How a small K-12 survey and data company won a state deal with California.

Our entire ecosystem 🌏 is unintentionally setting up our youth to lose focus, faith, purpose—and perhaps, even identity. Yet, the weight of shaping the next generation still falls almost entirely on educators, even though school represents only 29.4% of where young people spend their time! According to recent reports https://lnkd.in/es3q7Cnv , teacher burnout is soaring. School leaders are responding with boundaries, mental health days, and small celebrations—but these are band-aids on a broken system. 🤔 Do these efforts create scalable, verifiable improvements in youth wellbeing? In other words, have enhancements within school systems actually made our youth happier, healthier, and more confident? The data suggests otherwise. It’s not just about teachers being underpaid, under-recognized, or overburdened. ⚖️ The deeper issue is imbalance. Until leaders in tech, AI, media, gaming, and beyond share accountability, responsibility, and even pay parity with leaders in education and parents, there won’t be impact worth being proud of. 🎯 Every environment where a child spends time must become an equitable partner in raising them, not just schools. 🛑 We should ask ourselves: 🔑 What’s our success rate in helping adults with lifelong baggage versus shaping young minds with strong life skills from the start? ✅ Because the truth is simple: adults need help first before they can help a child. 😀 Raising educated, well-rounded youth isn’t the job of teachers alone...it’s a collective responsibility. Parents, communities, social media, gaming, employers and every part of a child’s ecosystem must step up. There are no “Ors”; it’s all “Ands.” ➡️ Until we distribute this responsibility equitably, we’re failing both our kids and our educators. #EducationReform #TeacherBurnout #CollectiveResponsibility

We’re moving closer to our long-term vision: connecting what we do in business to help young people thrive. Many teens are struggling, especially post-Covid. Anxiety, disconnection and low confidence are on the rise. And we believe the same skills that help people thrive at work, Emotional Intelligence and Resilience, are exactly what young people need to thrive in life too. Between March and June this year, we piloted a Positive Psychology-based programme with 120 Year 9 pupils in a Cornish secondary school. Designed to build Emotional Resilience, it was delivered by teachers, and pupils really engaged - giving us invaluable insight into what teens are facing today. We’re now refining the toolkit based on their feedback, ready to relaunch in January 2026, with a plan to make it available to schools nationwide from April 2026. Our dream is simple: to create a self-sustaining model where our work with businesses funds the development of our work with schools. Every organisation that invests in developing its people will also be investing in the emotional wellbeing of future generations. When people thrive, organisations thrive, and so does the future workforce. Everybody wins. If that vision resonates with you, we’d love to explore how we can make it happen, together.

Is Arizona involuntarily creating a two-tier school system? The data is clear: public school enrollment in Arizona is declining, while charter schools, private schools, and homeschooling are all seeing steady growth. Why? Because more and more parents are pulling their children out of public schools. The reason is not academics, but the overwhelming dysfunctional behavior, massive classroom disruptions, and lack of support for teachers to restore healthy learning environments. Parents are turning to the state’s school choice programs not because they dislike public education in principle, but because they simply cannot risk their children’s education and well-being in schools where chaos too often outweighs learning. This shift is creating what looks like an involuntary two-tier system: • Tier 1: Charter schools, private schools, and homeschooling, where the focus is on education. • Tier 2: Public schools, where the focus has shifted more toward behavioral management and attempting to help students become functional community members and citizens. The question Arizona—and perhaps the entire country—must face is this: Are we letting public education collapse into a behavioral containment system while meaningful academics migrate elsewhere? If that’s the case, we need to ask: Is this really the system we want for our children and our future?

The model that allows for diversity in teaching and learning, and coaches metacognitive awareness of this diversity and self-management, is the one that best addresses the concern in this post. Self-Directed Schooling (SDS) is one such model. By embedding core values (Respect, Responsibility, Trust, Fairness, Integrity, Community) into daily routines, students learn to manage themselves and their community. By integrating socioemotional skills with academics, classrooms shift from reactive discipline to proactive growth. And by intentionally introducing to students agency over their goals and learning pathways via metacognitive awareness and self management, academics regain center stage without losing the individual support students need. Instead of watching public schools slip into Tier 2 “containment,” SDS shows how they can thrive as places of academic rigor, social growth, and community trust. Will some students choose NOT to learn what we are demanding them to learn? Perhaps. But that's already happening. Will they decide to explore ideas and skills relevant to their futures? Perhaps! And that's something that isn't already happening. Continuing to insist that all students learn through force or coercion that which they have no agency or choice in learning will continue to deliver similar results. But what would it look like if every classroom was built on student agency via #Metacognition and #Constructivism and not #ExplicitDirectInstruction and #Behaviorism? #SelfDirectedLearning #EducationReform #PublicSchools #StudentAgency

