# Are Charter Schools Saving Kids… or Destroying Public Education? What Parents Need to Know 🎓

An episode of [Earn Your Leisure](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1450211392), 30 Apr 2026, 1 h 03 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/8dbc4f54-a337-4481-9ef2-b355012b0a3d/f34603ca-46db-491b-a1f7-b43c00da480f/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=eac4c628-29cb-469a-b5c8-b355012b0a48

TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Job Loss Wake Up 01:09 Welcome To The Show 02:36 From Buffalo To DC 04:55 Chocolate City Inspiration 07:09 Bet On Yourself 08:53 Engineering To Education 11:07 Launching A Charter School 11:32 Building Equity Now 12:44 Money And Marriage 14:19 Sponsor Break 15:07 Literacy Vs Wellness 17:47 Teaching Kids Investing 20:57 Training Teachers Too 24:58 Starting A School Process 26:14 Raising 30 Million 29:23 Deal Structure Lessons 29:52 Charter Enrollment Reality 31:12 Lottery Not Cherry Picking 32:44 Award And Financial Curriculum 33:54 Community Stewardship Model 35:15 Autonomy And Charter Debate 39:13 DEI Backlash Funding Fight 41:41 School Day Phones And AI 46:24 Charter Vs Private School 50:56 Scaling Plans And Early Learning 55:49 Invest Fest And Workshop 59:35 Legacy Family And Closing In this episode of Earn Your Leisure, we sit down with Shomari James to break down his journey from leaving his hometown to building a $30 million charter school and redefining what education can look like. From witnessing Black excellence in DC to making bold moves without fear, Shomari shares the mindset, strategy, and vision it takes to create real impact. He also opens up about building a nonprofit for protection, empowering his family financially, and why telling your spouse they can quit their job is one of the ultimate goals of success. We dive deep into the education system—charter schools vs public schools, whether charter schools are helping or hurting education, and what truly makes a school successful. Shomari explains how his school was built with 40% Black male educators, why financial literacy must start early, and how initiatives like custodial accounts and scholarships can change the trajectory of children’s lives. From teaching 5-year-olds about money to discussing uniforms, technology in classrooms, and the impact of losing DEI funding, this conversation is packed with game-changing insights for parents, educators, and entrepreneurs alike. #EarnYourLeisure #EYL #CharterSchools #FinancialLiteracy #EducationReform #BlackExcellence #Entrepreneurship #WealthBuilding #Investing #Nonprofit #PublicSchools #PrivateSchools #FinancialEducation #DEI #Business #Mindset #SuccessSubscribe and watch more videos here: https://www.youtube.com/@EarnYourLeisure Join the EYL community for deeper training and a more detailed approach: https://www.eyluniversity.com Join the number one stock club in the world: https://www.ianinvest.com Invest Fest | August 7-9, 2026 Grab early bird tickets now: https://www.investfest.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: I had to tell my wife that I might be
[0:01] Speaker 1: losing my job, and the pit in my stomach was like, yo,
[0:04] Speaker 1: I'm never again gonna be in this position where I
[0:06] Speaker 1: can't take care of my family.
[0:08] Speaker 2: How did you get here? Like walk us through the transition.
[0:10] Speaker 1: I got a bet on me. She like, we not
[0:11] Speaker 1: making a big enough impire. She's like, I want to
[0:13] Speaker 1: open my own school, happy wife, happy life. I was like,
[0:15] Speaker 1: I have no idea what that means, but hey, let's go.
[0:18] Speaker 1: I get a call from the investor. He said, no
[0:20] Speaker 1: matter what this balloons to, I'm gonna make sure that
[0:23] Speaker 1: this school is successful. Thirty million dollars later, he stroked
[0:26] Speaker 1: the check.
[0:26] Speaker 2: What makes charter schools different than public schools?
[0:28] Speaker 1: Charter schools are public school.
[0:30] Speaker 2: So why doesn't just every school become a charter school.
[0:33] Speaker 1: You're trying to get me in trouble, man. Let's keep
[0:34] Speaker 1: it real. They were supposed to come in, learn these
[0:37] Speaker 1: specific skills, and then go work for somebody. So when
[0:40] Speaker 1: a charter school comes in and says, nah, if you
[0:42] Speaker 1: want workers, somebody work for me.
[0:43] Speaker 3: Kids can have their phone, that means that artificial intelligence
[0:46] Speaker 3: AI potentially will be allowed in your school and you.
[0:48] Speaker 1: Have to teach productive and responsible usership of all of
[0:53] Speaker 1: these new innovative technologies that are coming. When you walk
[0:56] Speaker 1: through the hallways, it's wealth Boulevard. The kids will go
[0:58] Speaker 1: to their parents and say, don't buy me Jordan's give
[1:01] Speaker 1: me money from my stocking. I can get you at
[1:03] Speaker 1: three four years old, and I keep you until you're
[1:05] Speaker 1: an eighth grader. You literally would be a half a
[1:08] Speaker 1: million dollars.
[1:09] Speaker 2: Welcome back, EYL special episode in DC just of Columbia
[1:15] Speaker 2: the Park. Thank you to gracious hosts at the park
[1:18] Speaker 2: for having us. Man. This is going to be a
[1:22] Speaker 2: special episode. When we talk about financial literacy, that's something
[1:26] Speaker 2: that's near and dear to our heart for obvious reasons.
[1:29] Speaker 2: And our guest today really is living that, living financial
[1:32] Speaker 2: literacy and so many different aspects. So Shamaria killed James,
[1:38] Speaker 2: thank you for joining us. CEO of Equity Now, which
[1:41] Speaker 2: is a financial literacy nonprofit organization. Also the head of
[1:45] Speaker 2: a charter school, Yes, sir. Also a seasoned investor.
[1:49] Speaker 1: Seasons a lot to live up to. I'm not here, brother, No,
[1:53] Speaker 1: that's a lot to live up to.
[1:56] Speaker 2: Entrepreneur and just you know, an overall champion.
[1:58] Speaker 1: Appreciate it.
[2:00] Speaker 2: The things that that we talk about a lot, as
[2:01] Speaker 2: far as like really you know, educating people on finances
[2:05] Speaker 2: and making smart decisions with the money.
[2:07] Speaker 1: So thank you for joining us. Appreciate littli thank you.
[2:09] Speaker 1: I appreciate you all for having me. Mayar doing great,
[2:12] Speaker 1: amazing work. So I'm humble and honored. And y'all have
[2:16] Speaker 1: combined culture with financial literacy and y'all may being smart cool,
[2:21] Speaker 1: So it's pretty dope. Thank you for having me here.
[2:23] Speaker 1: It's a pleasure.
[2:23] Speaker 3: I feel like we might have met a few years
[2:25] Speaker 3: ago standing right now literally literally literally talking about education.
[2:29] Speaker 3: Just see this thing come full circle to have visions
[2:31] Speaker 3: that are lined. I'm excited about this conversation. I appreciate
[2:34] Speaker 3: it absolutely.
[2:36] Speaker 2: So let's let's let's start at the beginning. And you're
[2:38] Speaker 2: from Buffalo, New York. Yeah, at the home of the
[2:41] Speaker 2: Buffalo Bills, Buffalo Wings and Briselda, the Trinity, the Wings.
[2:48] Speaker 1: Which ones first? Is it Bills first? Yeah?
[2:51] Speaker 3: Ah?
[2:52] Speaker 1: Because Wings is right there.
[2:53] Speaker 2: I'm a little disappointed right now.
[2:54] Speaker 1: So I'm gonna say Wings, Wings, Bizelda Bills, you know.
[3:05] Speaker 2: But okay, but coming from Buffalo, and how did you
[3:09] Speaker 2: get here? Like walk us through the transition from then
[3:13] Speaker 2: to now.
[3:13] Speaker 1: Ooh, good question. Man. I came home one day. I
[3:18] Speaker 1: was working for UPS United Parcel Service and this really
[3:21] Speaker 1: really really strict culture, and I had to tell my
[3:23] Speaker 1: wife that I might be losing my job. So before
[3:26] Speaker 1: I could tell her, she had told me that she
[3:28] Speaker 1: was student teaching and she might lose her job. I
[3:31] Speaker 1: just want to escalate. Just about a house. Just had
[3:33] Speaker 1: a kid who was two years old. Shout out to
[3:36] Speaker 1: my son, Shamairie a TAJ, and the pit in my
[3:39] Speaker 1: stomach was like, yo, I'm never again going to be
[3:41] Speaker 1: in this position where I can't take care of my family.
[3:44] Speaker 1: Like it was literally a low point, like this is
[3:46] Speaker 1: not good.
[3:47] Speaker 2: How long ago was that?
[3:48] Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, this was like two thousand and eight.
[3:50] Speaker 1: It was like oh eight. So I was like I
[3:53] Speaker 1: got to do something. So ran back to school real quick,
[3:56] Speaker 1: got my master's, told wifey, we're gonna be good. The
[3:59] Speaker 1: job continued, both of our jobs continued, and then I
[4:02] Speaker 1: just went out there and said, let's see what it
[4:04] Speaker 1: looks like. So long story, let's along with that. We
[4:08] Speaker 1: saw DC because I was coming to Howard home coming
[4:10] Speaker 1: shout out to Howard, and I just saw black excellence
[4:13] Speaker 1: in DC, and we would literally drive here back in
[4:15] Speaker 1: the days when you had the little fixed TVs on
[4:17] Speaker 1: the back, basically taping them on the back seat. We'd
[4:20] Speaker 1: come here, you're going with the head rest, you know
[4:22] Speaker 1: what I mean. So we both agree, wife and I,
[4:24] Speaker 1: let's go to Chocolate City. Let's let's go to d C.
[4:27] Speaker 1: So we packed up. But a company they were looking
[4:31] Speaker 1: at me Nestley to come down, so they just gave
[4:33] Speaker 1: us a big package. Wifey cam As she ended up
[4:35] Speaker 1: working for DC and our careers just kind of took
[4:38] Speaker 1: off and then working we were like, we're not making
[4:42] Speaker 1: a big enough impact. So then that's when we started
[4:45] Speaker 1: looking outside of what we were doing on a regular
[4:46] Speaker 1: day basis. But we moved here in twenty ten, brought
[4:50] Speaker 1: our kids with us, didn't know a lot of people
[4:52] Speaker 1: in the area, and then just said let's see how
[4:54] Speaker 1: we can do this thing.
[4:55] Speaker 3: Yeah, you brought up something that I actually expressed when
[4:58] Speaker 3: I left d C last howar home coming? Obviously we
[5:01] Speaker 3: travel a lot into a lot of cities.
[5:03] Speaker 1: Love Atlanta.
[5:04] Speaker 3: Something different here, there's something different here, and it was
[5:07] Speaker 3: about excellence, but it was also professionalism too, sure, right,
[5:12] Speaker 3: Like we would hear eating lunch and it's a group
[5:14] Speaker 3: of thirty lawyers, right, twenty doctors at the table. Talk
[5:18] Speaker 3: about that initial impact and how it felt and inspired
[5:21] Speaker 3: you when you got here.
[5:22] Speaker 1: So the crazy story, two crazy stories.
[5:25] Speaker 2: My wife gonna kill me, but.
[5:29] Speaker 1: That I went to the grocery store and a black
[5:31] Speaker 1: lady jumped out of Eventley with a bonnet and them
[5:36] Speaker 1: little shoes that they wear when they go get their
[5:38] Speaker 1: feet done slippers.
[5:39] Speaker 2: Yeah, bru.
