This episode is presented by Carolina Readiness Supply – North Carolina Democrats are calling school vouchers "welfare for the wealthy" because income eligibility limits have been lifted by the GOP-led legislature. But if those refunds to the rich are welfare, wouldn't the payments to the poor also be?
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[00:00:00] News and observer, McClatchy Paper up in
[00:00:31] Raleigh, sister paper of the Charlotte Observer, reporting on some of the data, some of the
[00:00:40] stats on the opportunity scholarships and the waiting list that exists for parents that
[00:00:49] are trying to get some of the voucher, the school voucher money.
[00:00:55] And the thing to always keep in mind here is that if you are the wrong kind of person,
[00:01:01] you don't get your money.
[00:01:03] All right?
[00:01:04] That's the key.
[00:01:07] More than 70% of the North Carolina families that are on the waiting list for a taxpayer-funded
[00:01:15] private school voucher would not have been eligible before lawmakers removed the program's
[00:01:23] income eligibility limits.
[00:01:26] That's how the article starts.
[00:01:28] Oh, sorry, I was supposed to play that too.
[00:01:34] Oh my gosh, it's terrible.
[00:01:37] All right, so why is this?
[00:01:39] I'm going to read the sentence again.
[00:01:41] It's a newspaper story, so it's always run on sentences.
[00:01:44] I don't know why they keep writing like this, but like guys, digital ages here, shorter
[00:01:49] sentences, you know, just embrace the broadcast writing.
[00:01:52] I know, I know you were taught to write for the eye and keep one sentence going forever
[00:01:57] and ever and ever, and random paragraph breaks.
[00:02:01] But again, here's what he says.
[00:02:05] More than 70% of the families that are on the wait list for a taxpayer-funded private
[00:02:14] school voucher would not have been eligible to get it had the previous income caps been
[00:02:22] in place, okay?
[00:02:23] The income eligibility limits.
[00:02:25] So what does this mean?
[00:02:26] It means that you got a lot of wealthy parents, right?
[00:02:29] You got a lot of wealthy parents that are on the wait list because they couldn't get
[00:02:35] in earlier.
[00:02:36] Well, why are there so many wealthy parents on a wait list, you may be asking?
[00:02:40] And that's a really good question.
[00:02:41] Well, the North Carolina Opportunity Scholarship Program, when they first rolled it out, it
[00:02:46] was directed solely at low-income people in, you know, the various calculations on the
[00:02:54] poverty level and such, and median household income, number of people, and all of that
[00:02:59] jazz.
[00:03:00] And they directed it there, and then as the program got up and running, and then a couple
[00:03:05] years go by, they start expanding the funding for it as more people become aware of it.
[00:03:09] There are so many people in North Carolina that don't even know these scholarships exist,
[00:03:13] that the vouchers are even attainable for them.
[00:03:15] They literally don't know.
[00:03:19] And so I think that's a failure on the part of media.
[00:03:23] I think it's a failure on the part of, yes, state government, DPI, not advertising and
[00:03:28] marketing this thing well enough.
[00:03:31] But it means then that you've got all of these wealthy people that were not able to get
[00:03:37] a scholarship, their opportunity scholarship to get their voucher to pay for their kids'
[00:03:41] school.
[00:03:45] And you would say, right, oh, well, they're wealthy.
[00:03:48] Okay, so what does that mean then?
[00:03:51] It means that they're paying the taxes, right?
[00:03:57] The wealthiest in the state pay the most amount of the taxes in a dollar figure sense, because
[00:04:06] they don't get all of the – everybody gets the standard deduction, right?
[00:04:10] But the 5% of $100,000 a year income is going to generate more dollars than 5% of a $50,000
[00:04:21] a year income.
[00:04:23] And when you cut off the income level at $50,000 to get the voucher, well, the guy making $100,000
[00:04:31] won't be able to get the voucher.
[00:04:33] So the legislature began – they created four different tiers of income eligibility.
[00:04:40] And at the different tiers, you have different income levels for your household, and then
[00:04:45] they calculate how much you get.
[00:04:47] And the most amount you can get is about $7,500.
[00:04:52] That's the most amount of money you can get in a voucher, and that is for the tier one.
[00:04:57] So those are the lowest income households.
[00:05:01] And everybody in that tier got their vouchers.
[00:05:05] Then there's tier two.
