Teletherapy for Children with Diverse Needs with Kate Eberle Walker of Presence

Kate Eberle Walker is an education industry leader, author, and working mom with more than 20 years of experience managing, advising, acquiring, and investing in high-profile education companies. Currently, Kate is the CEO of Presence, the leading provider of teletherapy services for children with diverse needs. 

 Previously, Kate was CEO of The Princeton Review and Tutor.com, and she managed strategy and investments for Kaplan, Inc. She has served on several education-focused boards, including Babbel, Barnes and Noble Education, Prospect Schools in Brooklyn, NY, and Testing Mom. Kate is a contributor at Fast Company and Forbes, and she is the author of The Good Boss: 9 Ways Every Manager Can Support Women at Work.

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Transcript

Alexander Sarlin: 0:05

Welcome to Season Two of edtech insiders, where we talk to the most interesting thought leaders, founders, entrepreneurs, educators and investors, driving the future of education technology. I'm your host, Alex Sarlin, an edtech veteran with over 10 years of experience at top tech companies. Kate Eberle Walker is an education industry leader, author and working mom with more than 20 years of experience managing, advising, acquiring and investing in high profile education companies. Currently, Kate is the CEO of presents the leading provider of teletherapy services for children with diverse needs. Previously, Kate was CEO of the Princeton Review, and tutor.com and she managed strategy and investments for Kaplan Incorporated. She has served on several education focused boards, including Babbel, Barnes and Noble education prospect schools in Brooklyn, New York, and testing mom. Kate is a contributor at Fast Company and Forbes. And she is the author of the good boss nine ways every manager can support women at work. Kate Eberle Walker, Welcome to EdTech. Insiders,

Kate Eberle Walker: 1:20

thank you, good to be here.

Alexander Sarlin: 1:22

It's great to have you here. You have such an interesting background, you have a business background, you have a degree from Harvard Business School, you've been a CEO at a number of companies, in a couple of sentences give us the background of what brought you into education technology in the first place.

Kate Eberle Walker: 1:36

Wow. It's kind of a random story. It was actually my love of newspapers that brought me into ad tech, I was very passionate about working in newspaper publishing. And I went to work for the Washington Post company out of business school, which happened to Kaplan, which was its high growth education services and technology company. And I found my way to Kaplan, fell in love with education. And the rest is history.

Alexander Sarlin: 2:06

That's really interesting. So it's sort of that corporate umbrella, you found your way in one section and moved over to one that seemed to be a great match.

Kate Eberle Walker: 2:13

Yeah, and I always did wish that I had a great story about you know, having than an educator myself or having an educator, family. That's it. The truth is, it was my love of journalism and my passion for that, that brought me to Kaplan but it's made me a believer and you know, you follow the opportunities you have, and it gets you to the right place.

Alexander Sarlin: 2:33

Absolutely. Do you ever find yourself using any of that journalistic thinking or your newspaper dreams in your current work?

Kate Eberle Walker: 2:40

You know, I hadn't thought of it. But often when people ask me for advice about what helps you be successful in business and running a business? I my answer is to ask a lot of questions. And if you still don't understand after someone gives you an answer, ask again and clarify, which is actually very journalistic.

Alexander Sarlin: 3:03

It really is. I learn more from these interviews than I think anything else I do in any part of the week and mainlining amazing information from amazing people. So let's talk about presents. Presents offers high quality teletherapy. It's a platform for mental health for speech therapy, occupational therapy, special ed and more. to schools and to children, you have a roster of more than 2300 counselors and therapists who deliver teletherapy to K 12. Students in school or home settings, give us an overview of what presence is about and the types of therapy you provide.

Kate Eberle Walker: 3:41

So presence, we like to say we are all about empowering everyone who serves children with diverse needs. And what that means to us is creating a better, more sustainable, more balanced way therapists to do their work with children in schools, particularly in special education programs. So we have speech language pathologists and occupational therapists and mental health professionals, school psychologists and you know, the work that they do is important, it's also very challenging, they often are managing caseload overload, they're often covering for others as well. And what we do is we come in, whether it's with our software platform that helps take some of the administrative load off of the work that they're doing helps ease the planning and the gathering of activities and assessment materials to kind of make it more efficient for them to do their work or whether it's through our therapy services business where we're providing a backup to the schools to help them support their on site teams. You know, we take that caseload overflow, we help work through backlogs of assessments we cover short term leaves when some More than the onsite staff is going to be out, you know, and in sometimes a whole lot more, sometimes we really become an ongoing, you know, hybrid part of the therapy team for school districts, we approach it as you know, whatever those special education administrators need, whatever the mental health counseling teams need to make it easier for them to do the work. That's what we're here for.

