December 11, 2025

Dear Educator,

This week, we launched a new partnership with Bellflower Unified School District to create their Framework for the Future. Our first two days together were all about empathy and discovery—listening deeply to district and site leaders’ aspirations and challenges, hearing directly from learners, meeting educators and families, and walking classrooms to surface bright spots and possibilities.

I always love getting to know a new community—its people, its history, and the hopes and dreams that drive them. And as I walked out of Somerset School, I turned to the team and said, “I think I found my bright spot for the week.”

With Gratitude,

This is What Happens When Students Reclaim Their Confidence

During our classroom walks at Somerset, we saw students fully engaged in hands-on projects, small-group instruction, and meaningful conversations with teachers. On the surface, it looked like typical classroom practice. But what made it extraordinary was the students themselves.

Somerset is an alternative education school, a place where young people come when they’re off track and need a different path to graduation. Many began with 30 or fewer credits. Now, they’re thriving.

When we met with eight of these students, they shared honest, powerful reflections. Several talked about feeling invisible in their previous schools, like they didn’t matter in the “actual schools.” They pushed back on the assumption that alternative education is “easier.” What they described instead was a learning environment that finally met them where they were. They had teachers who mentored them, listened to both academic and life challenges, and created space for them to learn at a pace that allowed real understanding.

The impact is unmistakable. These students are building skills through CTE experiences, mapping out college and career plans, and imagining futures they once thought were out of reach. Somerset didn’t lower expectations. It opened doors. It offered connection, agency, and belief. And the students are running with it.

This week’s bright spot is not just what we saw in those classrooms—it’s who we saw: young people reclaiming their confidence, their momentum, and their sense of what’s possible.

In what ways are you meeting learners where they are? To support this important work, be sure to explore our library of learner-centered classroom strategies and system-wide Big Moves that can help create a culture of learning where everyone flourishes.

If you are an educator looking to embed Durable Skills into your learning experiences, lessons, units, and projects, the Learning Experience Accelerator App is worth taking for a spin! Trained with the Pathsmith Durable Skills Framework from America Succeeds and learner-centered strategies from Learner-Centered Collaborative, this app let's you design learner-centered experiences with confidence. Access the app here.

Resources to advance your learner-centered practice

📖 5 Tips for Launching Internships and Apprenticeships in Your District. "The goal is to help students see themselves in the world beyond school and prepare them to shape it." Connect learners to real-world learning.

🎙️ Rethinking Accountability—Policy, Practice, and the Future of Learning. "David Cook shares why moving from measuring achievement to assessing evidence of learning changes everything for teachers and learners, and why asset-based approaches must be the focus in any impact-focused educational design." Listen here.

🎯 A Learner-Centered Ecosystem. "A Learner-Centered Ecosystem dives deep into how educators can bring a learner-centered approach to life through 4 key elements: Whole-Learner Outcomes, Learning Model, School Design, and Enabling Conditions & Culture." Learn about each element.