Join host Priscilla Rahn as she navigates through the dynamic world of education with Alexandra Sab, a remarkable educator in Aurora Public Schools. Celebrate America’s vibrant 250th birthday and discover exciting developments like the opening of the Excalibur Classical Academy. Dive into educational philosophies that aim to restore America’s educational landscape by nurturing minds to defend our nation’s foundational principles.
00:00:03 Introduction to Restoring Education in America
00:00:17 Celebrating America’s 250th Birthday and School Announcement
Welcome to Restoring Education in America with Priscilla Rahn. She’s a master educator and author leading the conversation to restore the American mind through wisdom, virtue, and truth.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, hello, everybody. Welcome to Restoring Education in America. I’m your host, Priscilla Rahn, and I am so thrilled that you’ve decided to join the conversation today. 2026, it’s America’s 250th birthday. There’s so many celebrations going on all over the U.S. But one thing I’m celebrating is that there’s a new private classical school that’s opening this fall. It’s called Excalibur Classical Academy, and their mission and vision is restoring America’s heritage by developing servant leaders who are keepers and defenders of the principles of which our founding fathers pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor. And if you have a young child who’s starting kindergarten through third grade, I urge you to go to their website to learn more. It’s Excalibur Classical Academy dot org. And they’re also looking to hire amazing teachers. So if you’re interested in applying, if you’re a parent who would love to take a tour and learn more, please reach out to Excalibur Classical Academy online. Well, there’s a lot going on in society and in Colorado, especially around protests and ICE and the police. And I have my very dear friend that I am going to bring to the stage. She is an educator. Welcome to my dear friend, Alexandra Saba. How are you, Alex?
SPEAKER 02 :
Hi, Priscilla. I’m great today. How are you?
SPEAKER 03 :
I’m doing great. I have so much respect for your career. But before we get too far into the conversation, I’m going to share a little bit of your bio with our listeners. Alexandra Saba attended Northwestern University in Illinois, the University of Colorado Boulder, and earned degrees in English, education, and secondary literacy. She also attended Regis University and earned a master’s of science in criminology. Alexandra has taught middle school language arts, high school humanities, AP psychology, student leadership, criminal justice, criminology, CSI, and forensics. She’s the school sponsor for National Technical Honor Society and a past recipient of the Denver Teacher Mile High Educator Award. Jared Polis Award, and this year from the Aurora Public Schools was recognized for excellence in her AP Psychology scores. Wow, you are amazing. Okay, so just so our listeners know how we know each other, you were… I know you don’t like me to call you my supervisor, but you were my direct supervisor in Denver Public Schools. And you were the person who came in and observed me and gave me feedback. And we just became really great colleagues and good friends. And I just loved the way you would come into my classroom and see great things that the students were doing, but also say, here’s another way for you to think about bridging this gap or solving this problem. But take me all the way back Saba to when did you decide you wanted to become a teacher?
SPEAKER 02 :
I was in college, and I was pursuing a literacy, or I would say a literature degree, an English degree, you know, the old flipping burgers degree, right? Like, what do you do with that after you’ve studied great authors? Do you go on to become a great author? Do you go on to teach about great authors? Or, you know, what are you going to do with this degree? It’s kind of like the philosopher’s degree problem. Okay, so now you have this, what are you going to do? And I, my grandfather was an educator, and I always looked up to him for the work that he did. And he was very passionate about his work specifically with community college students, disenfranchised students, students who are pursuing education against all odds. He was teaching in Detroit during the sixties during riots. And he often talked about that time as 1 of his most inspirational and transformational. educational times because it showed him the true spirit of human beings and their capacity and their grit. My grandpa Sam, he actually, he wanted to be a priest. He wanted to go into the seminary. He wanted to study Catholicism and he didn’t end up doing that. He ended up going to fight in Korea. And so he has this this passion for for knowledge and for caring for people. And so I think that’s where it came from. I watched him do that when I was younger and he would always talk to me about his students. You know, to some degree, I’ve always liked teaching and educating, even if it wasn’t in a classroom scenario. I like learning and sharing my knowledge. So and seeing other people grow through it.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, as I got to know you, I could see that love and passion for education. And you’ve always had really high standards and really high expectations. I think that’s something that we’re missing in education today. We’ve seen that. It’s changed a lot since when we were growing up and going to school. But you and I are both similar in that we hold our students to really high expectations. We give them the information and we know that you can you can take a horse to water, but you can’t make them drink. But it’s been always clear to me your passion for excellence. But the way you’ve coached and how I’ve seen you coach other adults, that’s an art in itself. Thank you. What was something that you learned in your time as a coach? And was there anything from your experience as a teacher that kind of helped you become a better coach?
