EP82(Revisit)-Helen Panos-Fail to Succeed: The Importance of Resilience in Education!

Herb: 00:00:18

Hello and welcome to Bringing Education Home. I'm Herb.

Kristina: 00:00:21

And I'm Kristina. And together we bring you experts and ideas to help you grow happy, healthy, successful families that are both inside and outside the box.

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Helen Panos is an accomplished educator with over 25 years experience in public schools.

She began Dynamics Learning eight years ago, which is a K through 12 nationwide tutoring, SAT, ACT prep, college application assistance, essay writing and academic planning company. With Helen's depths of expertise, she is able to provide personalized support and solutions for academic success.

She has up to 20 tutors on staff and these educators have various specialties. Currently, the company is 90% virtual nationwide. However, tutors can meet a child at their home or library in the metro Atlanta area as needed.

Welcome Helen. It is a pleasure to talk to you. As a married to an educator, I know how much fun that can be. So welcome to the show. Thank you for being here today.

Helen Panos: 00:01:29

Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate you guys asking me to be on.

Kristina: 00:01:34

You are so very welcome and I'm glad you're here because, you know, one of the way ways we met was I was on Helen's podcast. So eventually we'll get to that to say that.

So you can find us from me on her podcast and then her on our podcast and just, you know, really following along and figuring out what does this education thing mean? How can we really help our children and make sure we're giving them the best that they can get? So tell us a little bit about the passion.

We know you were in education, but why then did it turn into tutoring? Tell us the reason why this is all happening.

Helen Panos: 00:02:06

Oh, that's a good one. So around my 17th year, I have 25 years in the public school system. I and three of those were actually in the back office.

I'd been promoted to a 504, 504 chair and a gifted lead, but I was already doing the gifted lead actually while I was teaching. You know how that goes. Being an educator, you do extra jobs and get paid extra money, but there's no time.

Well, it all started really when they started really enforcing the testing as being the be all of everything. And so I said to myself, well, this is not really how kids should be learning and this is not how they're going to learn.

So I decided then I was actually filling in for one of my educator friends who retired and she was doing a Gig with a young man out of private school, and she was going there every day. And this private school here in Atlanta is very, you know, high in advance.

So there were two doctors, and they wanted somebody to pick them up from where the bus or the shuttle would drop them off and then take them home. They're busy. So we would, like, work with him for two, three hours.

And so I filled in for her one time when she was going on her retirement cruise, and I said, wow, you know what. What could it be like if I then multiplied myself multiple times and scaled it? So I was already thinking scaling the business immediately.

So that's really. Along with.

Coupled with the fact that the school system started putting so much emphasis on testing alone that that made me feel like, well, there's a lot of kids being left behind, so I need to start my own tutoring business. And I can pick some really great tutors to assist me with that. Yeah.

Herb: 00:03:51

In our pre conversation, Christina said, I might lead you down rabbit holes. And that one just threw up a big rabbit hole for me right off the bat.

So part of the reason we got into helping parents start to homeschool is that whole testing. So it's not just that they put the emphasis on testing, is they started teaching to the testing, and they stopped trying to educate the children.

So it's like they're not. They're not trying to get them caught up. They're not trying to help them learn how to learn.

All they're trying to do is get them to pass tests so that they can get their funding, so that they can, hey, I get this grade. And that schools can keep working. But what.

What happens is, because they have to be on this page on this day to get to this test, they're teaching to the tests. And if a child gets behind even a little bit on any subject, the teachers with the.

With the class sizes nowadays, they don't have time to come back and help the kids get caught up. So as soon as a kid gets.

Gets behind even a little bit, then again, they get more and more and more and more behind, and it gets more and more and more frustrating, which is kind of why we started doing what we do.

Helen Panos: 00:04:58

And so correct what you just.

Herb: 00:05:00

And so, yeah, for tutoring, if you do get behind, the only way to get caught up is outside of the school system. And we just want to take that one step further and take the kids out of the school system completely. But that is not an option for a lot of people.

Yeah. And so. So what you do, I can See is very needed. And so is that how parents start coming to you is because.

