Episode 74 | From Parapro to Teacher with Dr. Matthew Flippen

0:00 Across the United States, more than 1.2 million paraprofessionals show up for students every day, tutoring, supporting instruction, managing behaviors, doing whatever's needed. And here's what most people don't realize. So many of them want to become teachers. They have the passion, they have the experience, they have the calling. What they don't have is a clear, affordable, accessible pathway to make it happen. Until now. Our guest today has changed the game. Doctor Matthew Flippen is the founder and President of Graceland University, an accredited, affordable online institution dedicated to empowering paraprofessionals and support staff to become degree holding certified teachers and national leader in education innovation.

0:53 Doctor Flippen has guided districts across the country in transforming overlooked talent into high impact educators. Today, we're diving into how Graceland University is creating opportunity, reshaping the teacher pipeline, and honoring the people who have been doing the work all along. Let's get into it. Well, hello, Matthew. I am very honored to have you on the show today. What I would like to do is to start off with one of my favorite questions and that is tell me your story. Tell me a little bit about your background, who you are, what makes you tick. Tell us about it.

1:35 Sure, sure. I have a few ticks. But I'll tell you what. Yeah, no, it's great to be with you, Brandy. And I just love the work work that you're doing. And so honored that that we get to have this time together to talk about, Talk about hope. You know, my, my story is, you know, starts really with just having a, a really an entrepreneurial bent. I have a background in in business and have really worked the last 20 years or so really to just use the entrepreneurial gifts that God's given me in a way that blesses those that are in hard places. And, you know, part of that journey. And some of the most formative events that happened for me, you know, include when my wife and I adopted our twin sons from Ethiopia when they were babies.

2:28 You know, they're grown now, but but, you know, raising them and having them as part of our family is huge blessing for us and really connected us into an aspect of our culture that I probably wouldn't have known as much, you know, if we didn't have sons that were African, right? And, And so getting to be with their friends and seeing some of the struggles that their friends were facing, this expanded our understanding of this, you know, the challenges that especially that young boys have in, in our, in our culture today. And, and so, you know, that's been a, that's been a huge aspect of that. Of course, you know, the, you know, following that, I had the opportunity in, in 2010 to go to the country of Haiti and work there for almost 8 years.

3:23 And well, I tell you, you know, for people that have not travelled outside of the US, when you get the opportunity to go to a developing country, or in Haiti's case, a a very struggling third world country, you know, it really just opened your eyes about, you know, first how grateful we, you know, are to live in the United States, just have been born here where, you know, we just have lots of opportunities. And you know, the other thing too, is, you know, being in Haiti for that long and seeing some principles play out about how do you actually really help people move to a place of, of flourishing, right? And that of, of thriving.

4:06 And, and what I saw there was that, you know, we really need to be providing economic advancement opportunities, you know, for the poor, right? Because if we help people, you know, if the teacher man to fish or give him a fish, right? That principle when you really think about like how do you scale help in a way that can impact, you know, 10s of thousands, It really has to be through upskilling in some way. And so I saw that in Haiti was we were working in this construction materials company and just, you know, providing 100 jobs that then they would take their paychecks and support 20 people in their community. And it's really amazing to see what would happen. And so when I got to come back to the US and started looking at, you know, are there ways that the principles that I learned of being in Haiti, you know, are there ways that they could help challenges here?

5:08 And then seeing that there's this huge, you know, staffing challenge for, you know, the, the school, our school systems, right? I'd say our public school systems, but all, all systems in education right now are struggling to find enough qualified teachers. And so, you know, I looked at that problem with this lens of like, wow, if we could find people that we could upskill into certified teachers, degree certified teachers, you know, and if those people happen to be the working poor or single moms, you know, wouldn't that be a great way to address this issue? And So what a gift it was to realize that there are so many paraprofessionals, teachers, assistants, support staff, right? You know, just paraprofessionals. There's 1.2 million in our country. And so being able to like build Graceland University around their needs has been a huge blessing. And I'm still in formation personally, right? And but it's been just a huge blessing gift to get to be, you know, involved in that effort.

6:19 Yeah, that is amazing. Your story, really. Gosh, there's so much there, Matthew. And, you know, starting out with the adoption of your sons, that's such a fascinating experience to me. I was raised in rural, small town Illinois, very homogeneous. And something that I've always wanted to do is to do that missions work and, and to go to other countries and, and to do the things that you you spoke about, because I do think that we can learn a lot from going overseas and really seeing how blessed we are in the United States.

