Meet Sean Webb of Desert Sands Unified School District in Coachella Valley

Today we’d like to introduce you to Sean Webb.

Sean, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I was born and raised in a small town in western New York. I grew up in Newark, NY, and graduated high school from Newark High School in 1996. From there, I attended college at the University at Buffalo to earn a BA in history in 2000 and a MA in secondary education from D’Youville College in 2001. As I finished up with my teacher credential and master’s degree, I was first introduced to the Coachella Valley at a teacher recruitment fair in Buffalo, NY, in February 2000. The desert was easy to sell during the middle of winter, plus I had family who lived in the area.

Since moving to the Coachella Valley in August 2001, I have always worked in education. For the first third of my career, I was a classroom history and AVID teacher (Advancement Via Individual Determination, a college prep course of study for first-generation college goers). I coached multiple sports. In August 2007, I completed my MA in educational administration. In November 2007, I accepted my first assistant principal position at Colonel Mitchell Paige Middle School in La Quinta, CA. We were designated a California Distinguished School in 2011 for our targeted assistance program for response to intervention. In October 2012, I accepted an assistant principalship at La Quinta High School where I served in multiple capacities including, from 2013-2018, in charge of the Culinary Arts Institute.

Ever since I was in high school, I worked in the hospitality industry. I started off as a busser and waiter at Newark Country Club as a teenager and, while going through college, I was a kitchen manager, fine dining waiter, and a catering captain. Therefore, when I moved to LQHS, I took an immediate liking to the well- established culinary program they had built. From 2013-2018, I worked side-by-side with the teacher and chef to build up the program and train community support and recognition. In 2014, we started a local chef competition called the Blackhawk Showdown (https://www.facebook.com/blackhawkshowdown) During these competitions, we partnered with area executive chefs to compete in a “Top Chef” type challenge while working with LQHS student-chefs. Local vendors including Crown Meats and L & G Market, partnering to provide mystery items for the chefs and students to create three courses “tasting meals” for an audience of 60. Over the course of four summers, over $50,000 was raised for the culinary program and for local charities.

Over the course of my administrative career, I felt the need to involve the community and have my students attend and work at philanthropic events. As I have promoted these events and other personal trips and activities, I used a nickname that a friend of mine gave me and started to use (#desertwebber) on many of my social media posts. After two years of doing so, a local freelance reporter wrote an article on who is #desertwebber.

https://coachellavalley.com/sean-webb-hashtag-desertwebber/

In July 2019, I began a new job within Desert Sands Unified School District. I am now the director of community engagement and the education foundation. This is a new position for DSUSD, and I am enjoying “writing” the new job description and experience. As a bonus, just weeks after starting my new job, I began the career of a lifetime with the birth of our daughter Brooklyn. Outside of my daily duties at DSUSD, I serve on the Old Town Artisan Studios board of directors, am the current president for Leadership Coachella Valley, and I am on the gala planning team for the American Cancer Society’s Desert Spirit Gala.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
My biggest obstacle is realizing that most people do not have the same drive that I have. When I commit to a project or take on a challenge or embrace a cause, I am all in. That sometimes means I jump in with both feet and get to work. I look behind, expecting everyone else to have taken the same leap and am surprised that others work a little more slowly. I have to sometimes take a step back to show my team the picture that I see. Likewise, this same enthusiasm sometimes means that I want to do it all, every detail needs to be a part of what I oversee. So part of my challenge is to embrace collaboration. As I reflect on what challenges I work on, I would also say that I see so many projects and causes that I would like to be a part of but have to accept that I can only do so much and take on the projects that I can best lead to success.

Please tell us about Desert Sands Unified School District.
Currently, I am the Director of Community Engagement and Education Foundation for Desert Sands Unified School District. We service over 25,000 students and families in the Coachella Valley.

Each generation looks back at the new crop of young people and tends to see the negative. I want the community to look at our students and see the possibilities. These young people have absorbed more information that we did at their age. They have seen the world change faster than ever before. They are looking at careers we couldn’t have imagined would exist – with new ones being created even as people read this interview. They have challenges that we couldn’t imagine. Yet, I know the future is brighter than ever. They learn by understanding. Education is about the why or what they learn and not just the basic facts. They take that learning and face the world in a new way.

What can the community at-large do to help our students, not only to personally succeed but to change the world, is to reach out, help me and other educators. Offer our students ways to learn – job shadowing, career demonstrations, internships! What can you as an individual or as a company do to share your knowledge and your passion? And, most of all, what can you do to give our youth a change? The world we are leaving them will need some fixing, can we help them do that? Can we help them create an even better world. I absolutely believe we can!

One thing I am most proud of is that the Bravo show, Top Chef filmed two episodes in the LQHS culinary institute during the school day in May 2016. It was amazing that we were able to have television personality/influencer Christie Teigen on a campus of 3,000 students without them knowing. Top Chef filmed at LQHS as one of our community partners, La Quinta Resort applied to host the television show. Once the executives at Top Chef saw the kitchen, it was a no brainer for them.

Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
A favorite childhood memory would be going to many Buffalo Bills games with my family. I was fortunate to attend almost every home game from when I was ten years old until I moved to Southern California in August 2001.

Contact Info:

• Address: 47950 Dune Palms Road
  La Quinta CA 92253
• Website: http://www.desertsandsef.org
• Phone: 760-771-8735
• Email: [email protected]
• Instagram: @desertwebber
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sean.webb.37266?ref=bookmarks
• Twitter: @desertwebber

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