Elliot Washor's TGIF 08.07.2026

Are You With Me Now? AJ Ryder

Near In and Far Out — Wayne Shorter, one of the all-time jazz greats, born in Newark, NJ.

One week in San Diego, CA, and the next in Newark, NJ. This is how this year’s work is shaping up.

After Big Bang, I’m glad I had time in San Diego last week. All over California, schools are about to start up, so being home kept the focus on California, especially the work going on in San Diego.

Taylor came down to join Anthonette and me to work on the entire year’s calendar for both California Secondary School Redesign (CSSR) and our San Diego convenings. We also planned out the rest of our demonstration site conferences that include Met Sacramento and New Village Girls Academy. This week, the focus was on the San Diego Met, Lincoln High School, and San Diego County. Both Robert Fung and Melissa Agudelo were with us during the planning.

All of this work will be influenced by what goes on with New Jersey’s START Center work. There are great questions that lie ahead. How do these two initiatives connect? And, when they do, how do we create operations that keep our values and design intact? That’s a set of great questions our team will have to respond to.

That said, my long conversation with Linda Darling-Hammond this weekend was exactly about these questions.

The skilled trades work looms large nationally. It is finally on everyone’s agenda. What can be learned and moved to California from New Jersey? How do we utilize the IBPLC and B-Unbound to make our skilled trades work operational at scale? And, to Linda’s point, how do we utilize BPL’s long-standing principal leadership and CTE work to develop principal leaders in CTE schools with a focus on advisories, internships, and the IBPLC?

We have some great tools, and we have a really great team to implement them. Anthonette, Brian, and Drew have begun to figure this out along with our colleagues from the Eastern Atlantic States Regional Council of Carpenters.

Newark jazz great Wayne Shorter was right when he said, Near In and Far Out.

That’s how to make this kind of music swing.

Being back in Newark the day before the awards ceremonies for our first cohort of youth was a blast. Laura Martinelli, our resident videographer, was with Charlie and me at Barringer High School interviewing long-time carpentry teachers Ben Gallano and Jose Hernandez, along with their students who will be entering the carpenter’s union apprenticeship.

“I found my future.” Caleb

Caleb was one of the students interviewed, and he directly fit the Knock, knock, who’s there? That’s me! refrain.

Caleb is a carpenter through and through. This is who he is and is becoming. It was a real joy meeting him.

It was also great to listen to Ben and Jose tell their stories because their personal journeys were similar to Caleb’s, except without the opportunity to join the union.

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The next day, we all went to two graduations of cohorts. One was at Newark’s One Stop and the other at the EASRCC Training Center.

These graduations were like being at the NBA draft. There were all the bells and whistles, including a signing and caps. Students and their families knew that this opportunity opened the doors of apprenticeship and college at the same time. Here, students will make money and go to school for college credit.

Both were great ceremonies. Thanks to Charlie student voices heard loud and clear.

It is always great to be part of something new. It is where all the energy comes together in ways that make the work exciting and vibrant. We did it again, and this time with a partner that offers meaningful work and community all in one.

Some other nuggets from Far out

I followed up on an email from Marcia Echerd about her new book on how schools work with students with autism. It turns out that Big Picture Learning emerged from her research as the best example of student-directed learning operating at scale in public schools.

We had a great talk, and then I connected her to Andrew, who followed up by connecting Marcia to former Met Sacramento student Justin Frago as someone she should talk with, as well as talking with her about Andrew’s Advisory 2006.

How do people like Marcia find out about us?

This happens all the time. We really didn’t make any overtures or do any social media around our work with autistic students, and yet she found us.

Hmm?

A Zoom with Sarah Sterling and Andres Henriquez led Sarah and Andres to attend our graduation event in Newark. Sarah works at the New Jersey Department of Education, with a specific emphasis in Camden around environmental studies. Skilled trades work fits squarely into this arena, and now we have a friend at the New Jersey Department of Education.

More planned happenstance.

Namahana opened up for its second year. Andrea was on the ground, relaying that things went really well.

J Grant, one of our alums from Fannie Lou Hamer, sent me a big thanks for making the connection to Marc Ecko. Marc did a feature story in Complex on J’s custom designs.

One more thing…

Two reports on Harbor Freight Fellows came out this week. One focuses on findings from Fellows, Mentors, and Advisors, and the other is a Longitudinal Study.

Yep, another longitudinal study was conducted, yielding some very interesting findings.

Longitudinal studies reveal things to us that we might not otherwise be aware of. That is part of their beauty.

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Here’s a quick synopsis to give you a peek:

The evaluation demonstrates that HFFI succeeds because it develops the whole professional, not just technical competence. Through authentic work, trusted mentoring, and increasing responsibility, Fellows gain confidence, resilience, workplace skills, career clarity, and professional networks. The consistency of findings across Fellows, Mentors, and Advisors provides compelling evidence that HFFI is successfully preparing young people for meaningful employment while simultaneously strengthening employers and the future skilled trades workforce.

These two reports have broad audience appeal.

How do we get the word out through various channels?

This is where we sometimes fall short.

I’m attaching the reports to this TGIF. We will be spending time on them in our Wednesday group and, hopefully, with the entire BPL staff and network.

Next week, I have to finish up a piece I’ve been asked to write for Kappan that will appear in the Fall issue, and then I’m off to Australia with Andrea to meet up with Viv’s team from BPL Australia, Sandra’s New Metrics group from the University of Melbourne, and a team from Northeastern University.

We’ll have a weeklong set of meetings on the further development of the International Big Picture Learning Credential.

Near in and far out.

Be well.

El