[00:05:07] Tier two, make a little bit more, most you can get is about $6,700.
[00:05:14] Not $75, but $67.
[00:05:17] Tier three is about $4,500.
[00:05:21] And then for the wealthiest, about $3,400.
[00:05:26] So about half of what the tier one low-income households can get, the wealthiest household
[00:05:33] – $3,500 a year per student.
[00:05:36] And you could take that voucher money and go someplace else with it, right?
[00:05:40] Now initially, when the Republicans realized there was this big wait list, they said, we're
[00:05:45] going to fund it to make sure everybody that's on the waiting list is going to get the vouchers.
[00:05:51] That was what they promised to do, and that sparked all of this outrage because most of
[00:05:56] the kids that are in the tier four – their parents are wealthier – well, they're already
[00:06:02] going to private school.
[00:06:04] They're already paying into a private school.
[00:06:06] They can already afford it.
[00:06:07] Why do they get the voucher?
[00:06:08] They're getting taxpayer-funded vouchers.
[00:06:11] It's welfare for the wealthy.
[00:06:16] That's actually – I believe that's a direct quote from the rocket scientist that we have
[00:06:20] representing Mecklenburg County, Natasha Marcus, Mecklenburg County Democrat Senator at the
[00:06:27] state level, who said that the new voucher money should go instead to things like helping
[00:06:32] lower income families pay for childcare costs.
[00:06:38] Okay, so the taxpayer funds that are coming in from those wealthy families who are paying
[00:06:44] to send their kids someplace else don't give them a refund because that's what it is.
[00:06:49] The vouchers, they're refunds.
[00:06:51] That's not welfare.
[00:06:52] That is a refund back to the families that have been taxed for more money.
[00:06:57] So it's a refund back to them.
[00:06:59] The lower income, they're not paying $7,500 a year in taxes to the state, but they're
[00:07:07] getting it per kid.
[00:07:08] You have three kids?
[00:07:11] What is that?
[00:07:12] You're pulling in –
[00:07:14] It was my understanding that there would be no math.
[00:07:19] Yeah, right.
[00:07:21] So like $2,100 plus or $21,000 rather, like $22,000, $23,000.
[00:07:28] You're definitely not paying that.
[00:07:29] If you're in the lowest income bracket, the lowest tier, you're not paying $24,000 in
[00:07:34] state income taxes.
[00:07:36] My God, the standard deduction is bigger than that.
[00:07:39] So that's welfare.
[00:07:44] You can make an argument – and I'm not the one using these terms.
[00:07:47] This is what the Democrats are calling it.
[00:07:49] Quote, welfare for the wealthy.
[00:07:51] If it's welfare for the wealthy, then it's welfare for the poor too.
[00:07:55] It's welfare for everybody.
[00:07:56] If you're going to say that the vouchers are welfare for one group, then it's welfare
[00:08:00] for everybody, especially if you're going to use that term and make it apply to the
[00:08:06] people that are actually simply getting a refund, a partial refund at that.
[00:08:10] But they're getting a refund back because they're paying more into the system than
[00:08:12] they're getting out.
[00:08:18] Welfare for the wealthy.
[00:08:19] Right, okay.
[00:08:20] But it makes for a good soundbite because it's alliteration.
[00:08:22] You know, WW, welfare for the wealthy.
[00:08:24] Look at that.
[00:08:26] And then you don't have to think.
[00:08:27] That's the nice thing about these bromides that the Democrats come up with.
[00:08:31] You don't have to think about it.
[00:08:32] Just chant the slogan.
[00:08:34] Chant the slogan.
[00:08:35] Welfare for the wealthy, who's street or street.
[00:08:37] You don't have to even think about any of it.
[00:08:40] And by the way, if we are going to discuss welfare, quote unquote, as education funding
[00:08:47] and funding as welfare, does that count when we are talking about funding for the K-12
[00:08:53] government-run schools?
[00:08:54] Is that welfare also?
[00:08:55] Because we spend way more than $7,500 per kid for a K-12 government school education.
[00:09:02] Did you know that?
[00:09:03] Yeah.
[00:09:04] You know what the per-pupil expenditure average is in North Carolina?
[00:09:12] I do.
[00:09:13] All right, so the Charlotte Observer with the story actually came from the education
[00:09:20] reporter up in Raleigh for the News and Observer, but they're all one happy family or one family
[00:09:25] at least.