Alexander Sarlin: 5:24

It's a really amazing use of educational technology, you know, and I hear you talk about it. This is many types of specialized work, that are in all of these different schools all over the country. And schools often have shortages or extra needs, or people are on leave or vacation. And by sort of allowing Technology and Telecommunications to supplement what's already happening in the schools, you're creating this basically this enormous safety net for the entire system.

Kate Eberle Walker: 5:55

Yeah, I mean, it is just more and more pressing every year, the needs of children to first just be evaluated for their disabilities or needs, we're not getting to all of these kids. And then once they're evaluated and needs identified, they're not all getting the therapy that they need. And it's just harder and harder to be able to maintain a staff in the building, and a school to cover all of the needs and the needs can be diverse, they can be specialized, sometimes it's a matter of, you know, you can't necessarily cover every specific specialization or every language need, right. So sometimes it's about that it's about expanding the resource, expanding the expertise for any given location. And more and more often, these days, it's just about giving some additional, more flexible ways for therapists to do the work. I mean, not I think this probably resonates with, with most people these days, you know, not everybody wants to commute to work every day anymore. And technology offers ways to do more of this work remotely, whether you know, full time remote, or in a hybrid mode, just get, you know, giving that flexibility for these experts to work how they want to work is huge. It it, to me, that's a huge part of what we offer is we're giving another way to work that will keep more of these experts in the field doing the work in schools.

Alexander Sarlin: 7:26

Absolutely. I love that phrase, sort of expanding expertise, you know, for every location, and also providing a new type of remote option for this large set of different, you know, specialists in different fields, it seems like an idea that's time is perfect for right now, you know, it surprised me when I was doing some of the research about presidents because the idea of you know, personalized teletherapy for diverse needs, feels like very modern, it feels like something that would be, you know, raising money right now, because it's like such an idea of this moment, but presence was founded in 2009, it makes it actually one of the more established companies in the entire edtech space. So I'd imagine that schools and counselors are hungrier and more excited about this type of service than ever before. But you've tell us about sort of the history of presence and how teletherapy as an idea has evolved over the last 10 And obviously, especially two or three years.

Kate Eberle Walker: 8:23

So when presents was starting out, as you say back in 2009, teletherapy, for children in schools, especially, but really, at teletherapy. Anywhere was edgy, it was controversial, you know, there was a lot of skepticism, a lot of belief that it was sort of second rate or not as good. And you know, nobody wants to give children, you know, subpar or second rate services, right? So there was a lot, there's a lot of questioning skepticism, strong feelings about teletherapy. And it was really not very well known. Not a lot of people had experienced it. And there was just a natural belief that if the therapist was not physically in the room with the child, they couldn't possibly be making these connections and in driving the same outcomes as in person, and there was already in 2009, a lot of you know, very reputable research that had been done there. Were you know, there were a lot of white papers out there that validated teletherapy, particularly for speech therapy, which is what we started in, you know, reading a white paper versus seeing it for yourself are two really different things. And so, a lot of those early years the work was very centered in the districts, particularly rural districts, urban districts that, you know, just were so challenged even back then, with their staffing shortages or ability to hire and retain their experts that they were they were more open to up being innovative and saying, Well, let's try it. And once they tried it, they could really see those therapy connections happening and really buy in. And, you know, they were a huge part of that early growth for us. But it was still, in 2019, it was still a very, you know, edgy thing where a lot of district administrators would just say, Oh, no, we don't, we don't do a mine, or, you know, we don't believe in it. And COVID happened, and it forced innovation and creativity everywhere in schools, which always, you know, a lot of challenges come through it. But you know, some great learning always comes out of times like that. And that's what happened for teletherapy. With so many more people, I mean, really, you know, pretty much every district in the country had to experience some form of teletherapy. And people could really see that, you know, you can make these connections, you can conduct therapy, when you're in two different places, and you can, you know, evaluate disabilities remotely, you know, it was just really this huge jump forward and having people experience teletherapy. And believe in it, it was also a setback in some areas, because there was, you know, a wide range of how teletherapy was implemented and delivered, especially in that first year of COVID, when, you know, pretty much everybody was was rushing to figure things out and trying things for the first time, that ultimately created real opportunity for us to come out and say, you know, we didn't rush into this, we've been doing this for over a decade already. And not all teletherapy is created equal. And we started running these training these professional development courses back in the summer of 2020, we call the teletherapy, 101, where we would teach these large groups of district teams, how to approach teletherapy, how to adapt their practice that they you know, were comfortable with on site into an online world. And that that was really cool. I mean, it was, you know, one of those phases where it felt very intense at the time. And then like, there was so much to do, but it really felt like a having, you know, having been in this for a while by then we had we really had something to offer.