Helen Panos: 00:05:27

Yes and no. I mean I do look at test scores. I'll ask them to look at them because in a way test scores are good. They do. They're one part of the picture. Right.

But not the picture because that's a snapshot of that day, those hours. What if the child's not feeling well that day? Or you know, it could be test anxiety. I used to have test anxiety.

I remember that when I took the SAT and back then it wasn't like it is today. I just took it one time and I remember looking around and going, God, am I going to get this done.

It seems like everybody else is finishing before me. So we do SAT and ACT prep too. So I understand the three hour long test and there is a lot more anxiety today.

So I even help kids get in a, if they have to get a 504 plan if they have, you know, some type of medical diagnosis because parents may not know about the Section 504 plan under the Americans with Disabilities Act. So I, I was a 504 chair as well.

So all of my experiences I've put into my company in helping families progress if they're going to stay in public school or even in private. We do a lot in private. We've done homeschool kids as well because I, I've been in a homeschool conference before and I spoke there. So.

Yeah, so obviously a parent can't necessarily. There's pros and cons to everything, I think.

But like you said, I mean a lot of parents did go to homeschooling and, or because of the virtual component during COVID and I think they saw that they could do it if their jobs allow them to. I know my niece was homeschooled.

She was actually a hybrid kind of thing where my sister in law did the homeschooling and then she also went in twice a week to a school. So but yeah, that parent has to be very committed.

Probably can't really have a full time job that's really, you know, stressful maybe or they just have to be able to be very organized and right and, and put it into action because there is a lot to teach whether you're in public or private or homeschooling. And I just think yeah, you're 100% correct on. I don't feel like the test is fine, but I don't feel like the emphasis should be so much on the test.

And that's how they kind of came out striking pretty quickly. And if you recall, I don't know, here in Georgia, at least, they went to the TEKS evaluation for teachers.

And at that time, they really thought they were going to have this component in there. And they tried it one time and then it didn't work. They were going to have the kids evaluate us as well. And they had.

And it was such a chaotic mess that they had to rotate. You couldn't. You couldn't be in there while they were doing you. Right. They were evaluating you on the computer.

So somebody else would have to come fill in. So who was that going to be? Teachers are with their classes. Right. So you have very limited staff to do that.

So then they would have to try to rotate the counselors in there to do it. And it was just, they.

They threw that out the window pretty quickly because first of all, kids will say anything in there, probably about their teachers. And then I just. It wasn't. Whoever came up with that idea sounded good on paper, I guess, but physically and to actually execute it was a nightmare.

Kristina: 00:08:48

Exactly.

Helen Panos: 00:08:48

So that was all the emphasis of testing. That's how it all started. Yeah.

Kristina: 00:08:53

So many of the things in the public store are like that. You know, it sounds good on paper.

They think they can implement it, but when they forget to include the teachers in the process and like, hey, look at these logistics. That's not going to work quite the way you think it is, then, yeah, we can go down a whole rabbit hole there.

One thing I wanted to ask you, though, is that whenever a parent decides that tutoring might be a good idea for their student, let's say it's a student that's behind where they are academically, and they think, oh, well, I only want to do it one time a week. Is that. I mean, it always helps. But what was. What do you find is your sweet spot?

How many times a week tutoring really gives that child a chance to, like, catch up, because one time a week is absolutely going to help. But what's that sweet spot? How many times a week should they possibly be considering?

Helen Panos: 00:09:41

I think it depends on the child if they're really behind. Like, I think I got a call just recently where the child was two years behind in reading, and they're already, I think, an eighth grader.

And that is like a big, you know, red alarm to me. So somebody like that probably could help, actually do five times a week, to be honest, because the longer you wait, if the.

If the problem has compounded and this is what parents do, they wait, they Wait, they wait. They think it's going to fix itself and then it doesn't because they don't know if there's a disability or not or something else or there's gaps.

Like we're helping a kid up in North Florida, Fulton, here in Atlanta. And kindergarten year was probably the COVID year for the kid.

First grade, you know, the teacher loved him so much because he was so cute, the mom was telling me. And then they were having problems with the next teacher being there, not being there. So he got the grunt of all that.

