Get to Know Our Ambassador

Transcript

 ”Welcome to Blast the Airwaves with Blast Intermediate Unit 17. Here at Blast Intermediate Unit 17, we strive to transform lives and communities through educational services. On this podcast, we will provide you with educational solutions for all, no matter the learning environment. So teachers, administrators, caregivers, what are you waiting for? What would happen if we started questioning what if? What if we had a positive perspective on education? What if we flipped the switch on education? What if we were the solution?”

“Today we have the pleasure of speaking with Jess Durn, one of our BLAST ambassadors here at BLAST Intermediate Unit 17. Within our organization, Jess serves as a school psychologist. Jess, thanks for joining us today to discuss your role within the organization and your experiences throughout the ambassador program. Are you ready to blast the airwaves?”

“I am, thanks!”

“So why don’t we start here by telling us a little bit more about yourself and your role within our organization.”

“I have had the absolute pleasure of working at the IU for 20 years. So, I was hired in 2004 as a school psychologist and I have been able to work within this role throughout all four counties in our IU. My current role is I am the lead school psychologist and so that gives me the great pleasure of being able to do case consultations and making sure I can have our entire IU psychological staff all set up for all of our services throughout the four counties, specifically on a day to day basis. I have the pleasure of working in the Early Intervention clinic evaluation team, and so our team is composed of occupational therapists, physical therapists, speech and language therapists and a special education teacher. We see young children ages two through five, and we evaluate them to determine if they’re eligible and in need of specially designed instruction. I also have the pleasure of doing evaluations in school districts, as well as our non public schools, and so I get to see students that are then ages 6 through 21. I’m also the lead psychologist for conducting independent evaluations. I have the pleasure of supervising our interns, and I also get to be the liaison with PATTAN, and I lead the regional school psych. So every school psychologist that works within our four counties comes together, and I get the pleasure of being able to facilitate that and bring our group together a couple times throughout the year. So,lots of different hats to wear, all of which I love.”

“That’s fantastic. We’re so thankful for everything that you do for us and for our regions and even, you know, the state as we look at this too. So we spent a lot of time within the ambassador program discussing the Intermediate Unit as a system and how our system impacts and collaborates with other systems. Intermediate Units, like you’ve just explained, are unique in many ways. Can you share with our listeners why you chose the Intermediate Unit lifestyle or life and what you enjoy most about working at an Intermediate Unit?”

“Absolutely. One of my most favorite things about working in an IU is that no day is ever the same. It allows us to be and requires us to be highly flexible. It really gives us the chance to help students and staff and parents from all different areas, not just the area in which you live. On any given day, I can be traveling across 4000 square miles. I can see children that are two or 21. There are very few jobs that give you that range. I don’t just get to work with students, I also get to work with all different kinds of staff. One of the things I love is I get to see the best of what’s around. So I’ve had the opportunity to work in at least 15 of our 19 school districts. What a joy to be able to see the amazing things that are happening in curriculum and teaching in different classrooms and elementary schools and middle schools and high schools and preschools and a great way for us to be able to share ideas. There’s just so many opportunities within the IU and I love that I get a chance to tap into it.”

“ Yeah, it’s one of my favorite things too, that no day is the same and every day, every year you’re learning, right? So, you know, whatever year you’re in, it’s still like your year one, because it’s something new and refreshing every, every day.”

“Yeah, that is absolutely awesome.”

“So now that we’ve established your why about the Intermediate Unit, you are a school psychologist, so why did you choose this specialty area and what advice might you give to any listeners who are looking to get into your area of expertise? I know you can probably go on forever on this, you’re so great at what you do!”

