Nicole Lopez, Trust & Safety Lead at Outschool, on her legal career, learning pods and more
For this month's employee contour, we spoke to Nicole Lopez, Trust and Safety Atomic number 82 here at Outschool. Nicole talked about her path to Outschool, her legal career, and her family unit's learning adventures during the pandemic.
Hi Nicole! Tin can you tell us a fiddling about your background and your electric current part at Outschool?
I knew from the tender age of 7--when I watched my dad in trial interrogating witnesses--that I wanted to exist a trial lawyer when I grew up. Only later on joining a big corporate firm, I realized I would not help people or advocate on their behalf the way I envisioned.
That feel led me to become a prosecutor, where I spent viii years prosecuting everything from child corruption to wiretap gang cases. During that time, the work that left the biggest imprint on me was helping and protecting child and domestic violence victims.
While I loved my work so much (every prosecutor will tell you there's no amend job!), the opportunity to run Trust & Safety and Legal opened up at a cutting-edge transportation visitor for children. Making the motility to a visitor whose mission resonated with me was an piece of cake transition. It as well felt invigorating to take on some other role in which I could continue to protect children, albeit in a unlike realm.
I then plant my fashion to Outschool through a series of connections: a Facebook group for lawyer moms raving about Outschool led me to enroll my young boys in classes; and a erstwhile colleague introduced me to my now coworker Jing (design lead), who confirmed that Outschool was the real deal when it came to what matters most to me: helping children. As of four months ago, I pb Trust and Safety at Outschool.
How does your piece of work and experience as a lawyer impact your work as Head of Trust and Safety?
Our Trust & Rubber team lays the background to help grade a secure community of diverse learners, parents, and teachers, who are often virtually meeting for the first fourth dimension.
Our squad makes sure that the physical and emotional well being of learners, parents, and teachers, as well every bit their privacy, will never be compromised. Nosotros also heed to our users so that we tin can amend understand their experiences and amend our policies and production. Finally, nosotros focus on preserving our marketplace integrity, which ranges from protecting 3rd party intellectual rights to making certain that our reviews are authentic.
Our team makes sure that the physical and emotional well being of learners, parents, and teachers, as well every bit their privacy, will never be compromised.
Many of the skills I honed during my decade plus of practicing law are relevant to my daily piece of work: actively listening, asking a lot of (hopefully thoughtful!) questions, thoroughly investigating incidents, driving the right policy changes, and mediating when necessary.
What's the most challenging part of your chore? What's your favorite part?
The virtually challenging function for me is delivering bad news! I similar to please people, but when a teacher, parent, or learner acts inappropriately, we take to take action to correct it. That requires having honest conversations and making tough decisions.
My favorite office is tackling a thorny upshot and resolving it in a way where I see palpable, data-driven, and long-lasting impacts. One recent example: we had a number of teachers entering into heated debates on our Facebook pages for teachers. That discourse is predictable right now, simply some of the commentary offended our community members. We seized the opportunity to update our terms of service and clarify our social media policy so every bit to minimize these incidents and promote healthier conversations. The outcome--fewer incidents--proved that this change was an effective one.
We heard your family is doing a learning pod. Can you talk nigh why you decided to form a pod, how it works, and how it's going?
Outschool saved the commencement of my 1st grader'southward school yr. We had no clue what we would make it the commencement month of altitude learning--it could exist a half hour a day of Zoom class, it could not.
We knew for certain, nevertheless, that my son Jackson's group of friends would not be in the aforementioned grade. So he now would not but get zip social in-person interactions, but the beginning of the schoolhouse year would consist of erratic "moments" with kids he did not know. To boot, he is somewhat shy. I wanted to provide some kind of consistency and inject the offset month or two of schoolhouse with a comforting surround.
To that finish, we formed a couple of Outschool pods for Jack and his friends:
- A "book club" with 3 besties (twice a week, with a teacher he knew already and loved)
- A Minecraft class with 5 other one-time kindergarten classmates (once a week)
- A math tutorial with some other bestie (one time a week).
While the start ii pods just lasted the first 4 weeks of school, before Jackson had a more consistent and demanding routine, he'southward kept upward the weekly math tutorial with his friend (he's obsessed with math).
How has Outschool influenced your family's learning?
I believe in our mission considering I encounter its impact on my son. Information technology'south a game changer.
While I admire Jackson'south 1st grade teacher, I run into a marked departure in his level of engagement in school every bit compared to his Outschool classes. The intimate grade size at Outschool, combined with increased private attention, make for a more challenging and fun experience.
I hear my son squealing with laughter in form; he emerges from his creative writing drop-in class with questions about Greek mythology and a beautiful ode to the pomegranate tree in our yard.
Yes, he sometimes guffaws about doing his Singapore math homework, but I hear him squealing with laughter in course; he emerges from his artistic writing driblet-in form with questions nigh Greek mythology and a beautiful ode to the pomegranate tree in our 1000; he asks if he can take more than classes with Instructor Kaylani and to play math Kahoot! afterwards course ends.
Those glimmers of excitement--always happy music to my ears--hateful and so much more to me during the pandemic, when the anxiety and worries are real. Information technology besides makes me want to exist even improve at my job and helps renew my purpose.
What do you like to do when yous're not working at Outschool?
I like to become outdoors and walk effectually our neighborhood with the family unit and our puppy, Lucius. I too similar to support our local restaurants, then many of which are shuttering, and consume out on the weekends. While I have not been playing as much as I'd like, I'grand an gorging tennis actor and now enjoy watching my parents hit with Jackson and his little brother, four year onetime Max, both of whom whack the balls with abandon.
Source: https://blog.outschool.com/employee-profile-nicole-lopez/
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