents and whoever we hire to be our special needs coordinator. We'll figure that out on an individual basis to determine what makes the most sense. That’s something we know we have to address, and we will. It’s a piece we’re still learning about. I think that’s something that is really important Private schools, on the other hand, I don’t know if they typically have to address special needs in the same way. I don’t know if private schools are generally set up to handle that, but typically people with children who have more involved special needs go to public schools, simply because they have the funding to provide more services than a private or charter school might be able to. Linda J. Hansen: Right. Well, and you mentioned funding again, so I want to circle back to how this all touches the business community. Business owners who have well-educated employees— employees who can learn well, take leadership positions, who are self-disciplined and self-learners— that's very valuable to business owners. Looking at the business community now and how they could help support education for the future—they could help by donating, correct? Kristina Vourax: Correct. We’re definitely open to that. Linda J. Hansen: So businesses could donate—how would they do that? Kristina Vourax: They would just need to contact us directly. If you go to our website, there's a “Contact Us” button which will send us an email. You can email us and let us know that you'd like to help—in whatever capacity. Whether it's sponsoring a program, making a donation, or something else. We actually have naming opportunities for larger gifts. We’re certainly looking for corporate sponsors, businesses to help us, and foundations to help us. We’ve received one gift so far of $200,000, and we’re very grateful for that. But we still have a ways to go. We welcome any, whether you’re a business, a foundation, or an individual—whoever would like to donate and help us reach that million-dollar goal by July—your support would be greatly appreciated. Linda J. Hansen: I’m sure there are business owners, individuals, and perhaps even foundation board members listening who are thinking about discussing this with others and potentially supporting you. That would be wonderful. For those who would like to learn more, please give the website again. Kristina Vourax: Yes—it’s lakecountryclassical.org on the homepage, there’s a video created by Hillsdale College—it’s about eight minutes long, and it’s wonderful. It really gives a very good summary of what this is and offers a glimpse into a future classroom at LCCA. I highly encourage you to check that out if you have a few moments. There’s also a lot of great information on the website about our mission and values, our curriculum, and ways you can get involved. Again, it’s lakecountryclassical.org Linda J. Hansen: That’s very helpful—and since that video is from Hillsdale College, if someone is listening from another state or different part of the country, they might be able to find information on how to start a similar school in their own area, correct? Kristina Vourax: Yes. I believe there’s a link to the Barney Charter School Initiative on our site. It provides information about our affiliation with Hillsdale, and you can go directly to their website to learn more about the program and how you might start something similar in your own area. Linda J. Hansen: That would be great. And since this episode is airing around School Choice Week—though the need for school choice is year-round—there’s one week of the year when we tend to focus on it more nationally. For those wondering what’s available as far as school choice, there’s a website: schoolchoiceweek.com You can go there, look up information by state—whether it’s homeschooling, public school, private school, or charter schools. It’s a great resource. I also did a previous podcast episode with Scott Jensen from the Federation for Children. Their website is federationforchildren.org You can learn more there about school choice all around the country, and of course, you can listen to the podcast with Scott as well. So again, the three websites lakecountryclassical.org, which will take you right to Lake Country Classical Academy,, the federationforchildren.org, from our previous guest, Scott Jensen, who talked about school choice issues on a more national level and then schoolchoiceweek.com for people who would maybe like to take a special focus on school choice and learn what types of things are available around the country to learn more. With that Kristina, thank you so much. What would you say—first to parents, and then to the business community—about the importance of school choice? Kristina Vourax: It’s so important that parents have a choice and a definitely need to be having conversations with teachers and administrators to address your concerns and explore the options they can offer to meet your child’s needs. And if those needs aren't being met, talk with other parents. Start a movement to try and get. Particular option at your existing public school, because public schools are the community schools. You should have a voice in how your children are educated. So you need to get involved, be engaged, know what's going on, pay attention to what they're learning, especially if it's online, what are those kids learning? You know, it's important to know that, and ask questions. So I would highly encourage you to get involved. Businesses- Yeah, it's definitely goes back to what you were saying about having children that are well educated and can think for themselves and know how to make change and can look customers in the eye and have a conversation. I mean, those are all really important things that come from a classical education in particular, or more traditional content rich teacher led education. Children can't love learning, which is so important to love learning, to read well, write well. They can't get that from a computer. They can only get that from a human teacher. So it's really, really important that we provide this type of learning option for families. So whether it's classical or another option that might work better for your child. Check into all the school choice options because there are a lot out there and certainly may be a better fit for your child. But it's really your call as a parent 'cause you're gonna know as a parent how your child learns best. Linda J. Hansen: Exactly. The parents do know the children better than the teachers or administrators and I'd like to focus a little bit too on the legislators. People forget that it's our tax money that pays for these schools, the public schools, the charter schools, it is our tax money. So they actually work for us, the legislators and the school board members, they work for us, the taxpayer. So as Kristina mentioned, please do get involved, go to your school board meetings. Maybe someone listening wants to run for school board, maybe there's someone out there. There's always a need for people who truly care about the education of children to run for local school boards, it's a very important position. I know it's often overlooked or people just don't think about it, but it's a very, very important position. So, please think about running for school board, whoever you may be, but also, contact your legislators about the school options in your state and what you'd like to see within your state. This is really important and we have the next generation to raise and we have a country to lead with these young people. So I just really hope and pray that we can raise this generation well, that there'll be great thinkers, great doers, and there'll be leaders, inventors. They can help us think through the problems that we have currently, as well as ones that we have never anticipated that will be part of their adult life. So it's our responsibility to raise them well and educate them well. So thank you, Kristina. I really appreciate the time you've spent with us today. And I thank you for what you're doing to make not only your children's lives better, but lives better for those around you and to make a better world by building stronger young people. So thank you. Kristina Vourax: Thank you, Linda. I really appreciate the opportunity. Linda J. Hansen: And again listeners the website is lakecountryclassical.org Thank you again for listening to the Prosperity 101 Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, share, and leave a great review. Don’t forget to visit prosperity101.com to access the entire podcast library, order my newest book Job Security Through Business Prosperity: The Essential Guide to Understanding How Policy Affects Your Paycheck, or to enroll you or your employees in the Break Room Economics online course. You can also receive the free ebook 10 Tips for Helping Employees Understand How Public Policy Affects Their Paychecks Freedom is never free. 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