And so now my tutor out of Alabama actually virtually is tutoring him. And they've, I mean, I picked up on the fact he had gaps. She was trying to hire me to come in and get him in a gifted program, actually.

And I said, I don't think so. So I thought, let's get the basics down first. So, yeah, so then she worked with him.

She's been working for him with him for several months and they're doing it this summer too, actually. So there's definitely been improvement and he just probably needed some one on one. But to answer your question, I think it depends on the situation.

Reading tends to take a little bit longer, but sometimes even math. I mean, we're working with a child who's a rising now He's a rising 10th grader. He's in the top school in the country.

It's a STEM school here in Gwinnett county, in Atlanta. And he's probably a little bit over his head.

I'm not even exactly sure how he got in that school because I think you have to be asked to be in it sometimes. I don't know how some of these kids get in.

So anyway, so she finally point blank asked my tutor, well, do you think I should put him back in the neighboring school? And my tutor says, do you want my parent and answer or do you want my teacher answer? And she said, maybe both.

And so they had a 45 minute conversation as to why she felt my tutor felt he should. He needs to go back to his neighbor in school because my tutor has worked with him multiple times on factoring.

And either there's an executive functioning issue there or something else is going on, because any kid that's just a little bit slow with repetition, they're going to get it.

But if there's some hidden thing that none of us know about yet and it's got to be evaluated, that's going to affect how quickly a child's going to pick up on something. Typically we do one Time a week. We do some two times a week as well.

If the kid is failing and has come to us halfway through the semester and we only have, like nine weeks to get him back up to a passing grade, then, I mean, we've even done one that was a 4.0 French. She got herself in on a virtual thing. She totally shut down. She wasn't doing anything. She was selling it.

And I get the call in the middle of November, right before Thanksgiving. And all this work, all these modules, all these tests she had to do were due December 9th. We only had about three weeks to get it together.

We got her all the way to a beat from like 30. But she was tutoring every day, maybe a couple hours a day.

Kristina: 00:13:07

Right.

Helen Panos: 00:13:08

To get it done. So it really depends how early we start, how far back are they, how many gaps are there? Yeah, the consistency is definitely key.

So that's, you know, that's why the. Depends on how far behind they are and if they want to advance. Because we also tutor to advanced kids. Right.

And we're doing that with a couple of them right now, actually.

Kristina: 00:13:30

Totally Makes sense. Yeah. And one of the things that, you know, I wanted to talk about a little bit is that consistency really is.

But then the other thing that you mentioned was that if you wait too long, and, you know that's a horrible way to say it, but if you don't jump on your gut feelings right away and get your child the help they need sooner than later, then that's another thing that really, really plays into all of this is because their confidence goes down because then the tutor or the teacher has to spend time building up their confidence again. You can do this. This isn't as hard as you think it is or as hard as it is in your head because you've been failing for so long.

So really making sure that you're taking that proactive approach instead of waiting until it's desperate.

Helen Panos: 00:14:13

Yeah. Because if they haven't liked math in a long time, then, yeah, you've got to work on that, too.

So that's why when people tell me, oh, you know, tutoring is going to be taken over by AI, I go, I don't think so. No. Because A, you can't really keep using all of it, what AI has.

And in fact, in fact, I got to deal with one right now that actually did use AI the other day with my tutor, and we caught him, but he's not admitting it, so I have to deal with that. That's my first time having to deal with that.

But, um, I'll save him from being thrown into ISS or whatever out of school suspension when he does it in school. So I will take care of it in the next couple days. But so I think, you know, it just, I mean, AI is fine. It's another tool.

I mean, it, it can help you if you get stuck in your mind about what should you say? I mean, but you need to write it in your own words because it's not like a teacher can't understand that a computer is probably writing this for you.

And there are just like you have turn it in where you submit papers to see where the plagiarism occurred. And high schools are using that. Well, there's, there's that tool for AI as well. So if they're using AI, we.

Anybody can detect that, because I hear Amazon's doing that with books. It's not a perfect tool yet, but they're probably going to improve on that. So either way, it's just cheating. It's not your work.