SPEAKER 02 :
I think the key word is humility. Nobody is an expert on anything. We are constantly learning. And so it’s the process of walking into a conversation and not being the smartest person in the room, being open to the experience of learning, having the humility to recognize that everybody is on a learning pathway. And to also recognize that to have that high standard means that You are expecting excellence out of somebody else and yourself. And so it’s creating space in the room for people to rise to their highest selves. And so whether I’m coaching a teacher or I’m working with a student or I’m thinking about writing curriculum or right now I’m working with Lapson, which is the law enforcement and public safety education network. And we’re building out standards and objectives and outcomes that will help our high school and our community college students meet national obligations. And so it’s about, I think, humility and also setting the standard for excellence.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, that’s a great segue, Saba, to your teaching criminology and your passion for law enforcement. Talk about where that passion came from.
SPEAKER 02 :
It’s also a passion for justice. There’s a funny story. When I was a little girl, I used to like to watch all the murder mysteries, and I used to like to watch mystery on PBS with my parents, and I was such a fan of crime and detective stories, and I loved the puzzling and figuring it out. And then I also love the human behavior parts. And so I would set up like little murder scenarios in the house and things like detective things that I would have to solve. And those were always really fun for me. And when I kind of took my break from teaching and I worked for the federal grant for a while as an instructional coach, it turned me back into a place where I was looking at childhood passions. And part of that is justice and the appreciation of the law. And human behavior, that’s really my specialty is human behavior, criminology, that’s psychopathology, that’s forensic anthropology, that’s criminal profiling. I just love unpacking human behavior, although it’s hard to do sometimes in a middle school classroom. There’s a lot of behavior. I don’t teach that anymore. That’s, I think, where that came from, too. And that’s what continues to propel me as I teach criminal justice courses and as I teach students about the Constitution and about law. It’s helping them really understand what principles guide them in society and also how to be a contributing member of society who gives back to the community in a way that is through the appreciation of the law.
SPEAKER 03 :
If you’re just tuning in, my guest today is Alexandra Saba. She is an amazing teacher in Aurora Public Schools, and she teaches criminology amongst many other amazing things. So, Saba, we’ve had a lot of conversations about what we’re seeing changing socially and the conversation around ICE, around law enforcement. how our young people, because we teach in districts where we have a high number of migrants, immigrant, legal, and undocumented students. So there’s a hodgepodge of clientele that we have in the community. So this conversation is at the forefront of almost every single day that we’re talking. So be a little transparent about some of the pushback you’ve received with this being the topic that you’re teaching in your school and talk a little bit about the program.
SPEAKER 02 :
Sure, so I started building the pathway for criminal justice, probably about 4 years ago in conjunction with community college of Aurora and that has been really a blessing to bring that to high school students. It’s a concurrent enrollment program. So they can take the classes at the high school. Because these are high school students, they are also moving throughout their day, taking other classes, having different experiences in the hallways and also receiving influence from time to time from other staff members. There has been some pushback in the criminal justice program specifically from other teachers who. I do not understand what I’m teaching in my classroom who have not had conversations with me about the context of criminal justice and how I approach the topic in my classroom. Because for me, my approach is from the basis of community reform. And also from the basis of recruitment, meaning that if students are not seeing service members in their community, if they’re not feeling served and protected in their community, then it is their call to answer. And they need to become those members in the community rather than creating a deficit and leaving the community or blaming and shaming whatever’s happening with with law enforcement individuals and access to their community. And so I’ve had pushback from other teachers. I’ve had pushback from parents not understanding the need for criminal justice curriculum and why students may want to be members of the police department, why they may want to go into emergency medical services, why they may want to be a crime scene investigator. Because right now the conversation is if you’re in policing studies or if you’re studying law enforcement, if you’re not going to be a lawyer and make the big bucks or become a judge, which is where the kids think all the decisions are, then they don’t want to have the conversation about servitude and community justice and restoring community strength.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, teaching kids how to become servant leaders is something that’s missing from public schools and really teaching children what the proper role of government is, why we have public safety, why that’s important, because every one of us at some point in our lives are probably going to dial 911 or have to call the police if there’s an emergency situation. And we’ve worked with really great SROs in our building.
