NEW YORK, NY –Counslr, a leading B2B mental health and wellness platform, announced today that it has expanded its footprint into the State of New Mexico starting with a partnership with Vista Nueva High School, Aztec, NM; and into the State of Illinois starting with a partnership with Big Hollow School District, Ingleside, IL. These initial partnerships will empower students and staff to prioritize their mental health by enabling them to access unlimited wellness resources and live texting sessions with Counslr’s licensed and vetted mental health support professionals, who are available on-demand, 24/7/365. By increasing accessibility to Counslr’s round-the-clock support, Vista Nueva and Big Hollow aim to bridge gaps in mental health support for students and staff, enabling those who previously did not or could not access care, whether due to cost, inconvenience, or stigma, to receive the support they desire.
1 in 6 youth suffer from a mental illness, but the majority do not receive mental health support due to substantial obstacles to care. Additionally, mental health is even a bigger challenge in rural America due to unique barriers, including fewer providers resulting in longer wait times or insufficient access to crucial mental health services. This resource scarcity underscores the urgency for additional resources and innovative solutions to bridge this critical gap in mental health care for school communities.
“We are happy to be able to offer students another tool that they can use to support their mental well-being. Knowing that students have been able to speak with a professional outside of school hours helps us know this app was needed and is useful,” states Rebekah Deane, Professional School Counselor, Vista Nueva High School. “We hope this tool also assists students in learning how to navigate systems so that when they graduate high school they know these options exist and they can continue to seek out support when necessary.”
As factors such as academic pressures, social media influence, burnout and world events contribute to heightened stress levels and mental health challenges, schools throughout the country are recognizing the growing need to offer more accessible resources and preventative mental health services to both students and staff.
“Counslr provides an extremely easy-to-access platform for those who otherwise may not seek the help they need, and we are very excited to join Counslr in this partnership. We are all very well aware of the impact that technology has had on the mental health of our students and we feel that Counslr can meet our students in a setting they are comfortable with,” states Bob Gold, Big Hollow School District Superintendent. “Outside of our students, we are thrilled to be able to offer this service to the amazing adults who work with our students every day. There are so many families dealing with some sort of trauma, and the life of an educator is no different. These adults tend to give so much of themselves to their students, so we strongly feel that our efforts here to join with Counslr is our way of providing an opportunity for our educators to focus on their own mental health.”
In addition to the geographic expansion,Counslr has also expanded its existing footprint in states like New York, most recently partnering with the Silver Creek Central School District to support its students and staff.
“We know mental health needs are on the rise, for students and adults. To me, Counslr is a resource our students and staff both deserve,” states Dr. Katie Ralston, Superintendent, Silver Creek Central. “In the beginning stages at Silver Creek Central, it has proven to be an asset, as it offers access to everyone on the spot, any day, for any situation.”
“Supporting diverse populations of students and faculty across the country clearly illustrates that mental health knows no boundaries,” said Josh Liss, Counslr CEO. Adding that, “With 86% of Counslr’s users being first-time care seekers, we strive to reach these silent sufferers who need help, but do not or cannot access it, no matter where they are located.”
ABOUT COUNSLR
Counslr is a text-based mental health support application that provides unlimited access to robust wellness resources and live texting sessions with licensed professionals, 24/7/365. Users can access support on-demand within two minutes of opening the app, or by scheduled appointment. Through real-time texting, users enjoy one-on-one, private communication with a licensed counselor that can be conducted anytime, anywhere. Counslr was designed to help individuals deal with life’s day-to-day issues, empowering individuals to address concerns while they are “small” to help ensure that they stay “small”. Counslr partners with organizations of all shapes and sizes (companies, unions, nonprofits, universities/colleges, high schools, etc) so that these entities can provide Counslr’s services to their employees/members/students at no direct cost. For more information, please visit www.counslr.com.
eSchool Media staff cover education technology in all its aspects–from legislation and litigation, to best practices, to lessons learned and new products. First published in March of 1998 as a monthly print and digital newspaper, eSchool Media provides the news and information necessary to help K-20 decision-makers successfully use technology and innovation to transform schools and colleges and achieve their educational goals.