[5:40] Speaker 1: And I'm like, anywhere a black queen feels comfortable like that,
[5:45] Speaker 1: I have to be there. I just I got to
[5:47] Speaker 1: be there. So then, exactly what you explained. When we
[5:50] Speaker 1: moved and I just started to see the professionalism and
[5:54] Speaker 1: going to meetings at Howard and things of that nature,
[5:56] Speaker 1: being suited and booted tie and everything. I said, Okay,
[5:58] Speaker 1: I was living on what's called odin in Maryland, so
[6:01] Speaker 1: Oldinton is a different mix. I'll just say that it's
[6:04] Speaker 1: not Chocolate City. So I started inquiring about Prince George's county.
[6:08] Speaker 1: So me and my wife we went. We take pictures
[6:10] Speaker 1: every year. So it was Christmas and this little black
[6:12] Speaker 1: kids on a skateboard where all these big houses were at.
[6:15] Speaker 1: So we just following them. He looking back at us,
[6:17] Speaker 1: like why is this crazy people following us? But I'm
[6:19] Speaker 1: like again, I'm like this young black dude on a
[6:21] Speaker 1: skateboard with these huge houses, I have to live there.
[6:25] Speaker 1: So then we ended up buying our house in Prince
[6:26] Speaker 1: George's County and then networking with you know, folks like
[6:29] Speaker 1: one hundred black men, folks from Howard University, and the
[6:33] Speaker 1: professionalism was just crazy and it continues to be today.
[6:36] Speaker 2: So you didn't have any connections to DC, you didn't,
[6:38] Speaker 2: So talk about that because that's a major part of success,
[6:41] Speaker 2: as well as far as leaving your hometown. A lot
[6:43] Speaker 2: of times people you know, they get burdened down when
[6:47] Speaker 2: just staying with it's from and it could be a
[6:50] Speaker 2: small town, it could be a big city, but it's
[6:52] Speaker 2: like the fear of leaving is stopping a lot of
[6:56] Speaker 2: people from actually achieving success. So talk about that is
[7:00] Speaker 2: as far as the actually overcoming any psychological barriers, not
[7:03] Speaker 2: being close to immediate family or friends, and how that
[7:07] Speaker 2: actually accelerated your life.
[7:09] Speaker 1: Oh, good question, I'm going to take it back. So
[7:13] Speaker 1: when I first started investing in the market, it was
[7:15] Speaker 1: in four oh one k and it was a white mentor,
[7:18] Speaker 1: and I would like, do Chinese stocks in my four
[7:21] Speaker 1: on one K and I mean them y'all know that.
[7:23] Speaker 1: I mean, I'm speaking to the experts. But I had
[7:26] Speaker 1: such a high risk tolerance. I was like, Yo, let's see,
[7:29] Speaker 1: I'm not going to pull this money until I'm sixty
[7:31] Speaker 1: five years old. Let's go, you know what I mean.
[7:33] Speaker 1: So that same risk tolerance, I said, let's just take
[7:36] Speaker 1: a chance. We I at that point where we were
[7:38] Speaker 1: at our income level. I was taking old newspaper and
[7:42] Speaker 1: when we would have an email or whatever, that printed
[7:44] Speaker 1: out and I would shred it and I use that
[7:46] Speaker 1: to pack up the boxes because I couldn't really afford
[7:49] Speaker 1: a whole lot of wrapping paper and boxes of professional
[7:52] Speaker 1: stuff like that. But you know what I mean. That
[7:55] Speaker 1: risk tolerance for me was I got a better on me,
[7:58] Speaker 1: and I got to make sure that I'm providing something
[8:00] Speaker 1: different from my family. At the time, it was me,
[8:02] Speaker 1: the wife, my son, and my daughter. So I said,
[8:05] Speaker 1: I know, if I continue to do what I'm doing
[8:07] Speaker 1: here in Buffalo, what that ceiling is going to look like. Well,
[8:10] Speaker 1: I've seen successful black people in DC, and success looks
[8:15] Speaker 1: like a coloring. Success looks like a Bentley like, I
[8:18] Speaker 1: don't see those when I go outside at home. So
[8:20] Speaker 1: we just took that chance. And I'll say one more
[8:23] Speaker 1: thing when I got here, Just who you know in networking?
[8:27] Speaker 1: A young lady who I had met when I was
[8:29] Speaker 1: at Nestley. She was really cool, man, she was so dope.
[8:33] Speaker 1: We were tight. A lot of people didn't rock with her,
[8:36] Speaker 1: and she moved to another job, got me to move
[8:39] Speaker 1: to another job with her, became the bass, paid me
[8:42] Speaker 1: twenty thousand dollars more than what I asked for. Was
[8:45] Speaker 1: then led to me going to another job which paid
[8:47] Speaker 1: me double just because we became friends. So just never
[8:51] Speaker 1: burn a bridge, man.
[8:52] Speaker 3: No, that's important. So you got ups, we got Nestley.
[8:55] Speaker 3: I'm trying to figure out. Obviously your wife was student teaching.
[8:58] Speaker 3: Did she stay in education? And how to you lead
[9:00] Speaker 3: to being in education when you said you're going back
[9:03] Speaker 3: to school with Is that what you study though?
[9:05] Speaker 1: How did it come about?
[9:06] Speaker 2: Yeah?
[9:06] Speaker 1: Good, y'all got the good questions, man, soa I ended
[9:11] Speaker 1: up getting my masters and got certified and lean and
[9:13] Speaker 1: six sigma methodology. You always loved finance, but as an engineer,
[9:17] Speaker 1: my degrees and then my underrated is engineer, and I
[9:19] Speaker 1: needed to put it all together. So when wife he
[9:21] Speaker 1: came down, she came down as an assistant principle and
[9:24] Speaker 1: then came into d C and they promoted her to principle.
[9:27] Speaker 1: So I left what was called I know the health
[9:29] Speaker 1: system as an engineer, where I was literally going in
[9:32] Speaker 1: and watching surgeries and improving how people do surgeries. You
[9:36] Speaker 1: never imagine that the one thing that happens in surgeries
[9:38] Speaker 1: the most is they leave a sponge or something in
[9:41] Speaker 1: that like that's literally what happens to most. But anyway,
[9:44] Speaker 1: look you behind the glass watching that.
[9:45] Speaker 2: No, no, no, you're in there. Yeah.
[9:47] Speaker 1: OK. So as an engineer, I had a team like Ford,
[9:50] Speaker 1: and it was our job to follow the doctors, follow
[9:52] Speaker 1: the nurses, the technicians, and watch the surgery and see
[9:56] Speaker 1: how we can improve processes. So at that point how
[9:59] Speaker 1: Are University He was like, well, we have a hospital
[10:02] Speaker 1: and you come on over here. So I said, okay,
[10:06] Speaker 1: let me take this leap in this bound. So I
[10:08] Speaker 1: got to Howard University. Wifey is she's a principal at
[10:12] Speaker 1: this point in DCPs and I'm like, well, you know what,
[10:15] Speaker 1: I see the struggles of a students. So I started
[10:17] Speaker 1: teaching as well, so full time job Howard University doing
[10:20] Speaker 1: strategy process improvement, continues improvement, and then part time was
[10:24] Speaker 1: adjunct just teaching. So then I'm like, Okay, this education
[10:28] Speaker 1: thing is pretty cool. I like teaching regardless. Wifey was like,
[10:32] Speaker 1: you know, this is cool, but DCPs, y'all know, DC
[10:35] Speaker 1: politics got a little crazy and she wasn't coming home
[10:39] Speaker 1: as happy as she used to be. I ended up
[10:41] Speaker 1: making a little bit of money in the stock market.
[10:45] Speaker 1: I said, just come home, just quit, like you're not happy,
[10:48] Speaker 1: So she did. I was like, wait, we're supposed to
[10:49] Speaker 1: have a conversation. That was easy. Hold on. So we
[10:54] Speaker 1: started our for profit company, Equitable, Inc. And we were
[10:57] Speaker 1: going out doing consulting contracts all over California everywhere, teaching
[11:03] Speaker 1: all different types of continuou improvement, strategy education. And then
[11:07] Speaker 1: she came home one day and she was like, you
[11:08] Speaker 1: know what, man, FDEs She like, we're not making a
[11:11] Speaker 1: big enough impact. I said, okay, boo, what does that mean.
[11:14] Speaker 1: She's like, we want to I want to open my
[11:16] Speaker 1: own school, happy wife, happy life. I was like, I
[11:19] Speaker 1: have no idea what that means, but hey, let's go, Like,
[11:23] Speaker 1: let's let's try it once again. We're gonna We're gonna
[11:25] Speaker 1: roll these dice. Risk tolerance was crazy. So it's been
[11:29] Speaker 1: a journey. And that was in twenty seventeen.
[11:32] Speaker 2: So how'd you start Equity? Now? What is that? When
[11:34] Speaker 2: is that star?
[11:35] Speaker 1: Yeah? Good question. So we were going through the process
[11:39] Speaker 1: of applying for a charter school and I went back
[11:41] Speaker 1: home to Buffalo and we were sitting around all of
[11:44] Speaker 1: these folks and the young lady was talking about how
[11:47] Speaker 1: she was the founder of her school. But I was
[11:50] Speaker 1: a little confused because she was no longer in the school.
[11:53] Speaker 1: So me being me and my personality, I'm like, so,
[11:55] Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I have a question, like, how are you
[11:58] Speaker 1: no longer the founder? She was like, well, I have
[11:59] Speaker 1: a boy, and I did it for two years and
[12:02] Speaker 1: then my board thought it was best for somebody else
[12:03] Speaker 1: to take over. I said, but you started it. He
[12:06] Speaker 1: was like yeah, but my board. So I came back
[12:09] Speaker 1: home and I called all my lawyers, my CPA, and
[12:11] Speaker 1: I said, how does that not happen to us? Because
[12:13] Speaker 1: I don't look good in stripes or orange, like, I'm
[12:16] Speaker 1: not going to start a school and then be ousted.
[12:18] Speaker 1: So Equity now became our non for profit charter management
[12:22] Speaker 1: organization to manage our charter school. So we own the ecosystem,
[12:27] Speaker 1: so we owned the not for profit that manages it
[12:29] Speaker 1: as well as the actual charter school. And then for
[12:31] Speaker 1: wrap around services we have Legends Adventures because what we
[12:35] Speaker 1: found in our research is a lot of times you
[12:36] Speaker 1: have high absenteeism because parents can't get their kids to
[12:39] Speaker 1: school on time or they can't pick them up late.
[12:42] Speaker 1: So we started before and aftercare as well. I want
[12:45] Speaker 1: to get into the education piece. But you said something
[12:48] Speaker 1: and it resonated with me so much.
[12:49] Speaker 3: The idea of telling your wife you can stop for
[12:53] Speaker 3: sure something I resonated with because then during the pandemic,
[12:57] Speaker 3: I was watching my wife doing the same thing and
[12:58] Speaker 3: I'm like, look, it would be more benefit sure if
[13:00] Speaker 3: you stopped and came over here with us. Talk about
[13:02] Speaker 3: that moment for you on the personal side of like
[13:05] Speaker 3: I'm doing something and you know it might have been
[13:08] Speaker 3: a goal of yours, But from the other side of
[13:09] Speaker 3: your wife having that conversation.