SPEAKER 01 :
Absolutely.
SPEAKER 03 :
who have really built strong relationships with students and kept them out of the in the path of law enforcement. So I think it’s really critical what you’re teaching to just neutrally explain what all these positions do and how to access law enforcement. But then you’re right. How to say as a community member, I think maybe our law enforcement needs more training or I think they need more resources right now. I volunteer on the Denver Police Chiefs Community Advisory Board. They just got a $75 million bond to help upgrade their training facilities, which is critical. Those types of things, you know, we have to have these open discussions. And I think it’s important not to view all law enforcement as bad or evil or doing things that, you know, we don’t like in the community. Thank you for what you’re doing. So, Saba, let’s turn to something that has been heartburn for both of us. We talked about SB 26097. It’s a new bill in the Colorado State Legislature. It’s to decriminalize adult commercial sexual activity. The prime sponsors are Senator Nick Hendrickson, Senator Lisa Cutter. Representative Lorena Garcia and Representative Rebecca Stewart, all of whom were endorsed by the Teachers Union. This summary talks about basically how it’s going to allow the sexual conduct of apparently two consenting adults to be legal. What is your perspective having taught criminalization and your perspective in law? What do you think that might do if it passed?
SPEAKER 02 :
I think it’s a concerning bill on a number of fronts. We are having, probably for the first time in this country, really open conversations about human trafficking, hypersexualization of minors, having conversations about sexualization just of individuals and access to sex. We are a highly sexualized society now in a way that we weren’t maybe 50 years ago, kind of out in the open, or 30 years ago out in the open. Things have changed. And with this conversation about this bill, I can’t help but be alarmed because sex trafficking and human trafficking, drug trafficking, weapons trafficking, all of these components of criminalistic behaviors and criminogenic societies, right? These components that feed into criminal behaviors, that feed into criminal pathways, that perpetuate cycles of undocumented money, that perpetuate cycles of victimization and women and young men being taken advantage of. That’s a big concern for me because if we’re promoting the legalization of that, then I have major questions about how do you keep those individuals safe. How do you make sure that those individuals have access to health care? How do you make sure that those individuals have access to human resources? Because decriminalizing it doesn’t make it legal in the sense that there is fiduciary responsibility and financial clarity around it or transparency about how it’s going to be managed from a taxation perspective. I have all those questions and the reason that those are brought up for me is because when you’re talking about prostitution, or when you’re talking about sex work, there’s a lot of hidden money, right? And that’s controlled by syndicates, organizational enterprises that are masking those resources. And there’s also the recruitment, especially of young women. And the question then becomes for me, then what are we, what are we looking for? And how are we training teachers? How are you training caretakers? How are we training the helpers in society to be able to look for that more so than we are now? Because there is not, I mean, I think about school counselors, I think about social workers, I think about teachers, and we have mandated reporter status. But how do we add that in for training? And then how do you make sure your staff are comfortable talking about it? I think there’s the bill, and then there’s the nuances just blow up all around the bill in so many different ways. To me, it is one thing to propose the bill, and it is another thing to do it intentionally and well, and we are not there. We are not there intentionally. If we are going to decriminalize sex work, then society has to be ready to take on the ownership of legality.
SPEAKER 03 :
And that means like with marijuana, when they say, oh, you know, if we just legalize it, it’s going to solve all our problems. People will just. Right. Right. Privately. But we know as teachers, parents were not locking their marijuana up. Kids are bringing it to school and they’re sharing it with their friends. So legalizing something doesn’t necessarily help society. And to your point now, it could potentially become an industry. But who are those quote unquote adults? So we’re going to say 18. So I don’t know of any 17, 16, 15 year old who says 18. I think this is going to be my career path. They don’t just wake up at 18 and say, I’m going to sell my body for money. These young people have been victimized as children.
