Workforce readiness begins far earlier than high school. Jen Perry explores how durable skills—like self‑regulation, curiosity, and growth mindset—take root in K–5 learning, shaping identity, possibility, and long‑term career development.

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 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