Tell me I'm wrong... the school day structure is broken. If you designed high school from scratch for 2025, would it still look like: Five identical days a week? A bell schedule that treats minutes as mastery? And a phone in every pocket all day? I’m not convinced. Seat time ≠ learning. The Carnegie Unit made sense in an industrial era (bells and horns kept industry on time), but it still treats hours as the proxy for mastery. We should be piloting competency-based credit for students who can prove what they know—whether it’s learned in class, online, at work, or through dual-credit programs. Four-day weeks are popular—but not a free lunch. Communities love them, and teachers often feel a real recharge. But the research is mixed on learning, especially in non-rural settings where the hit to math/reading can be meaningful. If districts go this route, they need a plan to protect instructional time and student supports. Implementation matters, but pretending it isn’t a problem hasn’t worked. One structural change I’ll die on a hill for: later start times for adolescents. Sleep science and safety data are hard to ignore; later starts generally boost attendance, mood, and (in many studies) grades and crash reductions. Here’s my take as a former teacher who is still navigating what change is best: Keep the human work of teaching sacred. Be ruthless about structure: schedule, credit, devices. Pilot, measure, iterate. Then scale what proves out for your community. We don’t have to agree on every lever. But clinging to a 20th-century model while asking 21st-century outcomes from kids and teachers isn’t fair to anyone.

Bart's Bytes: Courageous leadership begins when we dare to look at the hard truths especially the ones that live in our schools. We cannot talk about learning without talking about mental health. Because when a child walks into a classroom carrying invisible pain, the lesson plan becomes secondary to the power of connection. The Kaiser Family Foundation’s latest report, “The Landscape of School-Based Mental Health Services,” reveals both the progress and the pain points in how schools are responding to the growing mental health needs of students and staff. It’s not just data it’s a mirror reflecting what’s working, what’s not, and where empathy must meet action. * Nearly 1 in 5 students now receive mental health services in schools a sign of progress, but also a signal of deep need. * 97% of schools offer some level of support, yet only half believe they can truly meet every student’s needs. That gap isn’t about will it’s about capacity, funding, and courage to reimagine support. * Funding and workforce shortages continue to be the biggest barriers. And when systems are stretched, the most vulnerable students often slip through. * Even as student needs rise, 13% of schools report no mental health services for staff. The truth is, we can’t pour from an empty cup. When educators are burning out, students feel it. * With recent freezes and cuts to federal funding, sustainability has become a leadership issue one that demands advocacy rooted in compassion, not compliance. When we choose empathy over avoidance, and courage over comfort, we create schools where every student feels seen, supported, and safe. That’s not just good policy that’s wholehearted leadership. What if our greatest measure of school success wasn’t academic achievement alone, but how deeply every student feels safe, seen, and supported? #WholeheartedLeadership #EmpathyInAction #SchoolMentalHealth #BreneBrown #CourageToLead #EducationLeadership #VulnerabilityAndCourage #BelongingInSchools You can read the full report here: https://lnkd.in/gBUdexwX

⚠️ The Silent Impact of a Federal Decision The recent layoffs within the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services have effectively wiped out nearly the entire team responsible for administering federal IDEA funding — the law that ensures students with disabilities receive the services and protections they deserve. This decision isn’t just about education — it’s about equity, access, and health. When special education systems collapse, families lose vital support, students fall through the cracks, and schools are left to navigate complex needs without guidance or funding. As healthcare and mental health professionals, we must see this for what it is: a systemic threat to child well-being. IDEA services directly affect mental health outcomes, developmental progress, and long-term resilience. 💬 Here’s how we can respond: Advocate for the restoration of IDEA oversight and funding. Collaborate with educators and community organizations to fill gaps in care. Support families emotionally and practically as they face uncertainty. The health of our communities depends on protecting the rights and services that sustain our most vulnerable children. #HealthEquity #DisabilityRights #SpecialEducation

🚨 As the possibility of a government shutdown looms, the consequences for educator preparation programs and schools/colleges of education are profound. Even before this moment, the federal government had already terminated critical funding for research, teacher preparation grants, and programs that support the training of mental health counselors and school counselors. These cuts have destabilized pipelines that are essential for preparing and sustaining the educators our students need. Now, with a shutdown on the horizon, the uncertainty grows deeper. Colleges of education face even greater strain in recruiting and retaining the next generation of educators and leaders. And if health care services are disrupted, the impact will be felt directly by children, families, and schools. When children’s health and mental health needs go unmet, their ability to learn and thrive is compromised. This is not just about budgets. It is about our nation’s commitment to the students who depend on well-prepared educators. We must continue to raise our voices, reclaim the teacher narrative, and remind policymakers: investing in educator preparation is investing in the future of our democracy, our economy, and our communities. AACTE (American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education) #StrongerTogether #TeacherPreparation #EducationPolicy #EducatorVoice

"Research shows that participation in high-quality afterschool programs can reduce school-day absences. A national report on 21st Century Community Learning Centers, a program that primarily serves nearly 1.4 million students attending high-poverty, low-performing schools, found that approximately three in five previously chronically absent students improved their school-day attendance after participating. These programs work because they address a core reason students disengage from school: it doesn’t feel relevant to their lives, and they feel disconnected from the adults at school." Such important research. Thanks to Beth Tomlinson for highlighting this article. Read on! https://lnkd.in/eZBQ-xPx