7:01 A mutual friend of ours, Doctor Toby Travis, you connected me with him when we spoke last, I believe. And he was recently on my podcast and he talks about the work he does with schools in developing countries. And it really changes your mindset when you see the abundance that we have here, but the scarcity mindset that many of the individuals in the United States haves. And then overseas, you see what scarcity really looks like. And when you go overseas and you've been to Haiti and to Ethiopia and different countries like that, do you find that individuals and those developing nations do?

7:46 Are they able to develop that abundance mindset? Oh, yeah, That's a, you know, that's a great question. I mean, you know, if you've grown up in an environment where scarcity, we would view it as scarce. But from your perspective growing up there, this is just life, right? And you know, one of my first trips to Haiti was just, I mean, my very first trip was only 8 days after the earthquake had happened there where, you know, 250,000 people were killed instantly. And I mean, half of everyone had, you know, had lost someone, right? And, and I remember being so struck by attending a worship service right in the middle of this of just the authentic joyful worship that really struck me like, you know, you guys just lost everything.

8:44 And yet here you are, you know, worshiping God in this just unbelievable way. And, and you know, and I went on to just notice that, you know, children in those in countries, they laugh and play. I mean, their, their toys are simple, but they are, they are having fun. I mean, they're, they're not well fed, right? They're all undernourished, but they, they still thrive in as best they, as best they can. And so, you know, I think that the, the mindset is really back to where does your hope come from, right. And you know, are you in healthy relationships, right? Or are mom and dad around you have a community that knows you and is invested in your success?

9:33 And, you know, and I, I see that parents in any country, any culture, any status, they want their children to do well and they will, and they will really always sacrifice for their kids to, to have better opportunities, you know, that they had. And I think that's true in in our country for the most part, and in, you know, in almost any country in the world. Yeah, and you and I have in common the fact that we're both faith driven leaders as well. And you know, the Word tells us that to live is Christ and to die is gain. And I think when we can have that mindset, we can get through any challenge because we have that hope in a relationship with Jesus Christ and that hope of an eternal home. This home is temporary, but we have that hope of an eternal home.

10:29 And if we know that that's where our high, our hope lies. But you know, I also talk about hope in terms of a system of hope. And you know, that's kind of where that mindset piece or that optimistic outlook comes from. And with your optimism, where, where do you derive your your mindset and your optimism? What really colors your perspective on life? Yes, yeah. And it I mean, it definitely is my relationship with Jesus. It's the start of that. And but you know, I think there's, I think there are, I'll call them like long term hope, like where will I go when I die? There's that level of hope.

11:14 And then there is a then there is a hope in the day-to-day, right, That you know, that God will direct my steps and my path, that he will give me favor, that he will work challenges for my good and that if the doors close, another will be open. So there's a lot of ways that I take that into the day-to-day because there are day-to-day struggles that are real and hard, you know, the loss of a loved one. And, and so how do we make sense of that? And, and for me, it comes in this hope, this hope that there is a plan that is for my good.

11:55 And in that I'm going to walk into that, whether it's a hard day or a, you know, a high on a mountain or a, or a valley. Yeah, for sure. And I think, you know, Brandy, it's part of what we have really intentionally tried to do with the design of like our undergraduate program in education, right? It's built for paraprofessionals. But you know, we found that that the population of paraprofessionals for the most part, carries a lot of fear because of because of the hard life that they've had, right? And circumstances not of their own fault in many cases have just really beat them up.

12:42 And so, you know, it, it was very intentional the way we thought about, you know, if you're going to overcome fear, right, You the best way to do that is with hope, right? But, but hope also has to be very practical, like you said, has to be a system, right? So it starts with, you know, how hard is the application process, right? Well, in our case, you know, it takes like 7 minutes and it's free, right? You know, and, and seven minutes to get all the way through to enrollment, right? Not step one of 10. And so, you know, and why do we do that? Well, we, we know there's many of our students are single working moms.