SPEAKER 02 :
There’s history of trauma and whether it’s familial trauma or it’s from someplace else, another trusted adult in their life. Whether it goes back to their very, very young years, or it goes back to prepubescent years, or puberty, or whenever it’s happening, right? You’re looking at the social platforms that are supposed to be protecting these children at that time. And whether it’s Department of Human Services, or we’re talking about Child Protective Services, or social workers in the family, or removing children and foster programs, those are pieces that then become failures, right? If we have children going at the age of 17, when I turn 18, I want my pathway to be sex work. As a society, as a community, can we do better? And I say that from the perspective of, can we protect people better?
SPEAKER 03 :
I have my own better option. That’s in a covenant relationship with your spouse, which is really God’s best design for us. And This bill highlights a bigger problem in my mind about raising children who have character and virtue, who have a purpose and are going to apply their knowledge and discover who they are created to be by God. Absolutely. be creators and contributors. And so helping children find their best potential is something that we really need to do. But you’re right. These kids that are in foster care, students that are in special education, these are easy targets for people to do some really, really bad things. And I’m shocked that we have adults down at the legislature who think this is a good idea. But, you know, to your tax statement, We’re losing tax revenue. We are millions of dollars behind. I just heard there’s one of the largest companies in Colorado is gone and is now in Florida. The Democrats down at the Capitol, they hate Tabor. They really want to get rid of Tabor. The ag industry is being pushed out everywhere. There’s just so many issues around revenue in our state. And I just see this bill as an opportunity for the legislators to say, well, let’s they’re desperate. Let’s get some tax revenue. Let’s control another industry.
SPEAKER 02 :
It’s the wrong place to get it.
SPEAKER 03 :
Exactly.
SPEAKER 02 :
Wrong industry. Wrong, wrong place to get it.
SPEAKER 03 :
So what’s your message if they see this?
SPEAKER 02 :
My message is the money in this industry has always been concealed, right? This is all dirty money in the industry right now because it’s owned by people conducting illegitimate businesses. And the presumption of a W-2 is not going to fix that. Sorry, I don’t mean that cavalierly, but when you look at this from a criminalistic perspective, Priscilla, like decriminalizing it, if it is a form of revenue, which I hope it is not that blasé in terms of how they wrote the bill. But again, that’s falsely thinking because that presumes that there’s integrity or intent behind it.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, I just think we can do better as a society. I don’t think this is the kind of society we want to have that anything goes because we have to have some sort of discipline. Yeah, standard and discipline. So Saba, when you think about what children need to know, what are some things in your mind are missing in current public education that you think we need to bring back?
SPEAKER 02 :
Grit. Grit. And I’m not just talking about Angela Duckworth’s concept of grit. I am talking about the perseverance through the hard days, the realization that not everything is instant gratification. Priscilla, we’ve seen it. I’ve been a teacher for 25 years. You know, dinosaurs walk the earth, right? But I am seeing it more frequently, which is that students want instant gratification. They want positive feedback. If we start with The whole process is supposed to be positive feedback, negative feedback, positive feedback, put it in a sandwich. Sometimes there is just critical feedback and it’s done with kindness. And we’re missing that piece of being able to receive feedback, of being able to receive criticism, of having the grit to push through and know that you have a goal and a purpose at the end and that the answers are not immediately available. And that there’s not always the positive, like the immediate feeling of, Yes, I did this. I want a gold star. It’s very concerning because it creates short attention spans and it creates a student. Let’s say a predisposition to quitting. Calling it quits, whether it’s putting the head down, putting the pencil down, stopping the assignment halfway through. I didn’t do it. I couldn’t finish it. There’s this litany of excuses, right? And I don’t mean that to be hard on students. I love my students, right? I don’t want to come off as being, you know, like a military driver in the classroom. But it does come down to can they persist when the times get tough? That’s missing. I also think that a sense of wonder and creativity is missing. And believe it or not, I believe that grit and wonder go hand in hand. Because if we can persevere through the hard, it opens up your imagination for the possibility of what’s next. If we don’t have a sense of wonder, if we don’t have a sense of creativity and think, you know, what could happen if I finish this or what could be a creative way to problem solve if I’m stuck, then our kids just get in a loop. They just go around and it’s a disappointment for them.