Alexander Sarlin: 12:22

It's really interesting hearing you talk about how, in the early days of teletherapy, it was really considered sort of a need it was for the early adopters were people who were in rural districts who didn't have the services on hand, and presence by building out its expertise by building out its technology, and working with the early adopters got more and more expertise in this in this particular space, which is you know, 10 years ago, yeah, I can imagine how confused people would be at the concept of teletherapy probably sounded like the Jetsons or something because it just wasn't around now we have so many providers of teletherapy, and all the different ways for adults, you know, and it reminds me of, I think it parallels online learning really well, because for a long time online learning, the early adopters were these special populations, they were, you know, the students who are out of the normal schooling system for a variety of reasons, sometimes in rural districts, sometimes student athletes, or actors or military. And some of the early players in that space really had to try to convince everybody that it was even possible to do online learning, just like yours, it was possible to do teletherapy. And those same early players, over time became experts. And then as the whole world sort of tilted that way. They had all the embedded expertise. It's really interesting. And, you know, looking at the now I won't say the end of COVID, quote, but looking at in 2022, at the current moment in COVID. Do you feel like teletherapy has now been completely normalized? Or is there still a ways to go?

Kate Eberle Walker: 13:53

Yeah, I don't think we're all the way there. I think what's come out in the, shall we say the late pandemic years, as opposed to the early pandemic is that, you know, there's really two things needed to, I think, fully accept teletherapy as part of school services. One is the comfort with the online interaction itself and the belief that it can work. I think we're, I think we're further along with that. It's not universal, but it's really a lot further, there's a lot more comfort than there was but the other piece of it is comfort in the I guess what I'd call a hybrid working model, you know, to really incorporate teletherapy as a solution. There's there's going to be some combination of an on site team working in the district in collaboration with tele therapists. And that has been our next realization, you know, like I was saying and 2020 we were looking at teletherapy and realizing well, we can help kind of teach the, you know, best practices for telethon. Okay, now what we're realizing is that there was something else that we had been working on and figuring out all of these years, which was how to work in collaboration with an on site team at a district, how to plug in these these teletherapy resources, these tele therapists, and, you know, have colleagues really and have shared working practices to, you know, serve a group of children with with some of your team on site and some not. And that's something that I think there's more work to do to, you know, get get everybody kind of, really into that model. I mean, I, I certainly believe that's the future if we want to, you know, be able to keep great educators in our schools, I think we've got to find ways to incorporate some amount of a remote workforce. And you know, I really believe in that, and they've come to realize that that's another skill set that that we need to try to help with across districts. It's not the same thing. And so it's easier to create one team and have them all be in the same place coming to work every day. But I think that's just not the reality of where we're at with staffing shortages.

Alexander Sarlin: 16:09

That type of, you know, blended environment or hybrid or a some universities call it high flex, that sort of flexible between both in person and online resources.

Kate Eberle Walker: 16:20

I hadn't heard that term. I like that high flex,

Alexander Sarlin: 16:24

I flex, yeah, it's becoming a norm in work. It's becoming a norm in university settings. It's becoming a norm in K 12. And I totally agree that, you know, having experience working in that particular type of collaboration is itself its own skill set. And one of the things that I find very interesting about prisons, you have a proprietary online platform designed for teletherapy called Kanga recently won a tech and learning award for it's different, you know, feature sets, personalized therapy game content. And I think that is a sort of manifestation of some of the expertise that that presents has built over the years, it's actually can concretize some of the best practices into the platform, which then allow collaboration, communication between all of the relevant parties, and there are a lot of them in special ed. Tell us a little bit about Kanga. What it does and how it works to make teletherapy easier for both counselors and providers and the students.