[00:09:26] And so they published it at the Charlotte Observer as well.
[00:09:29] And the headline is, middle-class and wealthy North Carolina families are those waiting
[00:09:33] for private school voucher funding.
[00:09:35] Because there is a waiting list because it's becoming more popular.
[00:09:38] And they took care of all of the lowest income tier families with the first round of vouchers
[00:09:43] and some of the second tier.
[00:09:45] And then through the third and the fourth, they said, we're going to make sure that everybody
[00:09:48] who's on the waiting list is going to get the vouchers.
[00:09:50] But they have a, it's a graduated scale of, or a progressive, if you will, scale.
[00:09:56] So the more you make, the less your voucher is.
[00:10:00] Okay?
[00:10:01] So what is the average per-pupil expenditure in North Carolina?
[00:10:08] It's about $12,000.
[00:10:12] The most amount of money you can get from a school voucher program is $7,500.
[00:10:19] The lowest income people in North Carolina can get $7,500 per kid for a voucher.
[00:10:26] But the state spends $12,000 per student.
[00:10:30] $12,000.
[00:10:31] All right.
[00:10:32] How many kids are in a classroom, do you think?
[00:10:34] What do you think?
[00:10:36] 25?
[00:10:37] I'd say 25.
[00:10:38] That's probably a fair, yeah, that's probably a, I don't know, 25?
[00:10:42] So let's do some math, shall we?
[00:10:44] It was my understanding that there would be no math.
[00:10:47] Okay.
[00:10:48] $12,000 per pupil times 25 kids in a classroom.
[00:10:54] It's about $300,000 per classroom.
[00:10:58] And that all goes to the teacher.
[00:11:06] The average teacher pay in this state is $56,559.
[00:11:13] Average.
[00:11:16] So yes, there are people that make less than that and there are people that make more than
[00:11:19] that, but the average is $56,500.
[00:11:23] Okay?
[00:11:24] So if you subtract that 56 out of the 300,000, that brings you to a classroom expenditure
[00:11:33] minus the teacher, right?
[00:11:35] $243,000 in that classroom.
[00:11:39] That classroom represents a quarter of a million dollars.
[00:11:46] So what's all that money being used for?
[00:11:50] Because how many classrooms are in a school?
[00:11:56] Obviously it depends on the size of the school, right?
[00:11:59] You got 10 classrooms, $2.5 million, right?
[00:12:03] By the way, the capital construction, all of that is, that's always up to the county
[00:12:10] to provide, but the state has now been doing that too.
[00:12:13] The state's been throwing money at districts to help fund capital construction and capital
[00:12:19] maintenance and stuff.
[00:12:23] Do you think private schools might like to have some of that money?
[00:12:27] Do you think they would like to have a $12,000 voucher instead of $7,500 or $6,700 or $4,500
[00:12:36] or $3,300, $3,400?
[00:12:40] State Republican legislative leaders have said it's their intention to fund all of the
[00:12:45] families who are on the waiting list.
[00:12:46] There are 55,000 families on the wait list.
[00:12:51] According to state figures, more than 39,000 of them waiting made too much money to qualify
[00:12:56] under the old rules.
[00:12:59] So before they lifted the income eligibility limit, before they lifted that cap and they
[00:13:03] said, anybody can now apply but you're on tier four, which means the most you'll get
[00:13:08] is $3,400.
[00:13:10] But they're already sending their kids to private school.
[00:13:12] Yeah, and they're paying more than the $12,000 to educate the kids.
[00:13:18] They're giving the state $12,000 per student and they're giving the money to the private
[00:13:23] school as well.
[00:13:25] They're paying twice, paying more than double.
[00:13:31] And so they get $3,400 back.
[00:13:33] I would like to see this be able to be paying for homeschool as well.
[00:13:39] Democratic lawmakers and voucher critics have focused on the families at the higher end
[00:13:43] of the income scale because it's so much easier to demagogue millionaires who may get a voucher
[00:13:51] if they ask for one.
[00:13:52] We believe that money would be much better spent on many, many programs that are underfunded
[00:13:57] and support large numbers of students who are lower income.
[00:14:03] But what about the cost to educate the 55,000?
[00:14:08] What about those costs?
