Strategic Learning & Leadership Advisor; Designing Systems Where People Thrive Why students are drifting, disengaging, and choosing new paths — and why the response, across almost every cause, starts in the same place. Superintendents across the country are asking the same question: “Where did they go?” For some students, the answer is concrete — they moved to virtual school, enrolled in a microschool, or chose an alternative pathway. And for the students who are disengaged o

Strategic Learning & Leadership Advisor; Designing Systems Where People Thrive Introduction: The Upstream Reality of Workforce Readiness In Different Language, Same Skills, I explored the emerging consensus around the durable skills that matter most for long-term success. But understanding what these skills are is only part of the story. To build a coherent, research-grounded approach to workforce readiness, we also need to understand when these skills begin to take shape. Th

The complexity of chronic absenteeism calls us to dig deeper into the roots of thriving. In Part 2, we looked at how to measure connection — making visible where relationships exist in a school and where they don't. In this piece, we go a step further: what does it actually take to build those relationships intentionally? It's a question the Search Institute — a nonprofit research organization that has spent nearly four decades studying what young people need to thrive — has

Part 5 of a Series: Beyond Attendance The students who have become inaccessible to the systems meant to support them and what it takes to find them. In Part 4, we looked at two patterns that live inside your building and your data: the disengaged student, present but already disconnecting, and the drifting student, whose absences are accumulating in front of you. Both are, at least, visible. Both are somewhere someone can still reach. This piece is about the students who aren

Before we can re-engage the students we are losing, we have to understand where and how we are losing them, and why the signal almost always arrives later than the story. What the Data Shows and What It Doesn't When it comes to chronic absenteeism, the number that tends to trigger urgency is the accumulating absence count — a student’s approach toward that ten percent threshold, approximately eighteen days in a 180-day school year, where a student is formally classified as ch

A low-lift, high-impact Tier 1 practice that reveals where connection exists in your school — and where it doesn’t. In Part 1 of this series, I asked the question that sits underneath every chronic absenteeism report: Why not here? I argued that the pull toward school — or its absence — is the real story. That attendance is the signal, not the problem. And that before we can build the conditions that bring students back, we first have to be able to see where relational connec

A Note Before We Go Further in the Series Before diving into the specific patterns of students who are drifting, disengaged, disappeared, or re-routed, it's worth pausing to understand the landscape that shapes the current conversation on Chronic Absenteeism, and why this moment, for all its difficulty, carries a genuine opportunity. Chronic absenteeism did not begin with the pandemic. Roughly a decade ago, approximately 15% of K-12 students were chronically absent — missing

Why listening to educators, understanding school rhythms, and designing for readiness matter more than a launch date. Every school year has a rhythm. There is the beginning of the year, when educators are learning names, building relationships, understanding classroom dynamics, and discovering what their students need. It is the bouquet of freshly sharpened pencils time of year. When notebooks are crisp, markers all have their caps, and every possibility still feels open. The

Understanding Grows Through Use, Not Exposure In professional learning, we often behave as though exposure equals understanding. Slides are shared. Concepts are explained. Time is spent. And when learning doesn’t show up in practice, the explanation is often simple: the content was delivered, and the responsibility is assumed to be complete. But understanding does not come from being told. It comes from use. A persistent assumption in professional learning is that teaching is

Adult learning rarely happens in a vacuum. Every adult learner walks into a learning space carrying decades of experience, layered identities, professional pressures, and a well-developed sense of what feels worthwhile. They bring successes and failures, confidence and skepticism, urgency and fatigue. They are often willing—even eager—to invest in learning, but only when it honors who they are and what they bring. This is where many professional learning experiences fall shor

Blurring the Lines: What AI Can Learn from Special Education The most effective strategies in education share a common origin story: they began by designing for the edges. When educators focused on students with the most complex challenges, they developed tools that proved more flexible, responsive, and powerful for everyone. From differentiated instruction to adaptive technologies, practices once built for access became the blueprint for excellence. hen focused on student

Data has long been our mirror—reflecting progress, performance, and patterns of use. But too often, that reflection is blurred by noise: multiple systems, competing measures, and the constant chase for real-time results. Somewhere between collection and clarity, the wisdom we seek gets lost. Data promises clarity. Dashboards, metrics, and indicators are designed to show what’s happening in schools and classrooms. Yet too often, the story data tells is flat. Static. A mirror r

Rethinking Assessment in the AI Era There’s a line I keep coming back to: we can measure what matters—if we stop measuring what’s easy. For decades, we’ve used tests as our shorthand for progress. They gave us numbers, charts, and accountability. They made data visible. But they also made learning small—flattened into bubbles and benchmarks. The irony is that we’ve built a system that rewards efficiency, not understanding. It measures compliance and timing, not curiosity and

Every generation of educators faces a wave of innovation that challenges what it means to teach and learn. It’s generative AI’s moment — a moment filled with both excitement and unease. AI promises personalization, instant feedback, and limitless information. Yet it also raises the question that anchors every educational era: How do we keep what is uniquely human in the act of teaching and learning? For educators, that question is not philosophical — it’s practical. And for E

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As educators search for solutions to the performance gaps in learning exacerbated by the pandemic, some are rediscovering the idea that...

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With all that has been asked of educators this year (and every year), adding in poorly designed professional development feels a bit like...

When schools engage families and neighbors in meaningful ways, they gain support, and in turn reinforce healthy behaviors in multiple...