[13:11] Speaker 1: It was await it all over again, but flipped so
[13:14] Speaker 1: oh eight. We were in a position where we were
[13:17] Speaker 1: kind of stuck like whatever this man, the man tells
[13:20] Speaker 1: me to do on this w two job I gotta
[13:22] Speaker 1: do and I can't support my wife now twenty sixteen,
[13:26] Speaker 1: twenty seventeen. I am not a stock technician by any
[13:30] Speaker 1: stretch of the imagination, but with my wrist tolerance and
[13:33] Speaker 1: just having a gut, I mean, I got Amazon. My
[13:36] Speaker 1: dollar cost average at that time, when Amazon was like
[13:38] Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty bucks, my dollar cost average on
[13:41] Speaker 1: Facebook was like twelve dollars. I got Boweling short, Like
[13:44] Speaker 1: I mean, I went I just went crazy in the market.
[13:48] Speaker 1: So just seeing that and then just dumping money in there,
[13:51] Speaker 1: living off of one salary, we were in a position
[13:54] Speaker 1: just lead, I'm not going to be in this position
[13:56] Speaker 1: where my wife can't be happy. A happy wife is
[14:00] Speaker 1: a happy household, and we're raising two kids that need
[14:03] Speaker 1: to be able to see that. So for me as
[14:05] Speaker 1: a man, was like, well, just tell me what it
[14:07] Speaker 1: is that we need to be able to do or
[14:10] Speaker 1: that you want to do, because we're going to be
[14:11] Speaker 1: able to afford it. So I just had to make
[14:14] Speaker 1: sure the family was okay to that number. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
[14:17] Speaker 1: And it was a beast.
[14:19] Speaker 2: One thing we always say on this show is that
[14:21] Speaker 2: you have to be more intentional about your money.
[14:23] Speaker 3: Because It's not about how much you make, it's about
[14:26] Speaker 3: how you manage the money you spend exactly.
[14:28] Speaker 2: That's why tools like Klana are interesting because it gives
[14:30] Speaker 2: you flexibility when managing your purchases.
[14:33] Speaker 3: When checking out, you can decide how you want to pay,
[14:36] Speaker 3: whether that's paying everything right away or spreading out payments
[14:39] Speaker 3: depending on what works for you.
[14:41] Speaker 2: Everything's organized in a Klana app, and when you shop,
[14:44] Speaker 2: you have the opportunity to receive cash back bonuses for
[14:48] Speaker 2: the purchases that you make. Download the Klana app today
[14:50] Speaker 2: or go to klana dot com for more info.
[14:53] Speaker 3: Terms apply California resident loans made or arrange pursuing to
[14:56] Speaker 3: a California Finance Law License NML's number one three five
[15:00] Speaker 3: three one nine zero clinate balance account required to be
[15:03] Speaker 3: eligible for cash back points.
[15:05] Speaker 1: Limitations, terms and conditions apply.
[15:07] Speaker 2: So it's still about financial literacy versus financial wellness and
[15:11] Speaker 2: financial education.
[15:12] Speaker 1: Yeah, good, good, good, good good question. So came out
[15:16] Speaker 1: teaching financial literacy a bit, and if you're literate at
[15:19] Speaker 1: something that means you can read it, right, but big
[15:23] Speaker 1: in my engineering experience, you have to have an experiential component.
[15:27] Speaker 1: So just because you can read it doesn't mean you
[15:29] Speaker 1: can apply it. So we started shifting towards an experiential
[15:33] Speaker 1: piece and called it financial education. I believe that we
[15:37] Speaker 1: were the first to call the financial education, but you
[15:39] Speaker 1: know what I mean, I couldn't trademark a common name.
[15:42] Speaker 1: So financial education was big for us for two, three, four,
[15:46] Speaker 1: you know, five years grinding and it still is. But
[15:50] Speaker 1: as I went on my own healing journey and spiritual
[15:53] Speaker 1: connection between me and God, I started to think about
[15:57] Speaker 1: the things that impact you from a trauma person. Right,
[16:00] Speaker 1: because just because you can get five hundred thousand dollars
[16:04] Speaker 1: does not mean you can manage five hundred thousand dollars.
[16:06] Speaker 1: So if you're not spiritually grounded and connected with whatever
[16:10] Speaker 1: that means for you, which now moving into the wellness piece.
[16:13] Speaker 1: Like I was told I had champagne tastes in beer pockets,
[16:15] Speaker 1: let's traumatize it. Champagne is nice, beer is disgusted. Like
[16:20] Speaker 1: how many times have kids heard money is a grown
[16:23] Speaker 1: full conversation? Right, So all of those things that happen
[16:27] Speaker 1: within the culture and other cultures being said to kids
[16:30] Speaker 1: become very traumatizing, and then you make decisions based off
[16:34] Speaker 1: of that because you're not well, because you don't recognize it. Right.
[16:38] Speaker 1: So my dad one time was a little upset with me,
[16:41] Speaker 1: so he took the heater, he took off of the
[16:43] Speaker 1: little thermostat off and he left turned it down. So
[16:46] Speaker 1: to this day, I'm never gonna be cold. I'm gonna
[16:48] Speaker 1: spend everybody's money I need to spend to make sure
[16:50] Speaker 1: I'm warm. Tied to financial education. If I don't recognize that,
[16:54] Speaker 1: that's a piece of me of wellness where I'm gonna
[16:57] Speaker 1: spend whatever I gotta spend to make sure that I'm warm.
[17:00] Speaker 1: So wellness, that wellness piece is what are those trauma
[17:04] Speaker 1: events that happened to you that then now show up today?
[17:08] Speaker 1: And how you use your money? What are those money
[17:11] Speaker 1: habits tied to you not being well? So that's the
[17:14] Speaker 1: difference between wellness education and literacy. That's the alignment.
[17:18] Speaker 3: I always talk about literacy being able to read and
[17:20] Speaker 3: write absolutely, but we need to graduate to financial fluency absolutely,
[17:24] Speaker 3: being able to speak it, understand it applies absolutely. That's
[17:27] Speaker 3: important when you're developing education.
[17:30] Speaker 1: Right.
[17:31] Speaker 3: It seems to be obviously it's a catchphrase now a
[17:33] Speaker 3: lot of people are talking about it and how.
[17:35] Speaker 1: Do we incorporate it? But when you were doing it.
[17:38] Speaker 3: What age demographic were you thinking that you were going
[17:41] Speaker 3: to apply this for and how were you implementing it.
[17:43] Speaker 3: Was it like a core piece of the curriculum or
[17:46] Speaker 3: was that an elect How did you do it?
[17:47] Speaker 1: So I have a mentor, Thank you for the question.
[17:49] Speaker 1: A great question. So I have a mentor who I
[17:51] Speaker 1: met and just helped me build my portfolio. So it
[17:55] Speaker 1: was four of us in the basement. We turn our
[17:56] Speaker 1: basement into the war room. So I come downstairs and
[18:00] Speaker 1: my wife, my guy from college, and my sister in
[18:02] Speaker 1: law that grinding on the application, thousand page application. I said, Ao,
[18:07] Speaker 1: I like to invest. Why don't we teach the kids
[18:09] Speaker 1: how to invest? Wife is like, great concept, write it
[18:11] Speaker 1: up and present it to the team. I'm like, damn, Mike,
[18:13] Speaker 1: you can me talk about a little later, you know
[18:15] Speaker 1: what I mean. So they were like, all right, this
[18:17] Speaker 1: is good. We always knew we were gonna have a
[18:19] Speaker 1: K through eight, but now I had to figure out
[18:22] Speaker 1: how do you teach a five year old financial education?
[18:24] Speaker 1: How do you how do you teach these concepts? So
[18:27] Speaker 1: it obviously has matured over time, but the base of
[18:30] Speaker 1: it is when you walk into a Legends charter school,
[18:34] Speaker 1: what's your favorite elementary school teacher, Miss Job, Miss Job.
[18:40] Speaker 1: So Miss Job classroom is also Facebook but is also Meta.
[18:48] Speaker 1: So at six years old, you know that the classroom
[18:51] Speaker 1: is called Facebook, but the stock symbol is Meta, even
[18:54] Speaker 1: at five years old, so you do know Miss Job,
[18:57] Speaker 1: which we traditionally know Miss Joe. But every single class
[19:01] Speaker 1: is named after a public company and has a chart
[19:05] Speaker 1: with a QR code where the kids, because the kids
[19:07] Speaker 1: can have their phones in our school, scan the QR
[19:10] Speaker 1: code and see live how that stock is doing. We
[19:13] Speaker 1: introduce it with our workbook manipulatives at kindergarten as they're
[19:17] Speaker 1: coming in. So a lot of schools, you know, as
[19:20] Speaker 1: you will know, there's the core classes you know, math, ela, etc.
[19:23] Speaker 1: That are the testing grades once you get to third grade.
[19:26] Speaker 1: So we inserted a financial education class, so in order
[19:31] Speaker 1: to come through our school, you have to take financial
[19:34] Speaker 1: education period. So we're weaving it into when you walk
[19:38] Speaker 1: through the hallways, it's Wealth Boulevard, his financial education Lane,
[19:43] Speaker 1: and our kids you'll say, hey, money don't grow on trees.
[19:45] Speaker 1: They'll say, yes, it is. It's actually a commodity because
[19:47] Speaker 1: it's paper, and that's what we instill in the kids.
[19:51] Speaker 1: Scenario school Legends charter school, so that school.
[19:53] Speaker 2: Is basically the primary focus is business and financial literacy.
[19:58] Speaker 1: My wife would argue, you know, say yes, but so
[20:01] Speaker 1: she's rigorous liberal arts. From an academic perspective, we say
[20:05] Speaker 1: that you can get a private school education in a
[20:07] Speaker 1: public charter school. So we have two languages, Latin as
[20:11] Speaker 1: well as Spanish, and she's big on reading. She was
[20:14] Speaker 1: a reading specialist, so she's huge on reading. If you
[20:17] Speaker 1: pick up that iPad, you better know how to say
[20:19] Speaker 1: some of them letters on there. You teach the kids Latin, yes, yeah,
[20:22] Speaker 1: we Latin is the root of all the languages.
[20:26] Speaker 2: Does that help you learn English better?
[20:28] Speaker 1: Help you learn everything better? English, math, everything with those
[20:33] Speaker 1: words being the root and as you process and you
[20:36] Speaker 1: know that different language. Some of the smartest people in
[20:39] Speaker 1: the world are fluent with multiple languages, and Latin is
[20:42] Speaker 1: the base of pretty much all of them. So it's mandatory,
[20:46] Speaker 1: not at upper level, right, we're not. That's not kidder.
[20:49] Speaker 3: You your k through eight the eighth grade terms to
[20:52] Speaker 3: be your first graduating senior class.
[20:54] Speaker 1: Here's the thing, and this is something that's interesting. Yeah,
[20:57] Speaker 1: and your insight is gonna be pretty profound. Sure, the
[21:01] Speaker 1: kids are learning. How are we teaching the teachers?
[21:04] Speaker 2: Yeah?
[21:04] Speaker 3: Right, because a lot of the teachers from our experience
[21:07] Speaker 3: have said this is great, I'm learning with the kids.
[21:10] Speaker 1: Yeah, I wish I had this. You hear that from
[21:11] Speaker 1: a lot of the adults. I wish I had learned this.
[21:13] Speaker 3: I would How are you preparing them for the school
[21:16] Speaker 3: year ahead?