As Australia stares down the barrel of a looming pilot shortage, more than 100 NSW university students are taking to the skies in brand new state-of-the-art training aircraft.
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DANVERS, Mass. — It’s a rainy fall day in New England, but that doesn’t stop a group of students at Essex Tech North Shore Agricultural & Technical High School from donning work boots and hard hats and getting to work building a vegetable wash station on campus. This afternoon, they are installing wire mesh and prepping for a concrete pour under the watchful eye of Laborers’ Local 22 member Chris Moore, their teacher. “Hard hat hair don’t care,” reads the sticker on the hat worn by a young woman in the program.
The construction craft laborers track at Essex Tech, which Moore helps lead, is one of only a few high school-based programs in Massachusetts co-sponsored by a trade union. Students are initiated in union norms and expectations early on. Two Essex Tech teachers in the program are Local 22 members, with the New England Laborers’ Training Academy, which runs the laborers’ apprenticeship, paying Moore’s salary. As seniors, students can attend union meetings. And after graduation, many of them go straight into a union apprenticeship, fast tracked to a journeyman’s license. For all these reasons, Owen Paniagua, a 16-year-old junior, described the program as “a golden ticket to job security,” noting that he has learned everything from carpentry and concrete work to excavation and masonry.
“We feel as laborers that we should be in the schools,” said Lou Mandarini Jr., the retired business manager of Local 22 who now helps run the union’s school partnerships. “This is where your workforce is … If you treat young kids with respect, once they buy into your program, they are dead loyal.”
Students in the construction craft laborer program gather around Dave Collins, masonry head, before leaving to work on a project at Essex North Shore Agricultural & Technical High School in Danvers, Mass. Credit: Sophie Park for The Hechinger Report
In several states, including Massachusetts, Maryland and Louisiana, trade union leaders have forged similar, groundbreaking partnerships with high school CTE programs in recent years, ponying up their own resources for the efforts. There’s also been an uptick in training alliances between trade unions and community colleges. In a 2023 brief, AFL-CIO leadership encouraged these partnerships. “No one knows better how to do a job than someone who does the job,” the brief stated.
Whether more unions decide to embrace this advice likely will play a large role in determining the long-term health and vibrancy of both career and technical high schools, and the trades themselves.
Yet progress has been piecemeal and halting. And it’s too early to tell whether isolated partnerships across the country will translate into widespread change, said Taylor White, the director of postsecondary pathways for youth at the Center on Education and Labor at the think tank New America. “Schools and unions speak very different languages,” she noted. The same, she added, is true of employers and schools.
The longstanding dearth of partnerships says a lot about the history of America’s trade unions, which traditionally have operated as insular, sometimes parochial institutions, preferring to maintain tight control over their membership pipeline, and their training. In some communities, such as Milwaukee, that insularity kept unions predominantly white and male for generations. “Historically a lot of the high-paying skilled trades were handed down from father to son,” said Lauren Baker, a former education director in the printers’ union who also led Milwaukee Public Schools’ career and technical education program between 2002 and 2012. “That kept the trades looking a certain way.”
Mandarini, the retired union leader, said that in the past, “old timers didn’t help the young people.” But increasingly, he said, he hopes that mentality will become an anomaly.
Owen Paniagua, 16, and Isabella Gonzalez, 17, both juniors in the Construction Craft Laborer program at Essex North Shore Agricultural & Technical High School, pose for a portrait at Essex Tech in Danvers, Mass. The Essex Tech program’s partnership with the laborers’ union helps to foster job prospects for graduating students. Credit: Sophie Park for The Hechinger Report
For decades, many vocational school students have been held back by a lack of meaningful partnerships with both unions and employers at their schools, often leaving them without relevant training or clear pathways into jobs. “There’s skepticism from unions and employers that high school kids are ready for real training and real work,” said White, of New America.