Kristina: 00:15:45

You're doing the work. Exactly. Putting your thought, your time, your messages in there. Yeah, absolutely. Now, a few words about Vibrant Family Education.

Herb: 00:15:54

How many entrepreneurs and business owners start out on this journey to make a better life for their family, only to find that it took so much more time and effort than they were expecting, that they had even less time for their family? I know I did.

Kristina: 00:16:06

At Vibrant Family Education, we want to help you reach your family goals while you're still building towards your business goals. We do this by bringing you the third leg of the stool to keep your family upright. Family education development.

Herb: 00:16:19

By bringing your children's education home, you will be able to model your work ethic and family values as you overcome obstacles and challenges to build your business.

Instead of learning facts to pass tests, your children can be watching and seeing the dedication it takes to build your business and the legacy you want to create for their future. They will be able to witness the struggles and joys, the wins and the losses, and learn from you how to persevere and grow in life.

Kristina: 00:16:42

Instead of waiting until you get successful to spend more time with your family, start with the end goal in mind and bring your family home. Instead of trying to repair your family after you reach success, let us help you start achieving your family goals from the outset.

Learn to be successful with your family now, and no matter what happens in the future, they will be better prepared for life. Especially after watching how you cared for and built not only a business, but a healthy, healthy, happy and successful family.

Herb: 00:17:12

We offer a wide range of Educational services, including how to easily get started with homeschooling. Come Visit us@vibrantfamilyeducation.com and let us show you how. And now back to our guest.

So something you said earlier about parents who during COVID started taking their kids out of school and that they didn't have time for that. That's actually kind of one of the myths that we break at Vibrant Family is it doesn't take school hours to, to educate your children at home.

So once you get it set up, there's, there's a lot fewer hours that you actually have to dedicate to the academic portion. But then you put so much more learning effort into the rest of what's going on, that reinforces it.

So, for instance, math, you start talking about math while you're cooking because there's fractions, there's additions, there's even multiplication of fractions. If you're making double portions, that's a piece.

So that's, that's why we do coaching of parents for homeschooling and how we get them started because, like, for tutoring, it's like, you can't just have a parent start tutoring. There has to be an expectation, a learning curve.

So we do that for, for our homeschool parents to, to help them understand what's going on and to, and to not make it like school because we're educating at home. So we're coming up with a different kind of a model.

So we actually, you know, yeah, we work on a different kind of a model where we're not trying to replicate school at home. So.

Helen Panos: 00:18:43

Right. I mean, I'm sure what you guys have there is really awesome because everybody's not organized. Everybody can't figure out how to set. Set this up.

So it's not, you know, taking up any of their time really. And I can see, I mean, I'm pretty organized, so I can definitely see that there's got to be. There's a way to do this.

And like you just said, you kind of multitask it, you know, or you incorporate it into your life as a parent. And real life, I always say real life experiences are terrific. I mean, that's where you gain the skills that public school can't really touch.

They, you know, I'm big on that. Talking about I do a webinar for study skills because, believe it or not, I mean, they're not going to teach that in school.

Herb: 00:19:30

The foundation of all of that comes back to as well is, is reading. Because if you can get the child to read and not just read, to pass a test and find out what dangling participles are and all of that vocabulary.

But if you can actually get them to start enjoying reading, then they can. They can pull in the stuff that they love and start learning on their own.

And so, so if they get behind in math and they can start reading about math and get caught up, if they get behind in social studies, they can start reading and learning on a different way on their own, instead of just having to go through the. The facts. So, so reading is, for me, for, for what we talk about is like one of the very, very key principles. And so how do you feel about that?

Helen Panos: 00:20:19

I agree. I just did a. And we can. I can send it to you guys as part of the free gift is a reading fluency, free PDF that people can download.

And it has strategies in there and how to do that. It has books that people can be reading and should be reading with their kids. And that's another thing.

I mean, I think there's all this push about let them be independent, let them be independent. But I think up to a certain age, parents still have to be there and get involved, and homeschooling is perfect for that.