[21:17] Speaker 1: Yeah? Really good question. So as more of the academic side,
[21:20] Speaker 1: my wife would be the one to answer this question
[21:23] Speaker 1: much more lucid than I can. But I see it
[21:25] Speaker 1: because running back end of it. But so first off,
[21:28] Speaker 1: it's a few different things. Financial education. I'm serving an
[21:31] Speaker 1: entire community, right, so I have financial education coordinator and
[21:35] Speaker 1: I also have a growth specialist. So what we do
[21:37] Speaker 1: is we anybody in the school, we hold free classes
[21:41] Speaker 1: where you can come into the library and Equity Now
[21:44] Speaker 1: is going to give you financial education, financial literacy all day,
[21:48] Speaker 1: like please do four one K and if you have
[21:50] Speaker 1: any questions, come chop it up with us. Then another
[21:53] Speaker 1: piece is so typically one of my wife's design school
[21:58] Speaker 1: design is I want to an expert, not necessarily a
[22:02] Speaker 1: pure teacher, but if you an expert, you cold that math,
[22:07] Speaker 1: you a Natsaw scientist. I could teach you how to
[22:09] Speaker 1: teach I do we do you do? Right? That's that's
[22:12] Speaker 1: that's a methodology I could, I could, I could get
[22:15] Speaker 1: you on those methods, right, but I need you to
[22:17] Speaker 1: be cold at your craft. So therefore, when I teach
[22:21] Speaker 1: you I do we do you do? And you're in
[22:23] Speaker 1: front of those kids, they're learning as well as we departmentalize.
[22:27] Speaker 1: What that means is just like the high schoolers go
[22:30] Speaker 1: and switch then go to day lockers, kindergarten, they go
[22:33] Speaker 1: to day lockers, they go to the thesess, they straight transition.
[22:37] Speaker 1: Because what we feel is we're gonna do this podcast
[22:40] Speaker 1: for a hour. After about an hour, y'all gonna be
[22:42] Speaker 1: done with me, like as nice as we've been on it.
[22:44] Speaker 1: Right now, Okay, it's tying to wrap it up. What
[22:46] Speaker 1: kid wants to sit with one adult for the entire
[22:49] Speaker 1: school day, right, So we have an expert teacher and
[22:53] Speaker 1: all you have to teach to that student is math.
[22:56] Speaker 1: You don't have to teach them math and reading and Spanish.
[22:59] Speaker 1: So we broke that right out of the gate. How's
[23:01] Speaker 1: the scheduleing? Look?
[23:02] Speaker 3: Oh, it's tough, right yeah, because I would imagine most
[23:05] Speaker 3: K through five because both times in their disciplinaries, they're
[23:08] Speaker 3: K through six right, and then you get secondary education,
[23:12] Speaker 3: and so those people obviously learn the core the core
[23:15] Speaker 3: subjects math, ela science, social studies. So you're looking at professionals,
[23:20] Speaker 3: especially from the highest you're doing this. You don't even
[23:24] Speaker 3: have to worry about anything else.
[23:25] Speaker 1: How has the staff come in, like are they recepted
[23:28] Speaker 1: to that? So when we started in twenty twenty, it
[23:30] Speaker 1: was COVID like we literally shovel in the ground we
[23:33] Speaker 1: about to do our opening, and the governor at that time, Hogan,
[23:38] Speaker 1: said you can't have more than three hundred people. So
[23:41] Speaker 1: our first two years was year and a half was
[23:44] Speaker 1: all virtual. So that next year, when we actually have
[23:48] Speaker 1: folks in person and they could actually see what it
[23:51] Speaker 1: looked like, I'm gonna be I'm gonna keep it a buck.
[23:53] Speaker 1: It was. It was tough because it's a whole different
[23:56] Speaker 1: mental model. But when individuals see how the model works
[24:00] Speaker 1: and you say, wait a minute, All my planning period
[24:03] Speaker 1: is only math. My planning period is out, must work out,
[24:08] Speaker 1: but but I need you to be a subject matter
[24:10] Speaker 1: expert at it, and that schedule is going to be tight,
[24:13] Speaker 1: So I need you to be tight inside of this
[24:16] Speaker 1: window of what you're teaching, so our retention is great.
[24:19] Speaker 1: And plus we have my wife gonna kill me because
[24:22] Speaker 1: I'm probably get it wrong, but we probably have I'm
[24:25] Speaker 1: a look over at Sophia, You're gonna look away. I
[24:27] Speaker 1: think forty percent black male educators in my school. Yeah,
[24:32] Speaker 1: it's national averages. It's like three and a half or
[24:36] Speaker 1: something like that. It's incredible, Like you could you see
[24:40] Speaker 1: a black male educator on every hallway you go, every
[24:44] Speaker 1: single hallway, whether it's math, whether it's drama, whether it's science,
[24:49] Speaker 1: financial education. We for real are black school that it
[24:53] Speaker 1: was Miss Joe. Yeah, no doubt, no doubt, exactly why,
[24:57] Speaker 1: no doubt, good questions. The process of starting school, bro,
[25:03] Speaker 1: it's tough, so it varies depending on where you're at.
[25:06] Speaker 1: Maryland Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maryland is one of the hardest
[25:11] Speaker 1: places to get. It's like thirty one out of thirty
[25:13] Speaker 1: two in order to get but you have to apply
[25:16] Speaker 1: for a charter, which is the application process. So you
[25:19] Speaker 1: apply to get a school and then you go through
[25:23] Speaker 1: this capacity meeting where they show you what you did
[25:27] Speaker 1: wrong and then they make a decision. So I was
[25:29] Speaker 1: actually in I was actually on Google's campus and they
[25:34] Speaker 1: denied us. I came back. My wife was at the
[25:36] Speaker 1: bar with an old fashioned and chicken wings, and I
[25:38] Speaker 1: was like, uh oh, something's wrong. I said, hey, boo's good.
[25:41] Speaker 1: She like, they denied us, but I have a plan.
[25:44] Speaker 1: So when she talked to him, she said, hey, listen,
[25:47] Speaker 1: let us know whatever you didn't like in our charter application,
[25:50] Speaker 1: and we'll rewrite it and do it again. So we
[25:53] Speaker 1: literally did one thousand page application twice. We did two
[25:56] Speaker 1: capacity interviews but the one thing that they couldn't refuse
[26:01] Speaker 1: was we want a million dollar grant from the state
[26:04] Speaker 1: before we were approved for our actual charter. But the
[26:07] Speaker 1: process is, you have to apply, you have to talk
[26:10] Speaker 1: to the community, you have to get signatures. It's a
[26:13] Speaker 1: it's a very long process.
[26:15] Speaker 2: Forward the building.
[26:16] Speaker 1: Ooh good, we're getting too the money. Questions into the money.
[26:18] Speaker 1: Let's let's get this a little war so to keep
[26:25] Speaker 1: it a buck, keep it a band. We met this
[26:27] Speaker 1: developer wife. He did some research. I'm not gonna say
[26:30] Speaker 1: they name, and they sold us a dream and they
[26:34] Speaker 1: helped us. Let me not, let me not knock them.
[26:36] Speaker 1: They helped us and we were looking at different buildings
[26:39] Speaker 1: and the way they would process it is. They came
[26:42] Speaker 1: in and say, hey, we will buy the building for you,
[26:45] Speaker 1: charge you some points, and then sell it back to you. Well,
[26:48] Speaker 1: I don't have ten million dollars to buy the building
[26:50] Speaker 1: and renovate it to start a school, so let's go.
[26:53] Speaker 1: So on our anniversary, we were in Vegas and that
[26:56] Speaker 1: was when what's Homeboy named from the Pelicans who don't
[27:00] Speaker 1: ever play big Boy? I can't think yeah Zion, So
[27:03] Speaker 1: that's when he came out. It was our anniversary. It
[27:05] Speaker 1: was an earthquake and we kept getting told no. Our investor,
[27:08] Speaker 1: who we had at the table or they had at
[27:10] Speaker 1: the table for us, walked away from the deal. We like, man,
[27:14] Speaker 1: it's the end of the conference. We said one, two, three,
[27:17] Speaker 1: we're gonna go. So I gave my pitch to this guy.
[27:20] Speaker 1: He was like and the guy behind him said, let
[27:22] Speaker 1: me see. He said, so you won a million dollars.
[27:26] Speaker 1: I said, yeah, we got we won a million. He
[27:27] Speaker 1: said you have your charter? I said yes. He said
[27:31] Speaker 1: all right, So he came back. We had a conversation.
[27:34] Speaker 1: He brought a couple investors. One investor walked out. The
[27:37] Speaker 1: next investor came to my house, interviewed us, at the
[27:41] Speaker 1: crib at the war room and said, Yo, I'm gonna
[27:43] Speaker 1: pull up.
[27:44] Speaker 2: He was from New York.
[27:45] Speaker 1: He said, I'm gonna pull up and I'm gonna walk
[27:47] Speaker 1: through the school with you. Walked through the school, he said,
[27:49] Speaker 1: how much do you need? We found a building. I said,
[27:51] Speaker 1: the building seven. I think we're gonna need about twelve
[27:53] Speaker 1: to fifteen total. He said, I like what you're doing.
[27:56] Speaker 1: I'm gonna do fifteen. The developers started acting flaky. I
[27:59] Speaker 1: did not know that he was in this one call
[28:03] Speaker 1: that I was on. I'm I'm human. I'm thinking it's
[28:06] Speaker 1: just me and the developer, and they got him kind
[28:09] Speaker 1: of on the phone. I don't know if they were
[28:10] Speaker 1: being shady or what. I'm not gonna say they were
[28:12] Speaker 1: being shady. I'm going off. I cuss it earlier, like
[28:15] Speaker 1: I'm I'm going here. I had just watched I had
[28:17] Speaker 1: just finished watching Pablo Narcos, like, I'm I'm going off
[28:22] Speaker 1: on this dude, like I'm this is I'm going in.
[28:24] Speaker 1: Wife's patting me on my leg, like calm down. So
[28:27] Speaker 1: about an hour later, I get a call from the investor.
[28:30] Speaker 1: He's like hey, I'm like, Hey, what's going on?
[28:32] Speaker 2: Just had this call.
[28:33] Speaker 1: You know things are gonna be okay. We got a
[28:35] Speaker 1: couple hiccups. He's like, I was on the call. I
[28:38] Speaker 1: was like, oh shit, oh oh. He's like, I love
[28:42] Speaker 1: how you handle this. This is you and Natasha School.
[28:45] Speaker 1: They don't run your money. You run your money. He said,
[28:48] Speaker 1: No matter what this balloons to, I'm going to make
[28:51] Speaker 1: sure that this school is successful. Thirty million dollars later,
[28:54] Speaker 1: he stroked the check. Stroked the check. Wow, But how
[28:57] Speaker 1: is he?
[28:58] Speaker 2: How is it?
[28:58] Speaker 1: What's in the film by Swinedale? So you made seven
[29:02] Speaker 1: and a quarter of thirty MS for the next fifty
[29:05] Speaker 1: years unless I refinanced because my call was coming up
[29:08] Speaker 1: in twenty twenty seven. So bods yeah, yeah, public public bonds. Yep, yeah.
[29:13] Speaker 1: So you make seven and a quarter off thirty MS
[29:15] Speaker 1: all day. I'm gonna take that all day if I
[29:17] Speaker 1: got it sitting in the bank, especially if I believe
[29:20] Speaker 1: in the individuals who are putting everything together. But that's
[29:23] Speaker 1: where the financial education came in, because I'm sitting down
[29:26] Speaker 1: with these folks and I'm listening, and what's the trade off?
[29:29] Speaker 1: Because other deals were they had a piece of a business,
[29:32] Speaker 1: they had equity, they were looking at enrollment, Like, Nah,
[29:36] Speaker 1: these fool's not gonna have a hand in our pocket.
