E5--An Interview with Dr. Joseph Goins, "Pass the Baton"
Episode 5: NewTech High Podcast / Blog
Good afternoon, Everyone!
October 1, 2025
We had an exciting podcast this afternoon with Dr. Joseph Goins and Tom Ahern from Pathway to Careers, or P2C. If you would be interested, you would be able to get some ancillary benefits that other schools just do not -- volume pricing, PD, etc. I would say it is because NewTech High has been working with P2C for almost two years to gain momentum in Minnesota. This is because it is a great product that meets several components of change, innovation, relevancy and engagement. At minimum, P2C is an exciting product that you all should take a look at. At the end of the session, it was great hearing from Bob Wedl, former MDE Commissioner and Jay Haugen, former Minnesota Supt, in their testaments to personalized, student-centered practices.
Next Podcast: Tuesday, October 7, 4:30pm
Cory Steiner, Fargo Public Schools Superintendent. The best way to introduce Cory, who is a national leader in personalized, competency-based learning, is by sharing this video from a year ago. To be honest, I could probably just turn it over to him. If you watch this, you will have a great leg up for next week. Keep in mind that the this will be at 4:30pm on Tuesday.
Pass the Baton
On Monday, I was in the Metro area for a couple reasons. First, I got to spend time with Jose Perez and Julian Spencer, of the Good Trouble movement. The Troublemakers are in a handful of high schools in Minnesota with the purpose of bringing out student voice. Later that evening, I was at a celebration for Ted Kolderie, one of our key partners. Ted has been a tour-de-force in many facets of Minnesota life for a long, long time. He is turning 95 soon and is still quite prolific.
Listening to all the testimonies from Ted's work across decades and decades, I was taken by the idea that many of us in that room were my age or older. Jose and Julian were there, and a few others between us, but 90% were people that were leaders in Minnesota innovations like PSEO, Charter Schools, equalized funding, personalized learning, etc.
I was reminded of the importance of us having a sub-goal of replacing those of us that have fashioned ourselves as voices of their generation in education. There were several folks there that worked for long periods of time about making their schools and districts more effective through personalization and building student voice and engagement. That is actually going to be one of my focal points, too, as I started thinking about how many of the conversations that I've had with many of you in the first three months. I'm reminded how already, there are great things happening. Who of you is in this to not only lead your local schools, but also has the energy and bandwidth to become a leader of other educators and schools?
When passing a baton in a track meet, the sender and the receiver need to be in sync. There are times when the baton pass doesn't work usually when one of those two in the exchange is not on the page with the other. Just as teachers pass batons to students, and admins pass batons to teachers, we also need to have influencers that we are paying attention to that can help us to take that baton. This can further the ideas of personalization, student voice/choice, relevancy and engagement.
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