You know, got to be able to ask them questions and you got to hear them read, because how else do you know there's a problem? You're just assuming they're reading it and understanding it, and they're not. But reading is the fundamental of all this stuff.

And the big push towards STEM is a little bit of a problem, forgive me, for anybody that wants to go into a STEM career, because the only way you're going to do well on an SAT and ACT and things like this are to be a little more balanced. And that's life in general. Right. It's great that people want to be engineers because we need them. And there's a lot more female engineers out there.

We just. Actually, speaking of reading, she got a perfect score of 34 on the ACT, or 36 on the ACT. 34 was her super score. She's an arrow.

She's going to go for aerospace engineering. She's in Texas. Wow. And so obviously she's got a pretty balanced brain there because she's going into engineering. But look at this.

She got a perfect score on the. And I'm sure that happened because she's been reading for a long time. And when I ask other kids, how do you. How do you do? How did you do on the sat?

Act? And you did it so balanced like that. The reading was close to your math score and yet you're wanting to be a math or a science person.

They're like, I've been reading since I was young. I like to read. I love to read. And that's how you do it. And is that not what we do all day long with technology? I'm always looking at articles.

How else are you going to learn?

Herb: 00:22:27

I mean, here's a really funny thing about the sat. There's actually three scores on the sat. I didn't find out about that until I got to college. At least there was when I.

Because there's the math and then there's the verbal, and then when I took it, there was this thing called the tswe.

So when I was a freshman going into college, I was trying to sign up for freshman English and they said, no, you got a 53 on the test of standard written English, which is the tswe.

So it got me out of freshman English and I got to step into higher level English classes right away because of that third test score that I had never even heard of. But my colleagues saw that as like, you don't need to take freshman English.

Helen Panos: 00:23:08

Yeah. And this is disappointing. They've kind of, a lot of them have removed the writing component, which I'm like.

And they're not grading against kids with spelling errors and things like that. Now. They stopped doing that a few years ago here in Georgia because they know that's what will mark them down in their grades. Right.

On a rubric is if they keep. Because I know even I taught gifted kids. So the last several years. And you know where they're going to lose points.

Not that they're all great writers. They're not. But where they're going to lose the most points is in their spelling, punctuation, grammar. And I'm like, yeah, but they're.

Now they're not even marking them down for that. So you're.

Kristina: 00:23:54

Yeah. Unfortunately, the school districts have kind of taken a stance of, oh, well, you know, they'll most likely be doing it on a computer.

The computer will check for all of those things. So it doesn't really matter if they can or they can't. And it's like, no, there's an issue with that. You have to have your basics down.

You have to be able to take care of that stuff because then the computer will be might be changing it. The spell check changes it to something that you didn't really mean. And if you don't even. Aren't even aware of it and then.

Helen Panos: 00:24:19

How do we even know Spell check is around for many moons to go. You know, years to go. Yeah, exactly. And then all these kids can't. And then they can't pass tests that they need if they go to med school.

I mean, not that they're probably testing them on, but if they have to write something like as a teacher, I had to write two different components on my, and you know, the big gase test that I had to take for, for even my specialist degree.

Kristina: 00:24:45

Right.

Helen Panos: 00:24:45

My EDS degree. So I did it with a broken hand and that was not pleasant.

Herb: 00:24:51

And that you said was, was in eighth grade and was two years behind in, in reading. That's actually a nationwide statistic right now.

Kristina: 00:25:00

Yeah.

Herb: 00:25:01

Less than, less than 50% of our graduating seniors can actually read at or above a sixth grade level. So the fact that you brought that up as a kid in eighth grade who was two years behind already, the parents didn't catch that.

That could easily go for another four years and they'll just keep pushing the kid through because they don't let the kids fail anymore because it might hurt their self esteem. As if, as if hurting their self esteem is more damaging than not being able to read properly, which is going to hurt them more in the long run.

A couple of years of self esteem issues in high school or being able read properly for the rest of their life.

Helen Panos: 00:25:42

Right. Yeah. I can't say I agree with everything the public school systems do, but I mean, yeah, there's, there's great stuff in homeschooling for sure.