[29:38] Speaker 1: He came in and said, listen, if you're building my building,
[29:42] Speaker 1: here's how much I'm gonna make. We're gonna go to
[29:44] Speaker 1: the bond market and make sure y'all had enrollment. Make
[29:47] Speaker 1: sure y'all do good. Year two we won Charter School
[29:49] Speaker 1: of the Year congraduations on that.
[29:52] Speaker 3: Talk about enrollment, right, that's one of the things obviously
[29:54] Speaker 3: coming from public school teaching.
[29:56] Speaker 1: Yeah, you're here all the time. Charter school's ruined education
[29:59] Speaker 1: and charges.
[30:00] Speaker 3: I was always proponent, like, if it's specialized education, if
[30:03] Speaker 3: they can have, you know, the wherewithal to do things
[30:06] Speaker 3: that we can't provide in public we should, you know,
[30:08] Speaker 3: I'm all forward.
[30:09] Speaker 1: What's that selection process? Like, what is it rument like
[30:11] Speaker 1: for your care? Yeah? Good question. So the first thing,
[30:14] Speaker 1: same thing I told the current administration charter schools our
[30:18] Speaker 1: public schools, is that my main charter schools our public schools. Right,
[30:22] Speaker 1: So the division between traditional public schools and charter public schools.
[30:28] Speaker 1: Democrats have put a veil over our head. Yes, I
[30:30] Speaker 1: said it, I'm gonna say it out loud. Democrats have
[30:33] Speaker 1: even the NAACP called for a moratorium on charter schools.
[30:35] Speaker 1: Why if you moratorium charter schools, I don't have a
[30:38] Speaker 1: black charter school, right. So the first thing is the
[30:41] Speaker 1: marketing of it. We are public schools, so we're not
[30:44] Speaker 1: taking public dollars away from traditional public schools because we
[30:48] Speaker 1: are charter public schools. That's the first thing. Second thing,
[30:52] Speaker 1: enrollment is our hustle, right because oftentimes just the nature
[30:56] Speaker 1: of it, based off of how traditional just how schooling
[30:58] Speaker 1: works in this Country'm gonna go ahead and roll my
[31:00] Speaker 1: kid at the closest school next to me, right like,
[31:03] Speaker 1: just why would I drive all the way across town, Well,
[31:06] Speaker 1: drive to my school because you're gonna get a private
[31:08] Speaker 1: education for free. For that was my commercial. So the
[31:13] Speaker 1: lottery itself, enrollment, we don't control it at all. So
[31:16] Speaker 1: what you'll hear is charter school's cherry pick. I can't
[31:19] Speaker 1: cherry pick. I can't pick your kid over your kid.
[31:22] Speaker 1: The county actually runs the enrollment process. So whoever they
[31:27] Speaker 1: give me is who they give me. Now, the next
[31:30] Speaker 1: thing that they'll say is, well, you kick the kids
[31:33] Speaker 1: out that you can't have in your school. Well, A,
[31:36] Speaker 1: I don't, but be if they do something where it
[31:40] Speaker 1: warrants them no longer being in our school. That's the
[31:43] Speaker 1: same thing you do. So there's this divisive language that
[31:47] Speaker 1: individuals use, and it becomes polarizing because now it becomes
[31:50] Speaker 1: a talking point. Oh, charter schools just kick kids out.
[31:53] Speaker 1: We've been over six years. I've never expelled a kid. Now,
[31:57] Speaker 1: if you hit somebody, you're gonna go home. We're gonna
[32:00] Speaker 1: have a conversation with your parents. But I've never expelled
[32:03] Speaker 1: the kids. So and Roman is our hustle. I have
[32:06] Speaker 1: to get nine hundred kids times my perpeople allocation in
[32:10] Speaker 1: order for me to keep my budget to be able
[32:12] Speaker 1: to run my charter school.
[32:14] Speaker 2: So when you say, okay, but if five thousand kids
[32:18] Speaker 2: apply and only one hundred get in, how do you
[32:20] Speaker 2: determine a hundred that get in?
[32:21] Speaker 1: They do. I don't the county. So whoever runs the
[32:25] Speaker 1: actual lottery is what they call it, they make the decision.
[32:28] Speaker 1: So Prince George's County, no matter where you live in
[32:31] Speaker 1: Prince George's County, you apply to my school, they say,
[32:34] Speaker 1: all right, five thousand years apply random lottery. Here's the
[32:38] Speaker 1: hundred that get in. Once it's that buck. Once it's
[32:40] Speaker 1: that hundred. Now I come in and I start. Always
[32:42] Speaker 1: a random lottery, Always a random lottery. He says, you
[32:46] Speaker 1: were the charter school of the year. Yeah, congratulations again,
[32:49] Speaker 1: I appreciate it. What comes with that, right? Do you
[32:51] Speaker 1: get extra funding? Do you get extra grants?
[32:53] Speaker 3: Notoriety or is it just like a plaque you get
[32:56] Speaker 3: to put in front of the school when people walk in.
[32:58] Speaker 1: Got another riots as far as in America?
[33:00] Speaker 2: Or charter school in Maryland, Charter school in Maryland, Year
[33:03] Speaker 2: in Maryland.
[33:03] Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, charter school in Maryland, Charter school of the year.
[33:06] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[33:07] Speaker 1: But yeah, notoriety, notoriety, and our financial education and programming
[33:12] Speaker 1: is unparallel and unmatched. Like there is literally nobody in
[33:16] Speaker 1: the world, I'm say, doing exactly what we're doing. Now.
[33:20] Speaker 1: There's individuals obviously that are teaching financial education. My good
[33:24] Speaker 1: buddy in Pittsburgh has an entrepreneurship school and he's teaching
[33:26] Speaker 1: financial education incorporating in that. But we're doing shark tanks
[33:30] Speaker 1: giving money away to the scholars. We have a curriculum
[33:33] Speaker 1: that's a K through adult curriculum that we have inside
[33:36] Speaker 1: of the school, that we sell to other schools, that
[33:38] Speaker 1: we sell to community groups, and that we teach to
[33:40] Speaker 1: our community for free. We're in Buffalo, we have some
[33:45] Speaker 1: interest in New York City. We are in Atlanta. So
[33:49] Speaker 1: we have our curriculum and there's nobody doing exactly what
[33:52] Speaker 1: we're doing inside of a charter school. The community piece
[33:55] Speaker 1: is important. Yeah, that bye is important.
[33:57] Speaker 3: Are you available to the community that the school sits
[33:59] Speaker 3: in or or is it just the school community meaning
[34:02] Speaker 3: the parents families of the actual students.
[34:05] Speaker 1: How does that work? How do you use that dynamic
[34:07] Speaker 1: to your advantage? Yeah? Both, and so we are one hundred.
[34:11] Speaker 1: We have like Parents Square and things of that nature
[34:13] Speaker 1: where we communicate. So we have this program called Open
[34:16] Speaker 1: Fund Invest Donate, and the donate is the key piece
[34:19] Speaker 1: because then this capitalistic country. Capitalism has done a lot
[34:24] Speaker 1: of bad things to black people period, right, But again,
[34:27] Speaker 1: depending on who you're talking to, it becomes polarizing and
[34:30] Speaker 1: the individuals say that money is the root of all evil. No,
[34:34] Speaker 1: people are the root of all evil, who are bad people,
[34:37] Speaker 1: and then money enhances that personality, which then goes back
[34:41] Speaker 1: to teaching financial wellness, so then you're not a jerk
[34:44] Speaker 1: when you become rich. So our program is Open Fund
[34:47] Speaker 1: Invest Donate because we teach stewardship as you open an account,
[34:52] Speaker 1: you fund your account, you invest in that account, and
[34:54] Speaker 1: as you start to accumulate wealth, you now donate to
[34:58] Speaker 1: individuals in need. So that is one of the major
[35:00] Speaker 1: programs inside of our school, programming that is predominantly for
[35:04] Speaker 1: our children and families. But we've started to incorporate that
[35:08] Speaker 1: into our curriculum because we have all the way from
[35:10] Speaker 1: a K through adult curriculum that goes outside of our
[35:13] Speaker 1: school that we have online.
[35:15] Speaker 2: So what makes charter schools different in public schools? As
[35:19] Speaker 2: far as you're able to have different curriculum, you're not
[35:22] Speaker 2: held by the same standards.
[35:24] Speaker 1: One of the lessons inside of Legends Charter School, one
[35:28] Speaker 1: of the first lessons is who you are? Right like
[35:32] Speaker 1: black brown? What? No, You're Haitian, You're Jamaican, You're Puerto Rican,
[35:37] Speaker 1: you're Dominican. We control We have one hundred percent autonomy
[35:41] Speaker 1: over our curriculum. So these little babies that I'm looking at,
[35:44] Speaker 1: these five and six year olds, we're going to talk
[35:46] Speaker 1: about bringing you up not just with financial education, but
[35:49] Speaker 1: we have a saying Legends is who they are and
[35:51] Speaker 1: who they will be.
[35:52] Speaker 2: But so you said it's the same, you said it's
[35:54] Speaker 2: the same as a public schools.
[35:57] Speaker 1: It's the same as a public school from a funding perspective.
[36:00] Speaker 2: But it's not the same of a public as far
[36:02] Speaker 2: as the restriction. Absolutely, So a lot of people are
[36:05] Speaker 2: saying it's not fair.
[36:09] Speaker 1: I'm on ey l. So my first my first response
[36:11] Speaker 1: is gonna be life ain't fair. Fair is a place
[36:13] Speaker 1: for they judge pigs. But maybe we shouldn't say that,
[36:15] Speaker 1: don't you know? Clickbaity on that. But I guess when
[36:20] Speaker 1: you look at it holistically, it's not fair because individuals
[36:26] Speaker 1: from a democratic process, not democrats, but a democratic process
[36:30] Speaker 1: are not allowing for more charter schools to level the
[36:33] Speaker 1: playing field. So there's more charter school there's more Success Academy.
[36:38] Speaker 1: I'm fairly certain that Success Academy in New York City
[36:42] Speaker 1: is bigger than a traditional public school system in New
[36:44] Speaker 1: York City, Right, So is that fair to say? What
[36:47] Speaker 1: do you mean they have more students Success Academy, Success Academy?
[36:51] Speaker 2: What is Success Academy.
[36:52] Speaker 1: It's a it's a really well run school in New
[36:55] Speaker 1: York City. They have they have multiple schols possible. I'm
[36:59] Speaker 1: gonna look it up. More students, I believe, more, not
[37:02] Speaker 1: necessarily more schools, per se, but they're servicing more scholars.
[37:06] Speaker 1: So if you're gonna look it up, New York City
[37:07] Speaker 1: has a million, eight hundred thousand. Now I'm success Academy
[37:11] Speaker 1: is day right there.
[37:14] Speaker 2: So why doesn't just every school become a charter school
[37:16] Speaker 2: and there's no more public schools?
[37:17] Speaker 1: You're trying to get me in trouble man, y'all, y'all
[37:19] Speaker 1: gonna bring me to the team. Mat the market gonna
[37:22] Speaker 1: save you. I don't worry about it. We have we
[37:27] Speaker 1: the culture, including some other individuals, have an emotional connection
[37:34] Speaker 1: to traditional public schools. That's the public school I went
[37:37] Speaker 1: to that they shouldn't get rid of that, that there
[37:40] Speaker 1: is this tie to it. But let's keep it real.