Kate Eberle Walker: 17:18

So Kanga is the result of you know, really what really Kanga started being built in 2009, it started as our internal therapy delivery platform, and it started out being very much focused on what do you need to make a teletherapy session engaging. So it was focused on this the interactive video and the multiple video views and mouse controls and the ability to pull in games and videos and emojis. And you know, it was it was focused on a lot of that feature set and and grew in that way over the years to pull in more licensed content from publishers, you know, anything that was popular with our clinicians, that they were going out and buying elsewhere, we were reaching out and licensing directly building it into the platform to try to build this one place where you could have everything that you needed to create an engaging session, then the next step of it was realizing well, now it has everything that you need for that actual live therapy session. But what about all of the many hours that teams are putting into planning for the therapy documenting the you know, what's happened When documenting the goals and tracking to them, scoring the assessments, right, you know, writing up those reports for the evaluations, and so on. So we, overall, these years, we're doing, you know, an incredible amount of now I look back and realize it was user interviews. At the time, it was just so much at the center of who we were, you know, we had this network of tele therapists who were, you know, as it turned out, over the years becoming, you know, this, this was just really the at the forefront of defining what teletherapy would be for school services. And we were talking to our clinicians all the time, and they were always, you know, there's just this live suggestion box that was always happening, it would be so cool if it could do this, if it could do that. And, you know, it's the combination of just, you know, 1000s of those those features and attributes and enhancements that just, you know, really stayed centered on this goal of like what, you know, anything that we can do to streamline the work of the provider or to have them focused as much as possible on that engagement with the student. We're going to build it in and then once we had that it was you know, a next step that made a lot of sense it was to say, Okay, if we have all of the clinicians who work at a district doing their work in the This way, we can keep track of the overall caseload and the allocation of assignments and the compliance tracking of the work for the administrator, which, you know, for them that that was really exciting, because, you know, they've been our partners and our clients all along. And when we started showing them like, well, you know, would this be useful for you to be able to click and have this all in one view, I mean, for them, that's just, that's just amazing to be able to, you know, whether it's in, in the work from their on site staff, maybe in the work from other agencies that they're working with, and then their presence therapists as well just have all in one place that that ability to, you know, click any of the parent calls and is asking about when their child last had services to be able to click one place and see, and read the notes and be able to say exactly what happened when and and that has become kind of a culmination of what can go can do.

Alexander Sarlin: 20:59

And that's really exciting to hear. I love that evolution of you know, starting with the therapy session itself, what can you do to make it more engaging, have more options for the therapists that make it, you know, the most effective experience possible during the therapy, and then over time, start to expand to this humongous amount of administrative work. And you know, it's funny, one of the things in in education, you sort of hear, no matter who you talk to is, we want to streamline the administrative work. So to get the professionals to be able to do what they do best, and it is, but when it comes to IEPs, and special needs, and compliance, and the highly regulated space, that is all of these services, it is the most you know, it is true beyond a shadow of a doubt, I'm sure that your partners and users were have been thrilled that you're continuing to move into the space to reduce the paperwork to reduce the amount of extra steps and extra clicks and extra screens, because I can only imagine how complex it is when you have individuals a lot of it. Yeah. So that's exciting to hear. And I think that's, I'm sure it's hugely meaningful to the whole space. I want to ask one more quick question about COVID. And we don't have to stay here because I know we've talked about it a little bit already. But, you know, one of the things that really stood out, especially in the relatively early days, the first few months of the COVID pandemic was that schools went into real emergency mode. And you know, they basically closed down very quickly throughout much of the US, they send kids home, they didn't have plans in place. And there was a survey in September 2021, from the New York Times that basically, the same 40% of kids in special education in that time hadn't received any supports at all. And you know, that's a lot of different supports, and only 20%, were receiving all the services they were entitled to. So that was you know, the first month back to school in that first year after the merge pandemic. And I can imagine that in a moment like that, when schools are just completely the whole system falls apart. Presents must, it must have been an amazing ly interesting moment to be at presence. I'm curious if you can just talk about what that was like, at that time. And then as COVID went on, helping, you know, literally be the backstop, be the safety net, for special needs services at a time when basically the whole system almost collapses at the same time.

Kate Eberle Walker: 23:17

So you call it an interesting time, I would say it was a terrifying time, the beginning, ultimately becoming this really meaningful and rewarding opportunity for us to really help. But at the start, we were deep in that experience as well of, you know, services just stopping. You know, I remember in March 2020, when, you know, everything started shutting down. And I naively thought for a moment, well, it won't impact us because, you know, all of our services are online anyway. And or therapists are working from home and they can reach the kids at home. But you know, of course, that was not the reality when when schools were closed, all services stopped. And you know, there was real confusion that it it took a while for the you know, the government organizations even clarify of you know, what, there was real questioning back then, would it be inequitable to continue serving the kids who happened to have already been set up on teletherapy if the schools weren't yet able to put in place the solution to serve all those other kids who had been receiving in person? So we had, you know, a significant number of our district partners who just stopped everything for a period of time, while they figured that out and figured out how they could provide, you know, universal solutions. And it was in that period of time that that really the idea for what became Kanga became a reality that was, you know, before we had thought about building something that would be for districts to use it you know, it started as well you know, We know how to do teletherapy. In fact, we have this great platform that we've built for our own clinicians to use. And, you know, be talking to our existing district partners about, you know, how can we help? What can we do? And, you know, started hearing from them like, well, you know, we know you're here for us, we know your providers are, you know, we'll get you back in service as soon as we can. But, you know, my real challenges, what am I, you know, I have my whole staff sitting at home, and I've got all of their students sitting at home, and I've got to figure out how to connect them. And that was kind of the light bulb, they're like, well, maybe we can help you with that, too. And that's, that's when we started first, you know, for free in that first period to offer partner districts giving them licenses and teaching them how to use the platform. So it was a while before services did feel fully back and stabilized. I mean, if even I mean, I think it's been a challenge all the way through to catch back up from that period of time when services had stopped and Assessments and Evaluations had stopped. And, you know, the next year that 2021 year was definitely a you know, feeling like a double duty year for everyone where, you know, most districts were reopening at some point in that year. And in we're getting back to providing service, but then they also needed to go back and you know, address the compensatory time and the backlogs.