And you, you, you know, as a parent, you get to know, I mean, and if you have your own business, you know what's important. I'm writing to this day. I'm writing blogs, I'm writing podcast notes, I'm writing the reading.

Actually, my tutor did this reading PDF that I'm going to give you guys to offer to your audience. She did it, but I also tweaked it along with my graphic assistant.

So we were tweaking things and I'm always looking at quotes and yeah, if I use AI, I'm still kind of redesigning. I'll say, oh, I'll take part of this and part of this and put it together, make it a different quote or whatever. So yeah, you're always needing.

I even was questioning her. I said, I know fall is not supposed to be capitalized. This is. I said, but I don't want people thinking fall is like tripping falling.

So I'm like, go ahead and capitalize it. Even though it's incorrect.

Kristina: 00:26:50

Exactly. Because you know, you're. There's a specific reason for doing it.

Helen Panos: 00:26:54

Yeah.

Kristina: 00:26:54

And most people, when they read that, they'll understand that, right? Exactly. Yeah.

Herb: 00:26:57

Yeah. And the entrepreneur model is also very important to us. And part of that is also how we. How we teach the children and how the stuff that we set up.

Because entrepreneurs are always working on personal development and business development. If you get into. If you get into it, then it's like, oh, man, I need to know how to do this for my business.

You try and get help, and it's like you end up having to take a class. And then it's like there's so many issues that go on up in your head with building your business that you end up doing lots of personal work.

Helen Panos: 00:27:25

Y.

Herb: 00:27:25

And so I love it. So if you start.

If you start doing that with your kids and teaching them that model while they're in school, as an entrepreneur, you don't have to teach them entrepreneurship, but teach them those learning skills that you are doing. And if your kid is watching you while they're at home doing homeschooling and you're modeling, hey, I have to learn stuff too.

And look at how I'm doing it, then that just brings the whole family into a unit where they get to learn and grow together because you're there.

Helen Panos: 00:27:58

So they. Yeah.

Herb: 00:27:58

So the fact that you said that is like. Is like another one of our core principles that we bring here. And so I thought that was really cool that, that you. You threw that in there.

Helen Panos: 00:28:07

And then I'll say I've written a resiliency blog. You guys might want to get that too, because I'm big about. That's a skill. That's not a skill that's going to be taught in school or any school.

Not even probably private school, really. And so the only way you're really. I feel like that's going to have to go back to the household is teaching resiliency. And so I did.

I wrote it magazine. I wrote it for them. It's a woman's organization, national women's organization. So I now have it as a blog.

And actually I'm going to be talking about that topic here soon on my Lunch and Learn too.

Kristina: 00:28:44

Nice.

Herb: 00:28:44

And resilience.

Helen Panos: 00:28:45

Yeah. And by the way, we're going to be talking to Christina on my Lunch and learn on July 31st.

Kristina: 00:28:51

Yep. We are in summer of: 2024

So, Helen, is there anything that we haven't touched on today that you kind of wanted to make sure that you touched on around the tutoring or you know, the resiliency, helping families build that in their children.

Helen Panos: 00:30:49

Well, everybody has to fail in order to succeed. So what I see see in kids is they give up too easily. And I hate to see that.

And then I hear parents who have 20 young, 20 something year olds and we were having a problem right. With that age group of 20 to 27 or so that are committing suicide. I mean, so resiliency, these kind of skills are extremely important.

And you're not going to get it from a school building, you're not going to get it from a private school, you're going to get it from your home life. Really. I mean, I think that's where we all learned it probably.

So I think what's happening is parents are getting too busy and then, you know, these other skills are kind of falling into the trash can. So I just want to remind parents about that. And really looking at the important skills to teach your children.

I also want to say that, you know, we advocate, I have an advocacy program too where we help advocate in the school system. If you're any of them are in a public school.

We help with 504 programs, IEPs, all that I understand 504s because I was a chair for three years on that.

So sometimes I have to get people extended time and I had to do that with the young lady I just talked about that was fell in her French class and was a 4.0 student. So yeah, there's, I mean there's things.