[37:44] Speaker 1: The uh school system that is failing. Our students are
[37:49] Speaker 1: doing what they were originally designed to do, like they
[37:52] Speaker 1: were supposed to come in, learn these specific skills and
[37:56] Speaker 1: then go work for somebody. So when a charter school
[37:59] Speaker 1: comes in and says, nah, you college or career ready,
[38:03] Speaker 1: I'm naha. If you want work for somebody, work for me,
[38:07] Speaker 1: or work for yourself. Like literally, right now we're looking
[38:11] Speaker 1: like the economy is a k right now. Right, those
[38:15] Speaker 1: who are wealthy are becoming ultrawealthy, and then those who
[38:19] Speaker 1: are not are struggling. The delta in there are those
[38:23] Speaker 1: who are entrepreneurs if you know, to not have this
[38:26] Speaker 1: W two income or to have the W two income
[38:28] Speaker 1: but also have entrepreneurship, we teach something DEI, diversity, equity
[38:34] Speaker 1: and inclusion. I'm looking at the camera as well. I'm
[38:35] Speaker 1: gonna say first, I am not saying I'm not a
[38:37] Speaker 1: proponent of diversity, equity and inclusion. That's not what I'm saying. However,
[38:41] Speaker 1: our DEI is dollars equity and invests because those who
[38:45] Speaker 1: know financial education and are financially well and know how
[38:50] Speaker 1: and yeah, I mean y'all know this. I'm not saying
[38:51] Speaker 1: something that you don't know how to maneuver tax laws.
[38:55] Speaker 1: Entrepreneurship W two is the highest tax income. So on
[38:59] Speaker 1: that k are those who are growing in their wealth
[39:03] Speaker 1: is because they write and shit off. It's because they
[39:05] Speaker 1: buying and they're non for profit traditional public schools, no
[39:09] Speaker 1: shots fired. That's not how they were originally designed at all.
[39:13] Speaker 3: So you brought up the it made me think about
[39:15] Speaker 3: this administration and pretty much to try the eradication of
[39:20] Speaker 3: that and our history. You being the CEO and founder
[39:25] Speaker 3: of a school being very firm about who you are
[39:28] Speaker 3: and who you're teaching.
[39:30] Speaker 1: How are you combating that? Yeah, So I was at home.
[39:34] Speaker 1: I believe either myself or my wife was getting an award.
[39:36] Speaker 1: We were in Buffalo, it was late. We got to call,
[39:39] Speaker 1: probably about nine o'clock and they say, hey, we're gonna
[39:42] Speaker 1: get on the conference call because everything that's going on
[39:44] Speaker 1: at the administration. We said, cool. Now. What preceded that,
[39:47] Speaker 1: probably about two weeks ago, is we got a call.
[39:49] Speaker 1: I said, hey, the name of your company is Equity Now,
[39:53] Speaker 1: and they are literally just taking bots and going and
[39:55] Speaker 1: looking fast forward back nine thirty at night in Buffalo,
[39:59] Speaker 1: New York, found out we lost a million dollars rip
[40:02] Speaker 1: from us through the AmeriCorps program. What we have is
[40:05] Speaker 1: the Equity Now Legends Fellows program, where we have eighteen
[40:09] Speaker 1: to twenty five year old adults that service kids. So
[40:13] Speaker 1: I grew up in a household where we struggle. My
[40:15] Speaker 1: parents argue a lot. When I got to school, I'm
[40:18] Speaker 1: thinking about my parents' argument and if it's going to
[40:20] Speaker 1: be the same when I get home. I can't focus
[40:23] Speaker 1: in class or the teacher either got to kick me
[40:24] Speaker 1: out or take away from everybody else. What we have
[40:28] Speaker 1: at Legends is these eighteen to twenty five year olds.
[40:30] Speaker 1: I can talk to the students, bring them out and say, hey,
[40:33] Speaker 1: how's things going on? So how is this impacting us?
[40:37] Speaker 1: Right out the gate we lost a million dollars. Now
[40:40] Speaker 1: we had the power of the governor of the state
[40:42] Speaker 1: of Maryland, the power of AmeriCorps, and we all collectively
[40:46] Speaker 1: sued and we got to back about eight hundred thousand.
[40:49] Speaker 1: So I'm going to always be unapologetically me right. But
[40:53] Speaker 1: at the same time, when they asked us to take
[40:56] Speaker 1: a look at the things on our website, I'm not
[40:59] Speaker 1: changing my company name. But if it says DEI, take
[41:02] Speaker 1: it out, that's cool. Don't say de I. Because at
[41:04] Speaker 1: the end of the day, if I sit down, if
[41:06] Speaker 1: y'all sit down and interview me, and y'all want to
[41:08] Speaker 1: bring me into your job versus somebody else, y'all are
[41:11] Speaker 1: more likely to hire someone who you can connect with
[41:14] Speaker 1: than someone that's not. So my mentor said, it don't
[41:16] Speaker 1: matter what is on your website, Sumard, you are the
[41:19] Speaker 1: black and brown person that's hiring, So just continue to
[41:22] Speaker 1: do with your daughter. But it's it's been.
[41:24] Speaker 2: It's been an uphill.
[41:25] Speaker 1: Battle curriculum as well. What you mean curriculum in terms
[41:29] Speaker 1: of how we teach history? They can't tell, can't. Yeah, now,
[41:32] Speaker 1: what they could do if they found out completely what
[41:34] Speaker 1: we did is try and restrict funds and it could
[41:37] Speaker 1: come after funding. But yeah, right now, knock on what
[41:39] Speaker 1: we've we've been pretty okay.
[41:41] Speaker 2: So what's the typical day in your school?
[41:44] Speaker 1: Yeah? Good question?
[41:45] Speaker 2: And was the school year the same as a regular
[41:47] Speaker 2: school year or yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah, because some charge
[41:50] Speaker 2: school go school in the summertime.
[41:52] Speaker 1: Yeah so no, we so we follow what's called the
[41:56] Speaker 1: PGCPS calendar, Prince George's County Public School System Calendar. A
[42:00] Speaker 1: typical day is the only difference between what you will
[42:03] Speaker 1: find at a tradition. Not only, but the major difference
[42:07] Speaker 1: is that you'll find is transitioning, the departmentalization, the subject
[42:10] Speaker 1: matter expert teachers, the financial education class because every every
[42:14] Speaker 1: scholar goes to a financial education class, and we also
[42:17] Speaker 1: have drama and Latin. Other than that, I got the
[42:20] Speaker 1: same little wild little babies running through the hallways. Uniform No,
[42:26] Speaker 1: I don't believe in uniform. Uniform is pipeline in prison. No,
[42:28] Speaker 1: shots fire to anybody got a uniform, Please don't play
[42:31] Speaker 1: that over and try and cut it up, y'all who'll
[42:33] Speaker 1: be stilling stuff from Instagram? No? We like, why am
[42:37] Speaker 1: I going to put you in a uniform?
[42:38] Speaker 2: Is it a pipeline?
[42:39] Speaker 1: A prison uniforms? What are you wearing in prison uniforms?
[42:43] Speaker 1: For me? It's a training ground here. So here's the
[42:46] Speaker 1: thing about. So if I have a teacher and I
[42:49] Speaker 1: want you to worry about math, and I put that
[42:51] Speaker 1: student in a uniform, that teacher is now worried about
[42:55] Speaker 1: that checklist in your uniform, your son's uniform. You don't
[42:58] Speaker 1: have your belt. So now I have to have provisions
[43:01] Speaker 1: and standard operating procedures for my teachers to look out
[43:04] Speaker 1: for a student not wearing a uniform. And then I
[43:08] Speaker 1: have to have standard operating procedures for what discipline looks like?
[43:11] Speaker 2: Why where what you're gonna wear? What's your metrics compared
[43:15] Speaker 2: to public school? Your public school counterparts?
[43:17] Speaker 1: We blowing them out the water. We are when you're
[43:20] Speaker 1: talking about our county. I don't have the exact numbers. Yeah,
[43:23] Speaker 1: I don't have the exact numbers.
[43:24] Speaker 2: And math reading and all that.
[43:27] Speaker 1: Absolutely we're outperforming.
[43:29] Speaker 3: Were, I mean, huge proponents for educational reform. We can
[43:32] Speaker 3: see the industrial model of how school was built in
[43:36] Speaker 3: design is not working for our community. And what you're
[43:39] Speaker 3: doing is combating that. You said something earlier, and I
[43:42] Speaker 3: know all the kids in New York City for sugarn
[43:44] Speaker 3: love it. Kids can have their phones. Yes, that means
[43:46] Speaker 3: technology is allowed in your school. That means that artificial
[43:49] Speaker 3: intelligence AI potentially will be allowed in your school.
[43:53] Speaker 1: New York City is trying to figure that out. A
[43:54] Speaker 1: lot of school district is trying to figure that out.
[43:56] Speaker 3: How are you guys using the I guess the the
[44:00] Speaker 3: freedom to create and innovate using these technologies to your
[44:04] Speaker 3: advantage in your school.
[44:05] Speaker 1: Really good question. So again I keep saying I'm gonna
[44:09] Speaker 1: keep it a buck. A lot of it boils down
[44:11] Speaker 1: to what does and does not make sense. Adults make
[44:15] Speaker 1: things really complex that then creates problems for children. So
[44:21] Speaker 1: if I'm gonna and I'm not knocking nobody who locks
[44:23] Speaker 1: up phones. But again, just like the uniforms, right, if
[44:27] Speaker 1: I'm going to lock up their phones, now I gotta
[44:29] Speaker 1: have an insurance policy. Now I gotta have a system
[44:32] Speaker 1: by which to lock up the phones. Now I have
[44:35] Speaker 1: to have. I got to pay somebody to manage locking
[44:37] Speaker 1: up the phones. So as opposed to a closed system
[44:41] Speaker 1: of locking things up, we want scholars to be open.
[44:45] Speaker 1: And we're a financial education school. I want y'all children
[44:49] Speaker 1: to be talking about their stock portfolios on their phones
[44:53] Speaker 1: when we're doing our stock simulation. We have what's called
[44:56] Speaker 1: a March market madness challenge. I think I said that
[44:59] Speaker 1: right justin. And what the kids do is they literally
[45:03] Speaker 1: battle by grade level of who can open up the
[45:07] Speaker 1: most stock accounts. So if I take their phone, you
[45:10] Speaker 1: know what I mean, then they're not looking at it.
[45:12] Speaker 1: So we have to make sure that what I tell
[45:15] Speaker 1: my Enterprise Technology Solutions team that's my tech team for
[45:18] Speaker 1: y'all to do, y'all base job is not enough. I
[45:22] Speaker 1: need you to be rapidly ahead showing me what the
[45:26] Speaker 1: trends are so I can make sure that I stay
[45:28] Speaker 1: ahead of these kids.
[45:29] Speaker 2: Right.
[45:30] Speaker 1: So we obviously have testing and things of that nature.
[45:32] Speaker 1: So what do we need to do to make sure
[45:34] Speaker 1: that we're good? But as this new technology comes in,
[45:37] Speaker 1: we're not gonna be able to stop it. AI when
[45:40] Speaker 1: the calculator came out, everybody lost their mind. It's the
[45:44] Speaker 1: new calculator in a sense, So teach these scholars. Don't
[45:48] Speaker 1: write your paper in AI. When you owe school, I'm
[45:52] Speaker 1: to show my age encyclopedia. You want to learn about Wales,
[45:55] Speaker 1: You pull the encyclopedia out, you flip it to w
[45:58] Speaker 1: You learn about Wales, and then you write your paper AI.