Alexander Sarlin: 26:25

Yeah. And I mean, it's this moment where, you know, you've worked with relatively early adopter tele therapists for a long time and counselors who are comfortable working online, a speech language pathologist you mentioned were so your your first users, and suddenly, everybody has to be a tell therapist, they may have never done it, they may not believe that they certainly haven't taken your one on one class. And suddenly, they're one day they're in school, and the next day, they're at home, and they have to figure out how to do as much as they can, hopefully all of their work. In an online setting. Sometimes the districts don't have a solution. I can imagine that it was a, as you say, terrifying, but ultimately, also hopefully a little bit of an empowering time for them, where they realized, Oh, I've never tried teletherapy before. And now I'm doing it regularly. And I can see the results. And the platform is supportive, and the district is supportive. You mentioned earlier how one of the big, you know, outcomes of this time period is that people are interested in remote work now that we've all had it for a few years, even a lot of educators who've never had that experience before. You wrote a really interesting article recently for eSchool News called What if we gave every teacher work from home day, I want to quote you to yourself for a second there because I thought this is so interesting, quote unquote, educators want the same flexibility that's traditionally more available to those in corporate settings. In a 2021 survey, 15% of teachers said flexibility to work from home would make a major difference in reducing the likelihood they leave the profession. And you talk about the four day workweek for teachers, which is, you know, we've seen that rise in a number of districts. So give us your thoughts. You've thought about this so much. Tell us your thoughts about the future of remote work in the education field, whether that's for teachers, or counselors, or therapists, you have a lot of experience and I love to hear what you think is gonna happen.

Kate Eberle Walker: 28:17

Yeah, wow. So I'd start by saying that, you know, remote work is not going away. And if it I want to, you know, really help districts embrace it find ways to incorporate remote work, because I really believe if they don't, they're going to lose some of their best educators. And and I believe this because we are at presence. And I, you know, I know talking to a lot of my fellow leaders of other ad tech companies, we we are seeing an inflow of applications from educators who are thinking about leaving their work in schools to come work at a tech companies like ours, and they value the remote work so much that they're looking for that and they're saying, Well, I thought that I would build my career in a school because I care so much about impacting kids and helping kids but look at these companies, you know, the presence has a has a great mission, and it's actively working every day to help kids in schools working directly with schools, I can still accomplish those parts of my career goals, and I can work remotely so we see that really happening we see it in our own workforce and in our recruitment and in the the jump in applications, and that's great for us, but it really does worry me for schools and I think that remote work is such a big part of that that if there are ways to offer some flexibility and I do think that it can be this four day workweek I mean that's I wrote the article like get give a work from Home day, think about one day a week, how could you make that work? How could you split schedules on site? How could you allow for, you know, some remote engagement as well. I just think that's what people want. I looked at our therapists network. So everybody that we're hiring has worked in the school is typically coming from from an on site job in a school district when they come to join presents to do teletherapy. And you know, the big differences there, they're not going to work only remotely from home. And they're going to set their schedule, they're going to tell us how much they want to work. And so we look at what are people choosing? How much do they want to work, and I think it's really interesting. We have, so about two thirds of our therapists are choosing to work fewer than five days per week, and it's pretty evenly split, whether they're choosing four days, or three days, or two days or one, there really is just, you know, flexibility is the name of the game. And you know, people want different things they need and want to work different amounts, and there's no perfect formula. Yeah, and you know, that's still 1/3 of our workforce, do want to work full time, they just want to do so remotely. So I look at that and look at you know, what do people choose when you when you give them control, and you give them the choice. And I think it's just so clear that people value working remotely, and they value schedule control. And you know what I do, too, I work from home most days, and I couldn't imagine going going back to commuting every day. Yeah,

Alexander Sarlin: 31:37

I totally agree. And it's, I'm hoping that one of the real silver linings coming out of the pandemic era, we're late pandemic, as you mentioned, is this realization that not only is remote work, really exciting and valuable to people in many different job categories, it's long been a Gen Z preference, flexibility, people who work from home, but it's actually possible for some of the roles that people didn't think could ever work remote, like teaching and nursing and counseling and therapists that people thought this was a these were roles that were all about face to face, and now have to having been forced to do this massive social experiment, I think there's a lot more acceptance of the idea of a, you know, a four day week for teachers at whereas a few years ago, before the pandemic, I can't even imagine that being considered it would have been it's like would have been a political firestorm. It's fascinating. And I think it's really exciting. I think it's a good thing. Hopefully, it's a sort of equalizer in society, it shouldn't be that some people have to commute every day. And others get to work from home a significant amount of time, and it's often divided by, you know, income, that doesn't feel like a society, we should want.