[00:14:13] The North Carolina charter school system, these are actually technically public schools,
[00:14:20] the charter schools.
[00:14:21] And I'm old enough to remember when the K-12, GovCo proponents and advocates and defenders,
[00:14:29] when they resisted charter schools.
[00:14:32] I remember North Carolina before we got the school vouchers.
[00:14:37] People may have arrived here or started paying attention more recently.
[00:14:42] Vouchers have always been a part of the landscape, but they're not that old.
[00:14:46] What about a decade, I want to say?
[00:14:48] Maybe?
[00:14:49] So, the charter school movement started way earlier and it was getting stiff-armed all
[00:14:58] the time by local government, state government, Democrats, media.
[00:15:02] But I repeat myself, they did not, well, you're taking money from the schools.
[00:15:06] Same argument.
[00:15:07] You're taking money from these other schools and you don't have to live by our rules and
[00:15:10] all this.
[00:15:11] But I think that's mostly the point, is that the schools had become so burdened by all
[00:15:19] of these regulations and the paperwork and administrative bloat that the teachers were
[00:15:27] not able to just teach.
[00:15:29] And so the charters were like, you know what?
[00:15:31] Why don't we have these little incubators of experimentation and see if there are other
[00:15:37] models that help other kids?
[00:15:39] Because newsflash, not everybody is the same.
[00:15:42] Kids learn differently and when you have a factory model like the K-12 system is, it
[00:15:49] cannot possibly cater to every single kid.
[00:15:55] It can't.
[00:15:57] So give people the freedom to choose, to get out, to find a different pedagogy model, the
[00:16:06] method of teaching, to find a different model that works for them.
[00:16:09] No, no, no.
[00:16:13] Can't have that because again, as I mentioned earlier, it is about control.
[00:16:17] It's about controlling the next generation because education and not just in the K-12
[00:16:24] government schools but also in churches, parochial schools and such, it is how a culture transmits
[00:16:31] its values to the next generation.
[00:16:35] That's why these fights are so important and for too long, a lot of conservatives just
[00:16:40] said I'm going to abandon the field.
[00:16:45] I'm going to just go someplace else.
[00:16:47] And part of this is just the difference in what makes us of a different sort of mindset,
[00:16:53] right?
[00:16:54] Everybody's different and so a lot of people that are on the right, they are motivated
[00:16:59] by different things.
[00:17:00] They're not going into public school teaching.
[00:17:03] They're going into business, right?
[00:17:05] They're motivated and they're fascinated by different things.
[00:17:12] So the charter school system, there's a wait list for charter schools as well.
[00:17:19] So you have this waiting list on the voucher side for the opportunity scholarships and
[00:17:25] stuff.
[00:17:27] There's about 85,551 actually, 85,551 that are on the wait list to join a public school
[00:17:36] charter, public charter school for the year according to a new draft report that was assembled
[00:17:41] by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction.
[00:17:43] In addition, 80% of charters have a waiting list.
[00:17:48] David Bass writing at the Carolina Journal has the data here.
[00:17:53] 110 charter schools now operate in the state, 210.
[00:17:57] Charters had enrollments of 145,000 students representing 10% of the total state enrollment
[00:18:05] in K-12 schools.
[00:18:06] So one out of 10 kids going to K-12 in North Carolina are in a charter school.
[00:18:12] Linda Lynn Cacodellis, former Charlotte-Mecklenburg School Board member here and now she's the
[00:18:19] executive director of the North Carolina Coalition for Charter Schools.
[00:18:24] She said in a statement, quote, I believe parents deserve options for their children's
[00:18:30] schooling and the more options, the better.
[00:18:33] Charter schools which are free, public, and open to all offer innovative teaching methods
[00:18:39] and often specialize in particular areas like STEM or the arts.
[00:18:45] They're clearly doing something right.
[00:18:47] Parents keep choosing public charter schools and the wait list seems to get larger every
[00:18:51] year.
[00:18:53] Charter enrollments have grown by about 25% since the beginning of the pandemic.
[00:19:00] Anti-school choice advocates often attack charter schools and say they don't have racial or
[00:19:06] socioeconomic diversity.
[00:19:10] But the figures from DPI show a different picture.
[00:19:14] As of last June, charter schools enrolled about 38% of economically disadvantaged students.
[00:19:24] That was 38% of all the charter school kids, 38% are economically disadvantaged.