[46:01] Speaker 1: The same go in, learn about whales, stop there and
[46:06] Speaker 1: then write your paper. Don't tell Chad now with all
[46:08] Speaker 1: the information, and write my paper. So you have to
[46:11] Speaker 1: teach productive and responsible usership of all of these new
[46:16] Speaker 1: innovative technologies that are coming up. And that's what we do.
[46:19] Speaker 1: Assistive technology. Assistive technology.
[46:25] Speaker 2: What is the difference you think between a charge school
[46:27] Speaker 2: or private school?
[46:29] Speaker 1: Oh man, you shot you man, so without firing shots.
[46:35] Speaker 1: Because I have some great relationships with private schools. I'm
[46:37] Speaker 1: actually working a private school where they are going to
[46:40] Speaker 1: hold slots for my students. But just speaking on the facts,
[46:44] Speaker 1: not firing shots. I we have to have a certain
[46:48] Speaker 1: level of certification, degrees, et cetera to bring a teacher
[46:52] Speaker 1: into my schools. Private schools do not. That's one right there,
[46:58] Speaker 1: Like we can finished the kindversation right there, But then
[47:02] Speaker 1: that level of autonomy that is much more loose than
[47:06] Speaker 1: public school charter schools. I have a five year contract.
[47:10] Speaker 1: Every year. You asked about our numbers. If I don't
[47:13] Speaker 1: hit my numbers, they close my school. There's no such
[47:17] Speaker 1: thing as a private school, no such thing for the
[47:20] Speaker 1: private school, no such thing for traditional public schools. So
[47:23] Speaker 1: charter to private, we are offering the same high level education,
[47:29] Speaker 1: but you don't have to pay for it now. Private
[47:31] Speaker 1: school for how we have conceptualized over the years. Private schools.
[47:35] Speaker 1: The network is crazy. We were talking off camera about
[47:38] Speaker 1: investments and how dope it is in the networking. You're
[47:40] Speaker 1: going to have some pretty high level good folks. You
[47:43] Speaker 1: want a network at a private school, and that's a
[47:46] Speaker 1: good thing and it's a good benefit. I have a
[47:48] Speaker 1: mix in my demographics. I literally have kids getting picked
[47:51] Speaker 1: up in Bentley's and Maserieties in seven series, and I
[47:55] Speaker 1: also have scholars that are being dropped off in ubers
[47:58] Speaker 1: and their parents. Is four kids in a two bedroom house,
[48:02] Speaker 1: But that's a that's a that's a microcosm of a
[48:04] Speaker 1: real world. Right, Like, you're not going to a school
[48:08] Speaker 1: and it's going to have one hundred percent of the
[48:11] Speaker 1: student population who parents are fortune five hundred they making
[48:16] Speaker 1: multiple six figures, and then when you go out into
[48:18] Speaker 1: the world, that's not what exists. No knock the private schools.
[48:20] Speaker 1: I'm only talking about my school, right, So those are
[48:22] Speaker 1: some of the differences you.
[48:24] Speaker 3: Come from corporate and now working in education. I wonder
[48:28] Speaker 3: what similarities do you see in how you're running a
[48:31] Speaker 3: school versus how you would as an exact in the
[48:34] Speaker 3: corporate world.
[48:35] Speaker 1: Yeah, I should have had my wife hair for this world,
[48:36] Speaker 1: because she might have she might have punched me on
[48:38] Speaker 1: on this one. So when I came in, I tried
[48:41] Speaker 1: to especially from a higher education perspective. Like so higher
[48:46] Speaker 1: ed and corporate we always talk about institutional effectiveness, right,
[48:49] Speaker 1: So institutional effectiveness is our means by which we have
[48:54] Speaker 1: key performance indicators, and here's how we measure this, and
[48:56] Speaker 1: there's a certain way that we do that. There is
[48:59] Speaker 1: a similarity that is cold so I call it a
[49:03] Speaker 1: strategic plan and an action plan. As you'll know, they
[49:06] Speaker 1: call it a school improvement plan. So those similarities are
[49:09] Speaker 1: all the way throughout. So one of the biggest things
[49:11] Speaker 1: for us adjusting and I'll say my wife being a CEO,
[49:14] Speaker 1: me being a CEO, is that language piece you know
[49:16] Speaker 1: when you start talking about love languages, that communication. We communicate,
[49:19] Speaker 1: but did we comprehend each other? Because I call it
[49:21] Speaker 1: action Plann, she call it school improvement plan. But there's
[49:23] Speaker 1: tons of synergies. What gets measured makes progress. And literally
[49:27] Speaker 1: in corporate was GE bottom ten percent they fired? That
[49:30] Speaker 1: was the GE model, Jack Jack Walsh, Jack Welch. When
[49:33] Speaker 1: you start looking at charters, if you don't make it
[49:35] Speaker 1: within that five years, you going. So there are a
[49:38] Speaker 1: ton of similarities between corporate and inside of the charter
[49:41] Speaker 1: school ecosystem.
[49:43] Speaker 2: So okay, so Equity now, right, your company, the school
[49:49] Speaker 2: you have that that's the component that works with the school.
[49:53] Speaker 1: Good good good one. So Equity now is the non
[49:56] Speaker 1: for profit charter management organization that does all of the
[49:59] Speaker 1: back end anything that you don't think about when you
[50:02] Speaker 1: went through school lights, our tu units. Right now we're
[50:06] Speaker 1: working on our bond deal. I'm having these long meetings
[50:09] Speaker 1: with these investors who want to come in and refinance.
[50:11] Speaker 1: We do all of that dirty work. So my wife
[50:14] Speaker 1: shout out to the CEO Atasha James. All she has
[50:16] Speaker 1: to worry about is academics. I got your bag. Both
[50:19] Speaker 1: you you just worry about academics and school performance and
[50:24] Speaker 1: I got everything else. That's one, and then two is
[50:28] Speaker 1: the delivery of our as an education managed organization, the
[50:31] Speaker 1: delivery of our financial education curriculum. So it's our job
[50:34] Speaker 1: to provide what the K through a financial education curriculum
[50:39] Speaker 1: looks like, our scope and sequence, our manipulatives if we're
[50:43] Speaker 1: adding AI or gaming gamification to it. Those are the
[50:47] Speaker 1: two things that we provide too. Legend charter school, and
[50:50] Speaker 1: then it runs on completely autonomously. I don't get involved
[50:54] Speaker 1: in their board, their board meetings or any of that.
[50:56] Speaker 3: I feel like I know the answer, but I'm asking anyway,
[50:59] Speaker 3: when you have a level of success that you're having,
[51:03] Speaker 3: it feels like the natural thing is like we should
[51:05] Speaker 3: plan another school. So is it on the vision board
[51:12] Speaker 3: or are we saying we've got something that's so great here,
[51:16] Speaker 3: let's continue to make this great for pg CON.
[51:18] Speaker 1: Yeah, so breaking news. I think I said probably about
[51:22] Speaker 1: two things. My wife is gonna kill me about where
[51:29] Speaker 1: we decided to go early. So let's go to the
[51:31] Speaker 1: business side. So corporate the corporate question. If I go
[51:34] Speaker 1: with a high school, that means I take one hundred students,
[51:40] Speaker 1: and then that one hundred students, I take that per
[51:41] Speaker 1: people allocation, and let's call it a million dollars, but
[51:45] Speaker 1: it cost me three million dollars to run it. I'm
[51:47] Speaker 1: two million in a whole. I can't. I can't. I
[51:50] Speaker 1: can't run like that. I can't provide quality education to
[51:52] Speaker 1: my children and families in that large of a deficit.
[51:56] Speaker 1: Plus my wife's specialty are the littles. So what we
[51:59] Speaker 1: just I to do is we are now looking to
[52:02] Speaker 1: go preschool through eight and then consider all of that
[52:06] Speaker 1: mess I was talking about with private schools when you
[52:07] Speaker 1: asked me the question, consider a private high school. The
[52:11] Speaker 1: reason why is if I can get them once they
[52:14] Speaker 1: stop peeing and pooping on themselves, like you got to
[52:16] Speaker 1: you gotta go to the bathroom on your own. I
[52:17] Speaker 1: can get you at three four years old and start
[52:20] Speaker 1: instilling financial education and literacy in you. And you're understanding
[52:26] Speaker 1: the concepts and just hearing the stock market and things
[52:29] Speaker 1: of that nature at four years old, and I keep
[52:32] Speaker 1: you until you're an eighth grader, you literally will be
[52:35] Speaker 1: a half a million dollar literally literally. So we want
[52:40] Speaker 1: to start early earlier. So we're looking to purchase a
[52:44] Speaker 1: couple daycares and turn them into early learning centers to
[52:49] Speaker 1: you know, to multiply and then on the back end,
[52:52] Speaker 1: take a look at what a private high school will
[52:54] Speaker 1: look like. I'll say really quick high school. So proud
[52:56] Speaker 1: of my students. One of the local high schools, A
[53:00] Speaker 1: bunch of our students went there and yesterday, I believe,
[53:03] Speaker 1: for all this stuff that's going on with ICE, they
[53:07] Speaker 1: did a walkout and some of our students, our graduates,
[53:11] Speaker 1: were actually in there. What they signed, so it was
[53:13] Speaker 1: just to give them love. So that's our plan to
[53:15] Speaker 1: go early and then think about what it looks like
[53:18] Speaker 1: on the back end. Something tells me, correct me if
[53:21] Speaker 1: I'm wrong.
[53:22] Speaker 3: It makes a lot of sense because pre k is
[53:25] Speaker 3: I mean, it's strenuous, especially coming from a parents' side.
[53:28] Speaker 3: If you can't afford it, if it's not full day,
[53:31] Speaker 3: it could be whole thing. But the other part of it,
[53:33] Speaker 3: knowing that you're in the market and you're watching that
[53:35] Speaker 3: these new accounts of being created for kids who were
[53:37] Speaker 3: born this year, that feels like it's aligned and kind
[53:43] Speaker 3: of how were you looking at it like this?
[53:45] Speaker 1: So we so white House don't look at this and
[53:50] Speaker 1: trying to shut this down or anything crazy. We did
[53:52] Speaker 1: this long before then. So I have a mentor who's
[53:55] Speaker 1: donated over one hundred thousand dollars to our school. So
[53:58] Speaker 1: we give away was called the Roger K. Struther. So
[54:01] Speaker 1: when we opened in twenty twenty, your children applied for
[54:05] Speaker 1: the scholarship. We did our open fund invested donate program.
[54:08] Speaker 1: You opened up your custodio account, and then we gave
[54:11] Speaker 1: you two hundred five hundred one thousand dollars in your
[54:14] Speaker 1: account and we track it all the way through. So
[54:17] Speaker 1: we so ready, Yeah, we did that. Yeah, they sold
[54:21] Speaker 1: the model perhaps perhaps allegedly maybe, but it's a great
[54:27] Speaker 1: model because now you are six years old, you have
[54:31] Speaker 1: a custodio account and it doesn't matter if you're putting
[54:34] Speaker 1: five dollars in it. You're six years old, right, and
[54:38] Speaker 1: now you learn the concept of pay yourself first. So
[54:43] Speaker 1: I've taught you, at five years old, the adult concept
[54:49] Speaker 1: of pay yourself first. Then I can teach you the
[54:51] Speaker 1: adult concept of automated with a system, because now I
[54:55] Speaker 1: can sit down with the child and the family and say, hey,
[55:00] Speaker 1: to make sure this comes directly out your paycheck. I
[55:02] Speaker 1: give you a real quick story. I had a child,
[55:06] Speaker 1: a parent come. It was a pseudo complaint. They said, hey, listen,
[55:10] Speaker 1: they said. You know, I went to Target and I
[55:13] Speaker 1: pulled out my car and my daughter said, is that
[55:17] Speaker 1: a charge car, a credit card or a debit card?