And plus we do the flip side where nowadays a lot of kids are advancing and they can do dual enrollment classes even in 9th and 10th grade and get credit.

Yeah, like I mentioned earlier, they may have to pay for that course, but the only way to not pay for that course is you got to take like an SAT ACT and score so high that now they'll waive that fee. Right. So we do a lot of academic planning as well. I believe. You see, I believe in being very proactive.

And that's what I like about what y'all said because so we added academic planning and we say you should really be planning as early as sixth grade because once you start getting into high school, it's too late to start changing the kind of subjects that you need to get. And counselors don't have time to do what we're doing, which is we give them an interest survey form, they fill it out.

Then my, my tutor Works with them on zoom to plan out their entire rest of their years.

We're about to do it with a rising ninth grader, but we say you should start as early as six because if we can detect other things that parents weren't thinking about, like a kid getting into a gifted program, we need to hurry up and do that.

Kristina: 00:33:21

Right.

Helen Panos: 00:33:21

Because it takes time to do that. And if they don't pass it, you might have one more chance.

If they're a seventh grader you don't want, you're not going to do it after eighth and ninth grade. Really? Yeah. So there's a lot of things that parents don't know about.

And so, you know, I say reach out if you have questions about even homeschooling because like I said, my sister in law did that and she did a hybrid kind of combination.

Kristina: 00:33:47

Awesome.

Helen Panos: 00:33:48

And my niece is going to be a realtor. She's just passed the Georgia State real estate exam too.

Kristina: 00:33:54

Excellent. Let our audience know where they can find you.

Helen Panos: 00:33:58

You can just go to info dynamislearningacademy.com and send me an email there or the website has a contact us. And so you go to dynamislearningacademy.com and I'm sure that's going to be in the show notes.

Kristina: 00:34:12

Absolutely will be in the Show Notes. Excellent.

Helen Panos: 00:34:14

And we're all over, you know, we have the podcast Smart Parents, Successful Students, and we're all over different social media platforms. So follow us there.

Kristina: 00:34:23

Thank you. Oh, yeah, I, I've enjoyed this conversation.

You know, kind of like real life of like what is schools doing and not doing that good for our kids, not so good for our kids, really Getting some educator points of view about how parents can really step forward and be proactive in their child's education. So this has been a wonderful conversation. Thank you for being here today.

Helen Panos: 00:34:43

Oh, you're welcome. And I'll say this. We all went to school and we all think we understand what school is like, but we really don't.

Only educators really know what's going on with these buildings, to be honest with you. You. So yeah, reach out to any of us because hey, we, we can tell you what's going on.

Herb: 00:35:00

And I would like to also thank you for doing what you do. So there's so many teachers that see these problems and don't do anything about it.

There are so many people who just talk about problems in society and what's going on and don't ever actually do anything about it. But you put yourself out there, you started your own company, which is a lot of work. It's a lot of hard. It's a lot of problems.

And so instead of just talking about the problems and seeing and not do anything, you put yourself out there. You are out there helping people. So in my opinion, you are a hero. You are doing wonderful work.

You saw a problem and are helping other people navigate it. So thank you for doing that. Thank you for coming on our show.

Thank you for being actually a part of the solution instead of just complaining about problems. And so thank you for being a hero.

Helen Panos: 00:35:47

No, thank you. That's very nice of you to say. I appreciate it.

Kristina: 00:35:51

You're very welcome.

All right, audience, as we're wrapping up today, remember to take all these gold nuggets that have been dropped along throughout this episode, and don't just put them in your pocket. Take them out and use them. Be the proactive parent. Be the involved parent.

And really make sure you're looking at your child's education as a best fit for you and your family. Getting the help where you need it, coaching, mentoring, tutoring, whatever it is to make your child happy, healthy, and success successful.

Until next time. We will talk to you later.

Herb: 00:36:19

Bye, everybody.

Helen Panos: 00:36:20

Bye.

Herb: 00:36:22

Hello, and welcome to bringing education home. I'm Herb.

Kristina: 00:36:25

And I'm Christina. And together we bring you experts.