[00:19:31] That is a 99% increase over the 2020 numbers.
[00:19:35] So in three years, you saw a massive migration.
[00:19:40] Charters also have a slightly higher percentage of black students and multiracial students
[00:19:46] compared to traditional K-12 public schools.
[00:19:51] But those schools, the K-12 traditional schools, they have a higher rate of Hispanic students.
[00:19:57] I suspect part of that is language barrier stuff.
[00:20:00] I suspect part of that is a lack of knowledge of the charter school system.
[00:20:11] They're anti-choice on everything except one political issue.
[00:20:18] On that, it's choice until birth, right?
[00:20:22] Okay, if you're listening to this podcast, you are obviously paying attention to the
[00:20:25] world around us.
[00:20:27] You also have really great taste, I might add.
[00:20:30] But if you haven't started getting prepared for various emergencies, I got to ask, what
[00:20:34] are you waiting for?
[00:20:35] Please call my friends Bill and Jan at Carolina Readiness Supply, and they'll help get you
[00:20:39] started.
[00:20:40] They'll tell you how to start.
[00:20:41] They can help you.
[00:20:42] If you're an experienced prepper, they can help you too.
[00:20:45] Being prepared is just smart.
[00:20:47] We've already established that you're smart.
[00:20:49] I mean, you listen to this podcast after all.
[00:20:51] So let's put those smarts into action.
[00:20:54] Go to carolinareadiness.com.
[00:20:56] That's carolinareadiness.com or call them at 828-226-7239.
[00:21:03] Carolina Readiness Supply has 2,000 square feet of supplies as well as educational materials
[00:21:08] that you're going to need for any kind of emergency.
[00:21:11] Veteran-owned Carolina Readiness Supply, will you be ready when the lights go out?
[00:21:15] Let us go over to the phone lines and talk with Trent.
[00:21:18] Hello, Trent.
[00:21:19] Welcome to the program.
[00:21:20] How are you?
[00:21:21] I'm doing great, Pete.
[00:21:22] I love what you're talking about.
[00:21:23] Love listening to you every day.
[00:21:24] Thank you, sir.
[00:21:25] Appreciate you.
[00:21:26] Yes, sir.
[00:21:27] Hey, I started teaching back in 1984, and I was in the public school system.
[00:21:33] And I moved to a charter school back in 2013, and I call it what is called an old school.
[00:21:42] You get to meet the individual needs of each individual child.
[00:21:46] You're not micromanaged by a group of bureaucrats in a school that don't have a clue about anything
[00:21:53] about teaching.
[00:21:54] We do have to actually meet state standards.
[00:21:56] But I'm going to tell you the really downfall of public education came with no child left
[00:22:00] behind in Common Core, where all of a sudden we were just trying to teach everybody into
[00:22:05] this one direction.
[00:22:07] And I'm so blessed to be at a charter school.
[00:22:10] I've been at it for 41st year, and I love what I do every day.
[00:22:14] I love actually meeting my students.
[00:22:16] We build those relationships with the students and the parents, and that's it.
[00:22:21] Yeah.
[00:22:22] So yeah, I remember Common Core coming along and no child left behind.
[00:22:27] I remember that one where this attempt, and that was George W. Bush's administration, right?
[00:22:33] The attempt was to try to force or to reward progress by way of growth, right?
[00:22:41] Like if you showed improvement, then that was good, and they wanted to reward you, but
[00:22:45] then it ended up penalizing schools that had growth, but then basically maxed out, right?
[00:22:55] And you know this too.
[00:22:56] Every single kid is not going to pass.
[00:22:59] Every single kid is not going to pass every single class.
[00:23:02] There's...
[00:23:03] Yeah, go ahead.
[00:23:04] Yeah, the real secret to education is what's in the home.
[00:23:08] That is the real secret to education.
[00:23:10] If you have that support base in the home, it's really going to... that child normally
[00:23:16] is going to really knock it out of the park.
[00:23:18] Right.
[00:23:19] So do the charter schools... and I don't want to ask what your salary is, but is it comparable
[00:23:24] to what the K-12 traditional public school teachers make, or is that set at like the
[00:23:29] charter school level?
[00:23:31] Are you on the state schedule of salaries?
[00:23:33] Yes, we're on the state level.
[00:23:36] I don't know if maybe different for each different charter school, but I will say this.