Kate Eberle Walker: 32:55

Yeah, and it doesn't have to be either or, which is, I think, you know, how, how remote work was it was sort of, can this job be done remotely? Yes. Or no, instead of thinking about I mean, I do believe there are there are a lot of teaching jobs, in schools, where the in person time is important. And you know, maybe it is only one day per week, that that you can work at a scheduled can be flexible. And then there's other jobs, like like the therapy jobs, where it can be more remote or entirely remote. But I think that's the big evolution is just really, you know, thinking more flexibly about any job. And there's, you know, I would argue there's, there's elements of nearly every job where you could do it remotely. And in fact, that focus of you know, being in your quiet home office, not having, you know, been distracted or delayed by a commute that there are elements of almost any job that can be better done in that environment.

Alexander Sarlin: 33:54

Absolutely. So you mentioned the idea of sort of that the future will be hybrid, there'll be some instruction and counseling and therapy delivered online and some in person. And presents has such a rich history of figuring out how to build strong relationships, such as that between, you know, I counselor and a student in a purely online environment. I'm curious if there any lessons that you would suggest to our listeners about, you know, ways that presence over the years has discovered that you can really sort of break through that online space and build a deep relationship in an online environment?

Kate Eberle Walker: 34:31

Well, I think for many kids, there's actually more comfort at the beginning when you've got this new new stranger in your life, talking to you asking you questions, I believe for many children, and I've seen it myself that they're, they're actually more comfortable opening up at the beginning and being more themselves when there is that sort of protective layer of the screen. And I think that that's some thing that I hear often from our therapists that they value and embrace and really use to the benefit of their relationship, that you can actually make that early progress more quickly. Because there's this feeling of a little bit of safety or protection for the child, they're not in the room with this person that they're getting to know. So that's one thing, I think the other thing that we've learned, which, which is not just true of online, relationship building, but you know, any kind of relationship is that it's what matters more than, you know, which, you know, how physically close your orders are there, what room you're in, is the consistency, it's this person that you can count on, that's going to be there every week or twice a week, across school years. And that, you know, they're going to be focused on you. And that, you know, it's going to what you can build in terms of trust and just understanding of what, what really makes the difference for each child, you know, so much, it becomes so much more powerful with the continuity. And the consistency in that is something that teletherapy can do better. You know, you can we have so many of our therapists go back to the same school to the same kids year after year, there's stronger retention, less attrition, when you know, when you've established that remote working environment that schedule control for the therapists, and then they stay year after year. And we work with the same district. So you can give true continuity to these kids, I've actually had it for my own daughter. So she receives OT and speech therapy from presents therapists and she has for years now and we just know them. So well. The trust is complete, text them for help, when she's getting ready to you know, give a speech or presentation for school, she couldn't reach out to Karen her SLP. And, you know, just Karen knows exactly what to do and what to say and how to remind her and you know, it has struck me a few moments like how my daughter has never met her therapist in person yet they are, you know, their friends, they you know, she trusts them completely. They care about each other so much. So, you know, and I think what it is, is for us through the entire pandemic, when nothing was consistent. That actually was you know, it was still same person, same time, same same environment, that same platform environment, it was one thing that was really steady,

Alexander Sarlin: 37:49

really, really interesting, I think, terrific answers use the advantage of the protective layer of the online environment to begin a relationship. And then the consistency, and constancy and reliability of a relationship. Over time, I experienced that in my tutoring days, you know, week over week, you're always there, somebody's different ups and downs and family issues and school issues, you end up becoming one of the only constants and there's a lot of relationship power there. So we've talked a lot about presence, and it is really your fascinating company. But you have been the CEO of Princeton Review of tutor.com. And you have a lot of executive experience. You're also an author of the good boss nine ways every manager can support women at work, which is a terrific book, I actually had it and I read it before we ever met. And I wanted to Yeah, no, it's it's excellent. Really, really couldn't recommend highly enough. I wanted to, you know, it's obviously way too much in the book to get too deep in here in the last few minutes. But I wanted to play a little sort of back and forth where I'll raise a couple of topics from the book, a couple of chapters and sort of anecdotes that really stood out to me. And you explain them and get you actually make them make sense because it's like volleyball, I'll set a new spike. So I'm good. Yeah. All right. Let's do it. Let's do it. You have a chapter called Don't make her ask twice. As a way to support women at work. tell our listeners what that means.

