The Carlsbad Unified School District office’s ultimate goal is to create the best environment possible for students, especially those with certain needs and goals for the future. Workers from the district office prove that their workspace plays a crucial role in their job and propels them to help others.
Michael Ecker, coordinator of student services, helps build school culture to support every child on campus. He focuses on academics to ensure the district office is aware of students’ academic goals and builds a space where students and parents collaborate to reach a student’s full potential.
“I’m working to help those be models of student leadership,” Ecker said. “[Here], students are recognizing how important they are in a school campus to help build schools and cultures that feel good to be in and realizing how much of a role students play in that whole process.”
Ecker believes that his job isn’t always easy and that hard work and dedication are the biggest part of the job. However, his goals push him through the job’s hardships and allow him to reach his aspirations for the students. Ecker highlights the importance of moving past a problem and changing because that makes the biggest difference.
“When you’re talking about cultural change, you’re talking about behavior change,” Ecker said. “The work that I do is thinking about how we can change the way people treat others. ‘Treat others with greater kindness and with greater responsibility.’”
Program specialist Kathy Nichols helps students in the district by supporting their teachers and service providers. To do this, Nichols works with preschools and the children involved with special education as she enhances, or changes programs, and coaches the staff in different ways to best help the students.
“I’ve had [school] children, they’re called nonspeaking, who have taught me so much on just stopping and enjoying the small things in life, even if they weren’t verbally communicating to me,” said Nichols. “But if I hadn’t stopped and gotten to know them, I would’ve missed out on some joys of life.”
Ecker finds his coworkers to be helpful, caring and hardworking which he believes is important in a working space, especially one dedicated to improving the well-being of students. He is convinced that by staying encouraged and engaged, although proven difficult, one can be their best self and do their best work.
“Gallup Survey does yearly studies on engagement rates on people that work,” Ecker said. “It is generally about 30% of any of the people that work in any business, or any organization including schools, are engaged in that work. We know that we just have to be better in schools because you deserve to have more than 30% of your teachers fully engaged.”
Nichols loves her job because she believes she can make a bigger change on a larger level. Her coworkers motivate her to give her best effort as she works with students, which drives her to her passion.
“I’m very lucky that I work with amazing people and we are all together to support each other and the students and the staff,” Nichols said. “And, without the team I work with, I probably wouldn’t be able to do this job.”