13:26 How much time do they have? They got about 7 minutes, right? So you know, and then when you go through what are the first couple of courses look like, how do you rebuild confidence? You know that 45% of our students had really hard high school experiences and So what was going on in their personal lives limited their learning opportunities. So we want, we know that they need remediation, but no one wants to hear you need remediation. That's not dignifying or encouraging, right? So we design it into our curriculum, but we don't talk about it from that standpoint. We want people to feel empowered. So if we've got to rebuild your basic math skills, well then let's frame it as, hey, you're going to teach elementary kids. So let's start with elementary math, how to teach elementary math.

14:23 And you know, and again, that's a system where we, you know, I'll do a survey when I talk to groups of paraprofessionals and I'll say, you know, how many of you are confident in your math skills? You know, no hands go up, right? But how many of you can build relationships with any child? All the hands go up and I go, really, that is the number one ingredient of a great, a great teacher. So they come to us with no math confidence, basically. But after a couple of courses we say, how's your math confidence? Oh, they're like, I've gotten A's in my classes because we're very intentional about the design so that they would build confidence. Because confidence, you know, your confidence to experiences increases your level of hope.

15:11 Right, right. Yeah. And I, I love what you said about empowering them. You know, there are so many scriptures in the Bible that tell us to be encouragers. It the Bible instructs us to help those that are poor and they are broken hearted. There's there's passages in Psalms. I think of Psalms 147 three who says he heals the broken hearted and he binds up their wounds. The promises that we have in the word of God are vast. And I think what you've done is you've taken those promises and that hope and you've put it in action at Graceland University and you are giving these individuals A pathway to have a better future, to find that hope in the hard times and despite of the hard times and to have a better future. Now I will tell you there, and I'm sure you've heard this and I'm sure you've addressed this in the past, but there are those educators who feel like these alternative programs are or these non traditional programs are not as rigorous and they are not equipping individuals to be the kind of educators that we need in today's schools.

16:42 What would you say to those individuals, Matthew? Yes. Well, I would say that that is true, right, in, in most cases. But I would also argue that traditional higher education is also not equipping when you look at the stickiness of the graduates, right. What is the, what is the turnover in the first couple years, whether it's, you know, from Texas A&M University where I graduated undergrad or others, right? It's the statistics are not, are not very good. And so, you know, when we looked at and I actually got to do a decent amount of my dissertation research on why is the turnover problem still an issue? Because we've been researching this for, like, 40 years, right? And all kinds of things have been tried. And I mean, things that we're recycling ideas were some of us not Graceland, but others are recycling right now, even promising that, you know, it'll fix the issue. But, you know, children have a lot of needs today. Yeah.

17:51 And, you know, what's the best way to predict if someone is going to be a career educator? And so, you know, there's a lot of debate over that, but I would actually say, well, it's if they've worked with kids for five years or more and they still want to do it right. And most people would say, oh, well, sure, yeah, if you've done the role. Well, that's why we love the paraprofessional teacher assistant because they have an average six years of experience. They've done it for $12.00 an hour or less. Yeah. And so, you know, for us, it's like, you know, they've checked the heart and the grit box. And so if you take this, I have heart and I have grit.

18:33 I'm here for impact, right? I'm not here for the money. My why is like real high. My ability to relate to the hard stories of the children in the classroom. Man, I, I, I lived that hard story. So yes, I can do that. So then what are you missing or you're missing content and pedagogy? Well then we should be able to teach you that, right? And because you can apply what you learn instantly, because you're already working in a school, the ability for you to be kind of in residency while you're in a four year degree program, there's really no better way to prepare an educator than that. You know, because they're already working as a paraprofessional, they're already used to the salary and all that.

19:23 Then there's not a need to add on a real expensive, you know, grand or supplement or residency, you know, typical kind of residency program. But you know, people do ask us like, well, is Graceland a good program? I'm like, well, how do you define good? It's always my response. And they're like graduation rates or placement rates like, hey, that is great. So because of our intentional design, you know, our retention rates are 92% right now. That is impressive if we were just taking on traditional students.

20:05 But the fact that the majority of our students are low income single moms with significant trauma in their background and we have 92% retention rates. There must be something very special about our design. Now, some would say, well, maybe you just made it real easy. I'm like, well, if it was too easy, they wouldn't be successful in their certification exams. So what's our pass rate on our certification exams? Almost 100%. Well, how can that be? Well, because we structure and require preparation for exams. We sequence the preparation of those exams very intentionally. So again, we're back to building confidence and skill success go on to the go on to the next one.