SPEAKER 03 :
That’s pretty old school there. Sorry. I had the same conversation with a middle school student just today. Actually, too, because I said, you know, I don’t I don’t feel like playing my instrument anymore. And I thought we were only halfway through the semester. And now you don’t want to play your instruments anymore when you were like gung ho white. Now you actually need to start working. And you can’t just wake up one day and say, I really want to do this and then quit halfway through. If you start it, you have to finish it. And that’s, again, a character trait, a virtue that we have to learn. As adults, if we want to make it in society and be successful, our employers are going to expect it. The people that we’re in relationship with, if you’re married, you know the hardest thing is sticking with it because you have good days and you have bad days. And the relationships that make it are the ones that have grit. And you realize you started out saying, none of us are perfect. We’re fallible people, but we have to be committed. And you’re 100% right. And I think that’s why we see such a high divorce rate in society now compared to, like you said, 50, 60 years ago. Society has changed quite a bit. What would your message be if you could- Well, the show is called Restoring Education in America. What do you think we need to do to restore education in America?
SPEAKER 02 :
Putting education first. I know there are so many complexities with families and families. Parents are working, kids are working. You and I both see it. I see it at the high school all the time. I’ve got students who are working jobs to try to bring in income to the families and the economy’s tough. And I get that, I understand that. But just like I tell my student athletes, you’re a student first. And education needs to come first. It’s your backbone. It’s not a write-off. It’s not optional. It is necessary. And that’s where I think we’ve lost the conversation. The train has gone off the tracks a little bit because education has become optional. You know, and I’m not talking about the option of getting a GED versus graduating high school. I’m talking about the dropout rate. I’m talking about students who we are hand-holding to the finish line, getting them their credits in summer school, spoon feeding them the information to try to get them graduated. And you might say, well, that’s that’s great because, you know, they graduated. But also, what are we doing to get them to graduate on time and to come to school every single day? And we don’t need off periods and we don’t need students sitting around in the Upper Commons. They need to be taking classes. classes all the time they need to be educating themselves and whether or not the class is their favorite it’s a class it’s an opportunity to learn something new not every teacher is going to be their favorite not every subject is going to be their favorite they’re going to have employers they don’t love they’re going to have jobs they don’t love and that’s that’s the nature of the game and i think putting education first and when i say education i mean really like education book studies, taking tests, learning how to read a textbook again, participating in a class, a Socratic seminar where your voice is necessary, where you have to do the preparation ahead, not talking about worksheets. We’ve gone back and forth with do ACT scores matter? Do SAT scores matter? Can I take the ACCUPLACER? What if I take AP tests? What if I take concurrent enrollment? What if I what if I go an alternative route? Right. I think having the conversation that education matters, you have to have a degree. You need to be degrees or if it’s not a degree. Right. Like I teach for a career in technical education program. That means that my 18-year-olds who graduate need to have a pathway. They need to have a next step, whether it’s to go get their post-exam and join the police academy, or they go into medicine because they want to be an EMT, or they go to the military. They join up for the Army or the Marines or Air Force, and that’s going to hold them until they’re 21. I know Aurora Fire, I just spoke with them today, they’ve dropped their entrance age to 18, which is great because that means that our high school graduates now have a place to go. They’re not floating in between 18 and 21 when they’re able to move into some other positions. Right? And so I think that’s the important piece, whether it’s a book education, and you’re graduating with with intent to go on to a 4 year, whatever it is, have an intent and have a pathway.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, very well said. Lots of wisdom there. Alexandra Saba, veteran master educator in Aurora Public Schools. Thank you so much for your time today.
SPEAKER 02 :
You’re welcome.
SPEAKER 03 :
And to my listeners, thanks for tuning in and catch me next time. And remember, educating the mind without the heart is no education. So seek wisdom, cultivate virtue and speak truth.
SPEAKER 01 :
Thanks for tuning in to Restoring Education in America with Priscilla Rahn. Visit PriscillaRahn.com to connect or learn how you can sponsor future episodes to keep this message of faith, freedom, and education on the air.