“Well, honestly, I started in education. When I went to undergrad, I completed a BA in psychology, but I also got my teaching degree in social studies, secondary ed. So, I did student teaching at a lockdown facility in South Dakota for Native American criminals, so I lived there and worked there. I started in the field of education within the classroom and I never knew how foundational that would become to my experience as a school psychologist. I went on to graduate school to become a school psychologist, but I also triple certified, so I became a school psychologist and elementary school counselor and a secondary school counselor. To become a school psychologist you need to complete an internship and the internship is a very rigorous experience.I now full circle have the joy of leading current students who are becoming school psychologists. The internship to become a school psychologist is typically between 13 and 1500 hours so I was known as “Durn, the Intern” for a very long time. I knew that I had this heart for school psychology and having all these other areas of expertise in school counseling, as well as teaching really helped me be a better school psychologist. Even with that said, I still didn’t feel like I had all the equipping that I needed to help students and teachers the most. So I continued on to get a doctorate, and that doctorate is within the field of school psychology. Then I specialized in neuropsychology and learning disorders and also became a supervisor there. Each one of those experiences and internships, both educationally and medically, have really helped me have a global comprehensive look at how we can best help kids, families, students and schools and when we have that systemic approach, it really is able to give us the greatest success. In terms of anybody looking to move forward, you do not need to do the 13 full time years that I did. It is a huge commitment to become a school psychologist, and so right now, the need is very great within the field of school psychology, so there’s great job stability. There are now even grants available that we are able to offer interns, and so you are able to be paid to be an intern. We just love having interns and training interns and bringing up the next rank of school psychs.”

“You learn something new every day. I’m still stuck on the fact that you were in South Dakota! I had no idea. That’s so intriguing to me in that field of work and where you were located. Thank you for sharing that. The other thing through our ambassador program, you get a chance to shadow a mentor outside of your division or your program and get to know another pillar of our organization, which I assume is pretty exciting because it’s something outside of your day to day. So I’m interested in who or what did you choose to shadow and what did you notice or learn about that day?”

“I had an amazing shadowing day, and I actually got to sit with two different departments. I, like my training, couldn’t just pick one job to do when I went to school so I couldn’t just pick one person to shadow.”

“Of course not.”

“I had the opportunity to be with Morgan Whitteker in communications. She’s our communication specialist at the IU and what an absolutely amazing time I had with her. She is so passionate about her position and one of the things I loved and learned the most from Morgan is just, she is incredible and we’re incredibly committed to sharing out the amazing work that our organization is doing. So often within the IU, it’s easy to become an island and just know the one thing that you’re doing. Morgan is kind of bringing all of that, those individual islands together and showing us all how beautiful it is in each of these places that we’re working and just how it all comes together. The other thing I learned about Morgan was she is incredibly trained, talented, and organized. Her spreadsheets were impressive and really helped me see how she keeps the wheels on turning and just a great organizational lead within the field of communications for our IU. We are really, really fortunate to have her.”

“Yeah, absolutely. I couldn’t agree more. And then you also got, like you said, you went to two places. The second placement was where?”

“So then, like I didn’t already have the most amazing time with Morgan, I got to have another amazing opportunity within the field of our technology department. Mr. Tim Confer is the Director of Technology and he really spent so much time with me and not only with me, but also with his staff and his team, which are very talented. Not only did they talk to me and show me the things that they’re doing but they also took me on tour. So I’ve worked in the same building for 20 years and they showed me the things that are new in our buildings and things that I didn’t even know had been updated. It was super exciting to see that new conference rooms have been updated with incredible technologies. We kind of laughed, I said, the last time I was doing a presentation, I had to ask somebody, where was the HDMI cord? And they were like, Dr. Durn, we don’t use cords anymore, you can just click this button. I was like, wow, that’s incredibly user friendly and it’s really efficient for their staff that no longer has to babysit the technology within the rooms because the technology is so capable in and of itself. So I had a tour of the server room, I had a tour of the updated conference rooms and the amazing technology and I learned acronyms like our RWAN from Mr. Paulhamus and the amazing team that he has using voice services and things that some people might not think are very important, but just use of our technology and how it reaches far and wide was incredibly impressive. Really, one of the absolute highlights was meeting with Mr. Eric Budd, who is a programmer. So it was kind of like meeting with the Wizard of Oz because I use the programs that he works on. It was wonderful to see him and to share the background and the why of how things are designed in the programs that I use on a daily basis, such as DARTS. Eric was really, really exciting and for us to communicate at how we each use the same program, but in such different ways. Then lastly, I met Zakk within the technology department and he got to show me some of the amazing websites. It’s a website that he and Eric are collaborating on and they just looked absolutely beautiful and were incredibly user friendly and I couldn’t wait to see his next project.”

