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

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.

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