Kate Eberle Walker: 39:21

Yeah. Okay. So what I'm asking managers to do is understand that historically, women have not always been supported when they advocate for themselves. You know, people don't always like it when women negotiate. And as a result, women are taking more risk when they ask for something for themselves. I've totally experienced this as a phenomenon throughout my own work life that when people don't want to give you what you asked for, but they don't like saying no, right? A lot of people aren't comfortable, just straight up saying no, they just don't say anything. They just, you know, they're like, Oh, let me let me look into that. Let me think about it. And then they just never come back to you and give you an answer. I've experienced that again and again. So what I wrote the chapter about was to say, hey, when you do that, to women, you have to recognize it was probably harder for her to ask the first time, don't make her have to step up and ask a second time to get something that she's advocating for. So as I'm calling on managers to, you know, whether it's yes or no, give an answer. And even better think about where you can proactively offer something like a raise or a promotion before she has to ask an advocate.

Alexander Sarlin: 40:37

fantastic advice. You have a terrific anecdote in this chapter about a manager who basically has a policy of not ever responding to people's first requests, that basically thinking, hey, if they really wanted i, they'll keep asking. And I you say, hey, that that actually ends up being creating a really equal dynamic because it penalizes women more I thought that was fascinating.

Kate Eberle Walker: 41:01

Yes. And it when that was a very true anecdote, there really was someone that I worked with who never answered anything on the first task, which at

Alexander Sarlin: 41:09

first glance, you hear it you say, oh, that sounds like fun. That sounds like a good, nice. Oh, no, that's not really doesn't really help people.

Kate Eberle Walker: 41:18

It's not great. It's no, you

Alexander Sarlin: 41:20

have a chapter called be an equal opportunity, asshole. That's a great title. What do you mean by an equal opportunity, asshole as a manager,

Kate Eberle Walker: 41:30

so this chapter was all about the value of honesty. Some managers are more careful in the feedback that they give to women, they worry that negative feedback will be hard for her to hear, or they're, you know, trying to be polite. And so so this chapter honors the the bosses that I had some of my best bosses who I wouldn't have gotten to where I got to without them, were not the most gentle and their feedback, they could actually be pretty harsh. But they were as hard on me as they were on the men in the room. They were heard on the in front of the men in the room, and it gave me the opportunity to answer and, you know, show show what I knew show that I could, you know, hold up, so to speak. And you know, that willingness to push me, I just, I always knew where I stood, I was always challenged to keep improving and get better. And I think the best thing you can do as a manager to encourage any high potential performer is to push them harder and show them that you know, you, you expect more of them, because you know, they can do it.

Alexander Sarlin: 42:40

Fantastic. One aspect of this chapter that jumped out to me, and I don't want to get this wrong, because I think it's so it's such a nuanced point is you mentioned how managers should potentially think about getting comfortable with making employees cry sometimes. Because, yeah, tell us more. I don't even want to pay myself into a corner by saying that the wrong way. Explain that it was such an interesting idea.

Kate Eberle Walker: 43:05

It is nuanced. Because I mean, it would be it would be better to not make anybody cry, right to be, you know, to find that right? That right? A balance of respect and kindness. But, you know, there, as I was doing the research for this book, I learned how statistically more likely women are to cry, you generate more, I think it was prolactin, which generates tears and in women are just much more likely to cry. That's a physical reaction they have. And so you know, if you're giving feedback to someone who who cares about their work, and who you know, cares about doing well, and that's the reaction she has, you know, what I wouldn't want is for that, to cause a manager to pull back hold back to be careful, as I said, right, you want, you know, you want to give that feedback, you want to show her that, you know, she's got potential and that, you know, you think she can do more. And if the outcome of a conversation is that she cries I advocate to, you know, let it be you can, you know, you can step back for a minute, let her gather herself, she's you know, probably, you know, struggling more with it than you are in the moment. She doesn't necessarily want to be seen crying. So just kind of let it pass. But don't let it stop you from from given the feedback.

Alexander Sarlin: 44:28

It's so interesting book is just filled with incredibly useful and really not intuitive or obvious advice. These if there's a lot of things in there that really stuck with you. I'm going to do one more. Before we close. I think this was an amazing chapter. It's about it's called Speak up so that she doesn't have to, what advice do you give to managers so that they can speak up? The women in their organization don't have to speak up for themselves.