“For our listeners, Eric Bud might sound familiar because he was an ambassador in our last cohort. So he also has a podcast episode and talks about what he does on the daily, which is very different from what you do on the daily. It’s nice when we have these opportunities to go cross divisional and learn from one another to be advocates and share our stories across platforms.”

“So we had an amazing day. We already found things that we could collaborate on and improve. We made changes for things immediately that made life better for our entire team that I work with and it was just as a result of the shadowing opportunity.”

“Yeah, that’s awesome. So this is, well, I was going to say now this is time for my favorite part, but before we get to my favorite part, I do want to ask you because each year we do run this ambassador program and we start a new class of ambassadors, can you share your biggest takeaway from this program so far?”

“There’ve been a ton, but if I had to pick just one, I would say it’s such a wonderful opportunity to see how your small piece fits into this big, beautiful puzzle that the IU is. I really love seeing how it’s all connected.”

“ Yeah, that’s a fantastic takeaway. Oftentimes in our busy worlds, we don’t stop to really think about that and acknowledge the small piece and see the intent of our work and recognize the impact, so I’m glad you had a chance to sort of see that.”

“Me too. Thank you!”

“Now it’s time for my favorite part, which is Blast Five, and basically I’m going to blast five questions at you and you just quickly answer. These are all related to self care or just some random fun facts. Our listeners get to know you outside of the workplace too. So what is your favorite genre of music?”

“I’m a diehard groupie for the Dave Matthews Band. I just finished my 45th concert.”

“Whoa, again, another thing I didn’t know about you. That’s awesome!”

“What is your favorite read? It could be a genre or it could be just a specific book.”

“I’ll be absolutely honest with you, at this season of my life, the reading that I’m doing is all with my nine year old son and we absolutely love reading together. We’re currently reading a book about Anne Frank because we were just in Amsterdam. We are loving this book that we’re reading about Anne Frank right now.”

“She has a great, phenomenal story, too. What about your favorite Netflix or TV show?”

“Last time I turned my TV on, it told me it hadn’t been turned on in six months, so I’m really bad at watching TV. If I do get to watch something, it would be that our family likes to watch America’s Funniest Home Videos.”

“Those are really good. I remember watching those when growing up”

“Yeah, very old school.”

“What about your favorite food or restaurants?”

“I absolutely love Mexican! I even worked in a Mexican restaurant in the 90’s in Sedona, Arizona, so that’s where it all began and I’m still a diehard for Mexican.”

“Awesome. And lastly, do you have a favorite motto or quote?”

“Absolutely! Our family at home has a simple motto. We say, “work like a captain, play like a pirate.”

“Oh, I love that. I’ve never heard that. That’s perfect.”

“That is what we like to live by. So we really work hard but we also really play hard.”

“That’s great! Well, we cannot thank you enough for your time today. We know our listeners really enjoyed it too and hearing all your tidbits of information there. I’m sure they may want to connect with you further and so we’ll have your website up there as well as one of our ambassadors. If you’d like to learn a little bit more about Jess, please feel free to visit that at www.iu17.org. This has been a blast, Jess, no pun intended, but kind of a pun intended. Again, thank you for taking some time today to blast the airwaves with us and our listeners. It was a pleasure to have you on the podcast and take care and I’m sure we’ll be talking soon.”

“Thanks so much!”

We would like to thank you for blasting the airwaves with us today. If you like the show, please subscribe or leave a review. If you want to know more, check out www. iu17. org for further resources and show notes. As always, we want to thank you for what you do every single day. Remember, keep shining! We’ll be back next episode to provide you another educational solution for all as we continue to transform lives and communities through educational services.