[55:20] Speaker 1: Because they all have different interest rates? And I was like,
[55:24] Speaker 1: where they learning this at? And we said, ma'am, you
[55:26] Speaker 1: brought your kids to Legendsire to school with financial education
[55:29] Speaker 1: provided by equity. Now this is what we do. So
[55:33] Speaker 1: we we're forcing the kids will go to their parents
[55:36] Speaker 1: and say, don't buy me. Jordan's right, like, don't give
[55:40] Speaker 1: me money from my stock account, give me open up
[55:42] Speaker 1: my customer. They're pressing their parents to do things that
[55:46] Speaker 1: we almost never even heard of it at a time.
[55:49] Speaker 2: So how did you How did you end up investments
[55:52] Speaker 2: with education? Talk about your experienced it.
[55:55] Speaker 1: Yeah, so I saw y'all boys. Look, I just got
[55:58] Speaker 1: goosebumps when you said that. I again, I saw y'all
[56:00] Speaker 1: on Good Morning America and I was like, this is
[56:03] Speaker 1: what this is. This is match made in heaven. But
[56:06] Speaker 1: we were still building, like I had to put a
[56:08] Speaker 1: school up, you know what I mean. So when I
[56:11] Speaker 1: finally got the opportunity to kind of get things settled,
[56:14] Speaker 1: I said, I got to get to invest Fest and
[56:16] Speaker 1: we came with our T shirts. We have T shirts
[56:18] Speaker 1: that say Nepotism is our birthright and equity looks like me.
[56:21] Speaker 1: So we came with our T shirts. I think we
[56:23] Speaker 1: sold five T shirts. We only seld five T shirts,
[56:27] Speaker 1: but the experience, Man, I'm a Gemini, I'm a made Gemini,
[56:31] Speaker 1: and I'm big on energy in my spirituality and all
[56:35] Speaker 1: money and good money and all people at good people
[56:36] Speaker 1: just because they're doing good things. However, in vest Fest
[56:39] Speaker 1: and everybody there and credit to y'all because it's top down,
[56:43] Speaker 1: it was I mean literally, it was so much love.
[56:47] Speaker 1: I said, I'm bringing my whole team next year. So
[56:50] Speaker 1: we looked at the sponsorship packets. I went to my
[56:52] Speaker 1: finance team and I said, we might need to do
[56:55] Speaker 1: a little more with donations so we could pay a
[56:57] Speaker 1: little more. So the next year, I brought my entire team.
[57:01] Speaker 1: We had a booth. I did my podcast, Expediting Change
[57:03] Speaker 1: to find it on YouTube. I probably interviewed twenty thirty
[57:08] Speaker 1: people on the podcast. Y'all did the book signing, so
[57:11] Speaker 1: it was crazy. It was literally y'all would do y'all
[57:13] Speaker 1: book signing. Y'all have a line wrapped around and then
[57:16] Speaker 1: they would see my lights and they come right.
[57:18] Speaker 2: Over to me like it was.
[57:18] Speaker 1: It was perfect, but the energy was just love. So
[57:23] Speaker 1: I had to make sure that my community, my team,
[57:27] Speaker 1: those who I support, actually could see the power, because
[57:31] Speaker 1: when you hear about invest FST, it's one thing, but
[57:34] Speaker 1: when you actually go and you see it, it's like
[57:36] Speaker 1: going to a work conference. You get there and you
[57:37] Speaker 1: want to hype, and then you get back to the
[57:39] Speaker 1: job and everybody like, what are you talking about? You know?
[57:42] Speaker 1: So I told my team, yo, this is crazy. So
[57:46] Speaker 1: I said, Okay, y'all think I'm crazy. Everybody gone. So
[57:49] Speaker 1: we'll be there this year as well. We'll be there
[57:52] Speaker 1: and Walger, y'all moved it up though, right, yeah, yeah,
[57:55] Speaker 1: we'll be there a little bigger stage.
[57:58] Speaker 2: A workshop.
[57:59] Speaker 1: So I did a workshop.
[58:00] Speaker 2: What'd you teach on the workshop?
[58:01] Speaker 1: We called it Money Power Purpose and y'all listen. We
[58:07] Speaker 1: talked and they said, well, it might be two or
[58:08] Speaker 1: three hundred people in the workshop power Policies. Eight hundred
[58:13] Speaker 1: people later, people were sitting on the floor, so people
[58:17] Speaker 1: must have been telling people to come into it, so
[58:20] Speaker 1: they had to bring security to stop them from coming in.
[58:24] Speaker 1: I said, okay, I'm gonna say that I'm that good.
[58:26] Speaker 1: I'm gonna say that I'm not good. But really, y'all crowd,
[58:29] Speaker 1: who y'all bring just they are yearning for the information
[58:34] Speaker 1: we learned from that. I appreciate it.
[58:35] Speaker 2: I appreciate it.
[58:36] Speaker 1: I appreciate it. I appreciate it. So and that's not
[58:38] Speaker 1: a bad thing though, like right, like you, because if
[58:41] Speaker 1: I had a bigger room and it was only twenty
[58:43] Speaker 1: people would be oh. But the experience was amazing. Money power, purpose, well,
[58:48] Speaker 1: we talked about I told my story about how hustle
[58:52] Speaker 1: and I did things that my mom wouldn't necessarily be
[58:54] Speaker 1: proud of because my struggles with my trauma regarding financial wellness.
[58:58] Speaker 1: But I wanted to get to the bag and I
[59:00] Speaker 1: talked about We talked about because Justin he was there
[59:03] Speaker 1: on stage with me. We talked about Tulsa. We talked
[59:07] Speaker 1: about owning your own story based off of what wealth
[59:11] Speaker 1: means to you, because what wealth means to you, to
[59:14] Speaker 1: you and me are three completely different things. One of
[59:16] Speaker 1: my biggest things with wealth is love that I received
[59:19] Speaker 1: from my family. I had nothing to do with income, right,
[59:21] Speaker 1: But if I'm not whole, then I'm not getting that love.
[59:24] Speaker 1: And if I don't have that love. It's not fueling
[59:26] Speaker 1: me to go out and get the bag. So that's
[59:27] Speaker 1: what we talked about on stage was money power Purpose,
[59:30] Speaker 1: And I'm pretty sure we're gonna we're gonna run that
[59:32] Speaker 1: back money Power Purpose to update it version your father.
[59:36] Speaker 3: Yes, how does this feel in terms of legacy? You
[59:40] Speaker 3: know the school number, I'm assuming the kids are ten?
[59:43] Speaker 1: Yeah, well, well my kids so my kids twenty one
[59:46] Speaker 1: and twenty five five, I'm I get eight. So how
[59:48] Speaker 1: does this look from a legacy side?
[59:50] Speaker 3: Are they involved in the business or are they figuring
[59:53] Speaker 3: out their own spaces?
[59:55] Speaker 1: A little bit of both. So fundamentally believe nepotism is
[59:58] Speaker 1: their birth right right, like who else what I give
[1:00:00] Speaker 1: a contract to if it's not my son my daughter,
[1:00:03] Speaker 1: some I am related to as long as they're qualify.
[1:00:06] Speaker 1: So both of them work for each organization. My son
[1:00:08] Speaker 1: works for Equity Now the nonprofit, and my daughter works
[1:00:11] Speaker 1: for Legends charter school. So I'm my son's boss and
[1:00:14] Speaker 1: my wife is my daughter's boss. And shout out to
[1:00:17] Speaker 1: my daughter. She recently did the entire planning of the
[1:00:20] Speaker 1: event that brought Governor Wes Moore to the school. Amazing.
[1:00:23] Speaker 1: She oh he is solid, solid dude. She planned the
[1:00:25] Speaker 1: whole thing. So from a legacy perspective, it is I'm
[1:00:29] Speaker 1: never going to force you into what I believe you
[1:00:32] Speaker 1: should do. Because he also biertends like, do what makes
[1:00:35] Speaker 1: you happy and know that we're planning over here, that
[1:00:38] Speaker 1: there is something that ultimately is for you to take.
[1:00:41] Speaker 1: And my daughter, we were in Puerto Rico, me and
[1:00:43] Speaker 1: my wife, son and daughter. We were at dinner and
[1:00:46] Speaker 1: she looked up and she said, I'm twenty one, I'm
[1:00:48] Speaker 1: a graduate from Howard. I'm a party a little bit.
[1:00:51] Speaker 1: So I said, whoa, WHOA, that's privileged. She said, you
[1:00:53] Speaker 1: taught me to be privileged. I said, well, what am
[1:00:55] Speaker 1: I supposed to do? Like in the transition, She said,
[1:00:57] Speaker 1: you better write something and then bored by laws that
[1:01:00] Speaker 1: and I get ready that that seat becomes mine and
[1:01:03] Speaker 1: I said, waiter, can you give us another bottle of wine?
[1:01:06] Speaker 1: But from a legacy perspective, they know and understand that
[1:01:10] Speaker 1: we're that we're building and we're really big on community.
[1:01:12] Speaker 1: I'll say, we're also building a ten acre compound in
[1:01:17] Speaker 1: Fort Washington, Maryland where all of our family we're building
[1:01:21] Speaker 1: seven houses and a community house. So they understand that
[1:01:25] Speaker 1: we're all connected and nepotism is their birthright as long
[1:01:28] Speaker 1: as they're qualified to do the job. Awful, Appreciate it, man,
[1:01:33] Speaker 1: keep up the great work.
[1:01:34] Speaker 2: I appreciate it's impactful. Appreciate it so well. What do
[1:01:37] Speaker 2: you want to leave the audience with? Like, tell them
[1:01:39] Speaker 2: all the information saw its Equity Now and then even
[1:01:41] Speaker 2: in school anything else you have coming up.
[1:01:43] Speaker 1: Absolutely love that. Thank you for the opportunity. Everything can
[1:01:46] Speaker 1: be found on my website Shamari James dot com, s
[1:01:50] Speaker 1: H O. M. A. R. I. James dot com, No Spaces,
[1:01:53] Speaker 1: Equitable Inc. My for profit Equity Now, my non for profit,
[1:01:56] Speaker 1: as well as my podcast. You can donate to the
[1:01:59] Speaker 1: non for profit. We do take donations. We love it
[1:02:02] Speaker 1: and please pull up on us. At the end of
[1:02:03] Speaker 1: the day, it's not just about money, like yourselves. When
[1:02:08] Speaker 1: these scholars and other individuals, even twenty thirty year olds,
[1:02:12] Speaker 1: when they see you, they can believe it is what
[1:02:15] Speaker 1: they can become. Right, So, if you want to see
[1:02:18] Speaker 1: Shamari James dot com. We have an entire community. It's
[1:02:22] Speaker 1: called Equity Now, the Network Equity nowthnetwork dot org.
[1:02:25] Speaker 2: Join us.
[1:02:25] Speaker 1: We about eleven thousand members strong. More love. We had
[1:02:29] Speaker 1: about three hundred and fifty members. We came back from
[1:02:32] Speaker 1: a vestvest we jumped to ten thousand members. So all love,
[1:02:36] Speaker 1: so please Shamari James dot com. I do coaching. We
[1:02:40] Speaker 1: have a curriculum. We have kid workbooks as well as
[1:02:45] Speaker 1: we have a financial education curriculum for children and families.
[1:02:49] Speaker 2: You have ladies and gentlemen. We'll see you guys next week.
[1:02:51] Speaker 1: Please please,

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