[00:23:40] I got out of the public school system in 2013.
[00:23:43] I did not receive a raise.
[00:23:45] They had already... they knew they had me, so I did not receive a raise for eight years.
[00:23:49] They keep talking about how they bump teachers' pay up.
[00:23:52] They don't ever bump up the upper echelon.
[00:23:54] I'm telling you, the teachers have been teaching for the longer time.
[00:23:58] They don't bump their pay up because they know they are already in the system.
[00:24:02] They're waiting for that retirement.
[00:24:03] So that's where it usually hits.
[00:24:04] But I got my first raise my second year here at the charter school I'm at.
[00:24:09] Right, and the highest turnover is in the lower... or not lower grades, but for the
[00:24:15] rookie teachers.
[00:24:17] The new teachers, that's where they have a lot of churn going on, and so that's why they
[00:24:21] front-loaded the pay raises.
[00:24:25] I'm trying to think back when that was.
[00:24:27] It was probably around the time you're talking about, but I don't know if it was back then.
[00:24:30] But they phased it because they first addressed the new teachers.
[00:24:34] They put in place the $1,000 per year annual steps for the first, what, 15 years?
[00:24:41] So you get up to 50k because they started the teachers, they bumped their pay up to 35
[00:24:47] a year, and then every year you guarantee a $1,000 bump until year 15, you're at 50k,
[00:24:53] and that's not counting any of the local supplements as well.
[00:24:57] Yes, sir.
[00:24:59] And I will say this.
[00:25:00] The younger teachers, when they come out of college, they're not prepared.
[00:25:04] They come into the school, they think they're going to be able to teach the bunny hug, they're
[00:25:06] going to be able to do this, they're going to be able to indoctrinate, they're going to
[00:25:09] be able to do this, and that's not what it's about.
[00:25:13] Believe it or not, when you teach, you've got to work, and your work doesn't stop.
[00:25:17] It's not an 8-to-5 job.
[00:25:20] It's an 8-to-9 job, or it may be even a weekend job.
[00:25:22] It may be you're working on Sunday trying to get papers graded.
[00:25:25] It never stops, and people don't understand the sacrifices a lot of times that teachers
[00:25:30] make.
[00:25:31] But listen, God has blessed me in every year I have taught, and He continues to put people
[00:25:37] in my life, and I will say this, students have done more for me than I can ever do for
[00:25:40] them.
[00:25:41] Yeah.
[00:25:42] I have said this on any time I talk about, and I failed to say it today, so I'm going
[00:25:45] to say it right now because every time I talk about teacher compensation, I always say,
[00:25:49] I believe good teaching is an art.
[00:25:53] And I want to pay the people that are the best teachers, I want to pay them like six
[00:25:57] figures, but I'm not going to pay the bad ones the same amount of money because they're
[00:26:01] not worth it.
[00:26:02] And until somebody can figure that out, and I got a pretty good bet that I bet teachers
[00:26:07] could figure out, education experts could figure out how to assess performance because
[00:26:13] it's literally what you all do.
[00:26:15] You assess performance, right?
[00:26:17] So you can't tell me that people don't know who the good teachers are.
[00:26:21] Everybody knows.
[00:26:22] You know who they are in your school, right?
[00:26:24] Yes, sir.
[00:26:25] I'm going to tell you, our school, we've got a marvelous set of teachers all the way
[00:26:30] up and down.
[00:26:31] I don't think we have weak ones that exist here because we are on a year-to-year contract.
[00:26:36] We aren't guaranteed anything.
[00:26:39] So if we don't actually perform, they let us go.
[00:26:42] Yeah, that's interesting.
[00:26:43] Trent, I appreciate the call, sir.
[00:26:44] Thanks so much and thanks for what you do.
[00:26:45] Appreciate it.
[00:26:46] Hey, God bless you and your show.
[00:26:47] Thanks.
[00:26:48] Oh, yes, you too.
[00:26:49] Appreciate it.
[00:26:50] Yeah, people think that because I'm critical of the K-12 government model, that therefore
[00:26:55] I'm critical of the teachers, and I'm not at all.
[00:26:59] It's the model.
[00:27:00] All right, that'll do it for this episode.
[00:27:02] Thank you so much for listening.
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[00:27:16] Again, thank you so much for listening and don't break anything while I'm gone.