Jan 31, 2018
Sandee Kastrul, President and Cofounder of i.c.stars, had an
epiphany while meeting with a former student. It wasn’t enough to
just teach knowledge, she found it’s vital to build avenues of
opportunity. She co-founded i.c.stars to develop business, service,
and civic leaders in the inner city to transform a
community.
Sandee explains that change only
comes when hope and ambition are present, so she engages
participants in learning technical skills, employment skills, and
life skills, which yields a 90% placement rate with 80% retention
in the technology arena. Sandee and i.c.stars attack the root
causes of oppression and inspire leadership and
self-direction.
Key Takeaways
[3:08] Sandee was a math and
science teacher and also taught diversity to teachers. She noticed
that kids who faced real adversity had great
resiliency. She met
students where they were and taught science concepts to fit their
understanding. In a journey to freedom, the kids broke scholastic
records.
[8:18] One of Sandee’s brilliant
former students came back to her, making less than minimum wage as
an undocumented worker in cleaning services. His attitude was that
leadership was creating opportunities for others, as Sandee had
taught him, and he felt was doing that. That moment changed
Sandee’s career path. She knew just teaching was not enough to help
these students. They needed real opportunities.
[10:13] Sandee saw that
technology, systems thinking, methodology, problem solving, and
solution building would give great opportunities in IT and be a
blueprint to teach community leadership. Sandee took a
year-and-a-half to study schools and learn how to build a
curriculum. I.c.stars launched in 2000. The first group all went on
to work at dot-coms. But then the bubble burst, so I.c.stars
pivoted to work with enterprise CIOs.
[11:33] I.c.stars helps people
rise above their Zip Codes. Graduates have a 90% placement rate and
an 80% retention rate in the industry, including the bubble
bursting and the ‘08 recession. Graduates have, on average, a 400%
increase in pay from taking the program. Within half a year they
make more than their parents do, putting them in a position to
give.
[13:30] Sandee describes alums
being community leaders and advocates, making donations into the
community, volunteering, and buying homes in the neighborhoods they
grew up in, while they commute two hours to work in the suburbs.
I.c.stars provides support for alums that make the choice to be
leaders in and strengthen the good in their communities.
[16:47] I.c.stars has a daily
activity, High Tea, when volunteer business executives meet with,
teach, and model for interns the expectations of the workplace that
are different from participant experiences. The interns are at the
center of business development. Beside the hard skills, they also
learn social skills.
[21:06] To be agents of change
in our communities, we have to be able to gather the requirements,
listen, cut an issue, and receive as well as give. We need to
accept change, and ask what changes we want to see in
ourselves.
[23:17] Like Special Forces
teams, i.c.stars works on root causes of problems, not on symptoms.
I.c.stars develops business leaders, service leaders visible in the
community, and civic leaders. When three types of leaders are
talking together, it turns into a virtuous circle of
change.
[29:46] Sandee screens intern
candidates for resiliency with seven existential questions asked in
a panel interview. The questions get to locus of control,
accountability, responsibility, and how we see ourselves in the
world. The interview is remarkably predictive of success in the
program and in leadership.
[34:56] I.c.stars has a goal of
creating 1,000 business leaders by 2020. In Chicago there are about
400 alum leaders. In 2016 they opened in Columbus. They plan to
open in Milwaukee early in 2018. They plan to move into more
cities. Sandee sees the goal as on track.
[37:19] Sandee had received a
grant for self-discovery, and she used it for world travel,
including a trip to participate in the Skoll World Forum on Social
Entrepreneurship at Oxford. That year the Dalai Lama attended.
Twitter: @SandeeKastrul
LinkedIn: Sandee Kastrul
Website: Sandee.icstars.org
Website: Icstars.org
High Tea: Icstars.org/engage/high-tea
Past Events: Icstars.org/events/past/special
Quotable Quotes
“Kids who had faced a lot of
adversity … just getting to school safely, had developed a
resiliency toolkit.”
“As teachers, unless we’re both
learning and teaching, we’re only doing half of our
job.”
“[What if we] used that problem
solving and solution building as a blueprint to also teach
community leadership?”
“75% of our alums are giving and
giving back to the community financially, volunteering, engaging,
as business leaders, … mentoring … as policy leaders.”
“What if we define success not
by getting out of the ’hood, but by investing back in? What would
that look like?”
“We believe that if you take all
of the talent out of the neighborhoods or our communities, we’re
perpetuating what’s wrong with our communities.”
“If we want to be agents of
change in the communities that we come from, we have to be able to
gather requirements. We have to be able to listen.”
“We’ll dig in and say, ‘The
transformation starts with us,’ and ‘What are the changes that we
want to see in our lives?’”
“Nothing stops a bullet like a
job.”
“That is the byproduct of
oppression — that it works so well that we oppress
ourselves.”
“The more worlds that we can
walk between, the more people we can engage with, the more
culturally competent we are and the better changemakers we
become.”
“The beginning of learning
anything is painful. It’s why so many of us don’t study higher
math.”
“That’s the full circle of
leadership. It’s that we’re always learning and growing, and it’s
the hard things that teach us the most.”
Bio
Sandee Kastrul is president and co-founder of i.c.stars, an
innovative nonprofit leadership and technology training program
founded in 1999 to prepare inner-city adults for technology careers
and community leadership. An early pioneer of the social enterprise
model, i.c.stars has graduated more than 350 community leaders and
recently began expanding into new cities. Under Sandee’s
leadership, i.c.stars has been recognized by the U.S. Chamber of
Commerce and the Brookings Institution.
Prior to i.c.stars, Sandee’s
experience as an educator, diversity trainer, educational
consultant and a performing artist drew her creative talents to the
forefront. Her accomplishments include designing a comprehensive
science and civics interactive program for GED students at Jobs for
Youth, implementing a professional development program with Harold
Washington College Career Center, developing experiential learning
modules for over 70 schools and creating artist in residency
programs as well as training artists to work in classrooms for arts
organizations.
Additionally, as a consultant
for the Illinois Resource Center, Sandee provided School
Corporations with diversity training and cross-curricular teaching
methodologies throughout Illinois, Indiana, and
Wisconsin.
Sandee is a proud board member
of Goodcity, The Ryan Banks Academy, and HICC (Hispanic Innovation
Center in Chicago), an advisor for the Axelson Center, Chicago
Leadership Alliance, and Chicago Ideas Week. Sandee has spoken at
conferences including Capital One’s Diversity in Technology Panel,
Hands up United: Ferguson Tech Town Hall, Blk Hck Columbus, and the
Aspen Institute’s Youth Opportunity Forum, among others.
Books mentioned in this episode
Everybody Lies: Big Data, New
Data, and What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really
Are,
by Seth
Stephens-Davidowitz
Originals: How Non-Conformists
Move the World, by Adam
Grant