20:49 So the last measure I would say is like what's your placement rates? And like, well, on this one, we've we've hedged a little bit because we recruit people through school districts that say, I got great people that want to be teachers, but they they don't have a path. We're like, well, hey, Graceland can help them with that. So you nominate them. You know, Brandy, you go into your school system, you tell us which paraprofessionals you want to become teachers. We will upskill them. And then what happens? Do you think when they graduate you hire them? That's. Right. Right. And so we had 100% placement rates of our first graduating class, which again, you know, is a little unusual.

21:33 Yeah, but that is really the model. The model is meant to say, hey, school leaders, you've got great people, you know who they are, send them to us for $100 a month. We will upskill them into degree certified teachers and they're going to come right back in your system and continue to be the educator that you saw. And This is why you recommended them to us. So it's really, it's really a beautiful system that really leans on encouragement in the process. You know, any encouragement is a, is an expression of hope really, right. You know, So it's really, really fun to get to be part of part of this.

22:15 Yeah, it. You know, I love what you said about the fact that your students come to you with the heart and the grit, and then Graceland University gives them the hope of becoming a teacher of a better future. I during my superintendency, I can think of several people that were paraprofessionals that wanted a pathway to become a teacher, but there were so many obstacles. Sure. Time, the the money, those are the two biggest factors that they continued to fight against with the obstacles. And this is a a very practical and simplified way for these paraprofessionals to have hope in becoming what they want to become, which is a teacher in many instances. Great, great work on that.

23:10 Now I'm wondering, as you are thinking back over your life, you've talked about your students having trauma and having difficulties. And I do believe by the way, that that helps them relate to the most difficult students and to build relationships with them because they they've been where where those students are, they've walked that same path that those students are walking. So they have really strong connections with them, which makes them even better teachers. But for you, do you have any defining moments, maybe a time that you faced a significant challenge or an obstacle, and how you overcame that adversity? Oh, sure, I have lots.

23:54 I have obstacles I had to jump over this morning. But I wouldn't say all of those are character shaping in in some ways. Yeah. I mean, that's a that's a that's a great question, Brandon. You know, I think, I think part of, you know, what has helped shape, you know, me and in many ways, you know, one, I married my high school sweetheart, right? So we got married at 19 and we're on year 34 right now. And, you know, growing up together and raising our, you know, we have four children, so 2 biological children and then the twins that we adopted about 10 years later. And that experience has been extremely formative, you know, and for for me. And so in so many ways on the on the, the hard side, you know, my parents divorced when I was in high school, when I was a freshman sophomore year during that time period. And that was a really hard season. And, and so my mom had not been an educator, but thought that she would be able to provide for herself if she got her teaching certification.

25:07 And, and actually part of what we do with Graceland, I definitely keep her in mind because she was only able to teach her about a year. She loves children and she thought junior high would be the right age group. It wasn't. And she should have gone with the little kids and, and she wasn't successful. And it was really hard just to see her go from a failed marriage to a failed first attempt career a year later. Now, thankfully she was able to become a legal assistant and was had a had a great, great career after that.

25:48 But there were some design elements where I'm like, yeah, we can fix that because I don't want somebody to have the experience that my that my mom had. A lot of our students are single parents, you know, and I don't, I don't want them to have any way that they can fail if they'll do the work right. And and so that that was extremely informative for me about how we've designed elements of Graceland. Yeah, and that early story. How old were you, Matthew, when your parents divorced? 1515, yeah. Yeah, you and I have a lot in common. I married my high school sweetheart. We're at 33 years.

26:30 Goodness, that is a long time to be married. But I, you know, one of my first define and why I started Spark Hope Edu was because of the death of my brother when I was 15. So we have a lot in common. And I think that those early experiences really shape who we become. And as you said before, God will use all things for the good of those who love the Lord and are called in accordance to his purpose. And it, it's a powerful truth. It's just a simple truth. And you have taken that experience and you have created something beautiful where you are fostering an environment where people can build confidence and connection and courage to go out in the world and to make a bigger impact.