Kate Eberle Walker: 44:54

I'm glad that you asked me about this, because this one has proven to be one of the more controversial One of the more misinterpreted rules because it you know, I'm not saying, Speak for her right, or don't let her speak for herself. But what, what I am getting at here is that, you know, we've all experienced the micro aggressions the you know, the repeated actions and words that over time can add up and make anyone feel like they don't belong in that workplace. And it's a lot of that, that that happens to women in the workplace over time. And it's hard to always be the one to speak up, when, you know, these kinds of smaller slights are happening to you, you don't want to seem difficult, you don't want to seem like you're always reacting. So you know, a lot of women that I talked to about this, they they just they sort of pick their battles. And you know, don't necessarily speak up when it's a small thing, you know, and thinking of things like when, you know, when someone calls a woman, honey or darling, or, you know, a lot of times women are called by the wrong names statistically more than men are, I have a whole chapter about this in the book about about names. That's another one happened to me throughout my career, it still does, sometimes people call me, Katie, that's not my name. Yeah, I didn't introduce myself, as Katie introduced myself as Kate. But those things that you know, are kind of seemingly small, you're only going to correct somebody so many times before, you, you know, you just kind of give up and like I said, Pick Your Battles. And then there's other times where it might, it might be more uncomfortable than that, it might be that someone, you know, in a group is calling out your physical appearance or what you're wearing. And, you know, you might just want to, you know, kinda like shrink out of that moment and not call more attention to yourself. And so those are times when women that I've talked to, and I felt it for myself, like, sometimes you just sort of stay quiet, and try to let the moment pass those kinds of things, when when somebody else jumps in and just calls it out. So it's not you, it's not you, being you know, the one to have to speak up or have to, you know, prolong the moment, it's somebody else jumping in, they can often do it, with humor, with quickness to just kind of call someone out. And be like, don't say that, don't comment on her dress, you know, things like that, when people have done that, for me, I just really appreciate it, it can defuse a moment more quickly, but also make you feel like it's been recognized. And like, you know, it wasn't just you perceiving something that you know, it's been seen by others, and someone else has has spoken up and said, Hey, that's not okay.

Alexander Sarlin: 47:46

Terrific. This is just a small sliver of wide ranging very hard earned advice in this fantastic book, which comes from both sides of being a manager of many, many people and making your way through the corporate growth. It's really fascinating. So we could talk all day, there are a lot more chapters of this book, there's a lot more going on at presence. But I want to wrap up with the two questions I always end with. And the first is, what do you see as the most exciting trend in the EdTech landscape right now that you think our listeners should really keep an eye on?

Kate Eberle Walker: 48:23

Well, you know, what I think is is really great is I'm seeing more schools, embrace apps, and you know, assistive technology tools for students in the classroom. You're far more than pre COVID. And I think that's one of the areas where, you know, the nuance of technology and really, that that ability to pull in different tools for different children that will, you know, help them personally experience the classroom in a better way. For them. I'm just seeing more and more of that innovation coming out of schools where they're really being, you know, thoughtful, and I think open and forward looking in pulling in some more assistive technology to try to equalize the classroom.

Alexander Sarlin: 49:10

That's a great insight. What is a resource that you would recommend for our listeners who want to learn more about anything we talked about today? Obviously, we already put a link to the good boss, but what would be a resource that you would recommend? It can be a book, a blog, a newsletter, a podcast, anything that you would recommend to our listeners?

Kate Eberle Walker: 49:29

That is a good question, you know, I, I will recommend a book so I just read the graphic novel good talk by Mira Jacob. I read it as a reading discussion for a school board that I'm on and I thought it was just great. It did an amazing job of identifying the breadth of confusing feelings typically swirling in the minds of both children and adults. And it just fundamentally highlighted the importance of, of talking about it. You know, naming the discomfort, communicating. It's just I really thought that it was a great book. And, you know, for me, it helps draw a lot of connections to a lot of the topics that we discussed today that I'm thinking about at work and so much comes back to, you know, communicating and being being there for each other taking care of each other. And I thought the book was a good reminder of that.

Alexander Sarlin: 50:23

Absolutely. I read that book, too. I got a lot out of it. It's a really interesting, I think that's a good three line for everything. We've been talking about the idea of sort of using talk and making the discomfort visible and, you know, not hiding from it or sort of disappearing. You know, when things get difficult, I think teletherapy is about that good boss is all about. It makes a lot of sense. fascinating interview really, really, really interesting. Kate Everly Walker, we really appreciate you being here and spending some time with us here at ed tech insiders.

Kate Eberle Walker: 50:54

That's such a great way to spend the time have a conversation with you. So thank you so much for your questions.

Alexander Sarlin: 51:02

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