27:26 And you're doing it all for the glory of God. Yes, exactly. Yeah, definitely, definitely. The whole thing, it is really a beautiful thing, and I know that you have some stories of hope, fuel, leadership, some stories that maybe you could share with the audience from what you're doing in the mission field. Yes, yeah, yes. Well, education is a mission field, right? I mean, and yeah, you know, so now that we've got this undergraduate program established and we're we're growing our enrollment there rapidly, You know, we know that one of the big contributing factors to staff turnover is campus culture. And campus culture is most impacted by the campus leader. And so we thought, you know, if we're really going to address this staffing challenge and turnover, which, you know, ultimately effects student outcomes, right, we're really going to address that.

28:28 Then we've got to prepare campus leaders that are highly effective. In fact, we'd say they need to be transformational. And so I had a thesis, an idea after visiting with a certain number of a significant number of, of campus leaders that there's a model of, I'll call it servant leadership that leaders implement that can rapidly turn around campuses that are very broken. And, and so we actually started and we're about 3/4 of the way building a master's in transformational education leadership. It's specifically designed to empower future principals, campus principals with the skills to to rapidly turn around schools.

29:23 And so it's very interesting. I probably wouldn't surprise you, Brandy, because you're a transformational leader that, you know, as I've interviewed, you know, I mean, it will be ultimately 100 liters. They follow a pretty similar pattern. And I can tell you about Amber Shields as one that I got to interview last week. You know, she started with at an early childhood center that had been led by an A loving leader, a caring leader who had been there for a long time. And over that long period of time, children, you know, have changed over time. And the strategies had gotten a little stale.

30:05 And so performance had slipped. Culture had slipped. And so Amber comes in as her first principalship. She's young, she's excited, not respected, right. Culture was rough on her and, and, you know, they'd lost the principal they loved that had hired all the staff. And here she comes in and, and she sees, you know, there are things that have got to change. But. But the first thing that she did was that she took each staff member and had them meet her off campus at a coffee shop just to get to know them. Yeah.

30:46 And this pattern of taking time to get to know each individual person on your team is so important as a foundation because they got to see who she was. And she's a very, very smart, very loving, very authentic leader. And so over the 1st 90 days, she got to meet with all the staff. She got to really hear their ideas on hey, what what would make this better? She paired them to do some reflection, trying to increase everyone's self-awareness about where are gaps. And this basically follows a process of she she built relationships by listening right and learning.

31:31 They learned together like what needs to be the interventions, the new things that we implement. And then they set in place some, some, you know, I'll call them easy wins. Right. Where they could start celebrating success, you know, as you, so you've built trust through relationships, but now you need to have some action, right? And so you then you see some quick wins and some results and you get to celebrate those as a team. Now you're building more trust. Your skeptics are getting to observe you and they're like, OK, maybe this is maybe this person is for real. And over a two year period of time, they dramatically turn turned the campus around.

32:14 Numbers went up in all areas. Staff turnover went, you know, down to, you know, almost zero. And and that pattern, which I'll call kind of borrowing this from one of my guests, but listening, learning and then responding or implementing out of that foundation can really lead to great, great transformation. Yeah. Oh, yeah, completely agree. And it's so smart to start with the relationships because that is what truly matters. And I think sometimes in education, and I have been guilty of this in full transparency, you get so focused on the tasks and the things that need to be done, the compliance, the the requirements that the state puts forth and the list goes on and on and on and on.

33:11 But if we can focus consistently on the relationships, I think that is is what's going to drive that meaningful change. Because what people are seeing is that as a leader, you have vision and people need to see that vision and that value alignment. And then the mission of the organization and your mission as an individual helps you to walk that out day by day. And the more you do what you say you're going to do, the the clearer you are with communicating what it is that you believe that you're going to do. And when you keep those commitments, you're going to build that trust.

33:52 So it always goes back to the relationships every single time. Yes, yeah, absolutely. And the same is true with building support in the community among parents, You know, so, so important to really care about people. And I and I would say that if you are in a leadership position and you don't care about people, you really need to do something else, right. I mean, education is a people business. For. Sure. And I think many people, most people actually, they get into education because they do love people. They care about people, they want to grow people. But I also know that distractions get in the way. And if you are in a season, whoever's listening to this program right now, if you're in a season right now and you don't feel connected to your people, you're not loving your people for whatever reason, press pause. Take a step back and invest in yourself. Do something to recharge your battery and to reconnect with your values and your vision and your mission in life and in leadership.

35:06 And get back to that place where you love not only the people in the organization, but find some passion projects, some things that energize you and light you up in your day-to-day. And so that's the perfect segue, Matthew, for you to tell us what is lighting you up right now. What's your passion project? Oh, I've, I've tend to stay pretty passionate about what I, you know, I get to work on. Yeah, you know, the, you know, I just finished releasing a new, a book when with your talent pipeline and, and which is really just sharing the, the pillars needed to effectively grow your own.

35:50 And that's been well received and hit the number one list, which, which, which was, you know, very humbling. This new master's in leadership program, I'm very intimately involved in and helping with each course development. It's, it's allowing me to interview these great leaders and capture their stories that will all be integrated as case studies into this program. And then those are getting also added into a new book that I'm working on. That's the the the trust first leader, which will, which will be a playbook in a sense on how we as campus leaders or any kind of leader really can start to build those foundational relationships. And it'll probably won't get released till April or May next year.

36:43 But very, very excited about that. I mean, my number one passion project is playing with my grandkids. Oh yeah. But I can't do that and get paid so all. Right, I completely understand that passion. We have that problem as well. So for you right now, tell me what's giving you hope in the world right now. Oh, there's, there are, there is a movement going on right now. I really see, you know, there I've had friends reach out and just talk about their, their renewed hope, their renewed faith. And there's a lot of hard things going on in the world, but this spirit of hopefulness is moving in the in a really in a really powerful way.

37:38 I'd also say that down in the like the very micro level that watching my twin sons be 18 year old independent young men who are very faithful, very moral and how they invest in relationships gives me incredible amount of amount of hope. And so, you know, I'd say both, both sides of that are are true for me right now. At the time of this recording, Matthew, I have just released a spotlight on the Macoupin County CEO program. So it's a group of students who are in kind of an entrepreneurial program. Really the focus of the program is helping them develop life skills.

38:24 Some of them will become business owners, others will not, but they're learning about things like self-awareness and relationship skills and building their networks, just to name a few of the skills they're learning this program. That's great. And so through the Lead with Hope podcast, I have chosen to spotlight that program for the entire month of November. So if you're listening to this and you did not catch that, I want to encourage you to go back and to listen. I've spotlighted the program. I have interviewed the former director of the program, students both present and former students. And like you, Matthew, the kids are giving me hope as well.

39:07 As a volunteer in that program, you know, they are wise beyond their years. And I do see that renewed sense of faith in this generation of students and that that does shine. A bright weekend of hope for our future for sure. Yes, absolutely. I love that you're doing that. Yeah. So you have a lot going on. And just as a brief recap, you know, you've talked about just giving hope to those students who want to go from paraprofessional to teacher. So if somebody is listening today and they might want to do a Grow Your Own program for their school or their district, how would they be in contact with you?

39:52 Yeah, I mean definitely through our website gracelandlynn.edu, I could e-mail info@graceland.edu and one of our team will help help them do that. You know the programs that one of the things that we felt like was very important in our design was that the programs not cost to districts anything. District resources are already, you know, thin and so. When we built tuition that it's only $100 a month in most cases for the, you know, majority of our students, it's really meant for the student to invest in their own future at a price that they that they can afford. So yeah, love to help anybody that's interested in that. Amazing program, completely affordable, and I will link your contact information in the show notes. So if you're interested, get in touch with Matthew and he will help you out.

40:47 And Matthew today I am honored to have had this conversation with you. So thank you for being on the show and let's stay in touch. OK. Sounds great. Thanks so much. Thank you so much for tuning in to today's episode of Lead with Hope, where we believe that leadership rooted in habits, optimistic mindset, purpose, and excellence can truly change the world. I'd love to ask you for a small favor that makes a big impact. Help me spread hope. Share this episode with a friend or a colleague who could use a little encouragement today. And if this conversation inspired you, please take a moment to head over and give the show a five star rating. It helps others find us and keeps the message of hope growing strong.

41:39 I'm also excited to share something new with you, the Hope Fueled Kickstart. This is a powerful short term, one-on-one coaching experience designed to help leaders like you reclaim your vision, reset your mindset, and reignite your purpose so you can lead with hope again. You'll learn more about the Kickstart program, just click the link in the show notes. Until next time, remember the world needs your leadership and change starts with you. Fuel your life with hope, embrace your purpose, and shine your light for others.