There’s also been a longstanding desire on the part of many unions to maintain tight control over who can access often coveted apprentice slots.
Until recent years, most trade union apprenticeships in the Milwaukee area had admissions criteria that shut out many women, low-income, and Black and Hispanic city residents. “They were such closed communities, and it was a long process of breaking down some of those walls,” Baker said.
Back in the mid-1990s, Baker was the first woman to run a printing apprenticeship program for the union. In part to open up the field to as diverse a pool as possible, Baker abolished a requirement that apprentices had to be high school graduates. “Pretty much all a high school diploma told me was that they sat in a chair for four years,” she said, pointing out that many of the apprentices came from the academic bottom of their graduation classes. “I caught holy hell from the apprenticeship community for doing that,” she said.
While the SATs and other college entrance exams have at times been accused of being biased toward privileged white students, Baker said some of the apprenticeship admissions exams were challenging for anyone who hadn’t grown up in the home of someone already working in a specific trade. A question might presume that an applicant had experience helping fix their family’s car, for instance, something that young men were far more likely to have done — and those growing up in urban areas, where fewer households own cars, were far less likely to have done.
For decades, those tests contributed to keeping the construction trade unions, in particular, predominantly white and male. Only two of 16 Milwaukee area construction unions enrolled at least 20 percent Black apprentices in 2007, according to a report from researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Two of the unions, glazing and tile setters, had no Black apprentices in a city where, at that time, nearly 40 percent of the residents were Black.
Much of that bias and insularity continues in some Boston-area construction trade unions, said Travis Watson, who serves as a commissioner of the Boston Employment Commission and has critiqued some of the unions for their lack of racial diversity, citing specific practices that make it harder for prospective Black members to get a foothold. “If you look at every big downtown project in Boston, there are very few Black people who are working on union construction projects,” he said.
Some of the local unions have made changes to their admissions process to become more accessible to applicants from diverse backgrounds, said Danyson Tavares, who worked for several years in leadership positions at YouthBuild Boston, a pre-apprenticeship program that helps prepare young people of color in the city for jobs in the construction and design industries. But other unions might take applications only once a year or remain secretive about their standards and curriculum. “The electrical union is the one we really want to have more relationships with, there’s such a demand for that workforce,” Tavares said. “We’ve slowly started to penetrate but it’s a lot more work than I expected.”
One 25-year-old who recently finished his pre-apprenticeship in carpentry at YouthBuild said he got an interview with the union but was turned down for an apprenticeship for reasons that he said weren’t entirely clear. “I kind of felt like I wouldn’t get in,” said Keyshawn Kavanaugh. He found a non-union job easily at a company that he likes a lot, but he acknowledges that “the union is the best place to work,” at least from the standpoint of benefits and pension.
In Milwaukee, Baker said she’s seen some positive changes since she ran the printers apprenticeship, with more local unions developing inclusive and transparent admissions. “The trades themselves began to realize that they needed to look beyond their natural base in order to fill jobs,” she said. “It became more apparent that there is a vast opportunity out there with women and people of color.”
The idea that Massachusetts laborers should invest time and money in local schools originated over 20 years ago, when Mandarini and other Local 22 leaders decided they were neglecting a potential asset: kids. Mandarini proposed a pilot partnership to the vocational school in Medford, Massachusetts, just outside of Boston, which started in 2002. It wasn’t easy at first. “How do you adapt to a public school?” he said. “There was a lot of learning that we had to do on both ends.”
The union had to fight against a perception that a four-year college degree was the only path to a stable, rewarding career, Mandarini said. It helped with recruiting to explain to prospective students that, at that time, union laborers could expect to retire with an annuity of about $1.2 million, he added. (In Massachusetts, laborers typically earn between $90,000 and $100,000 annually, and that annuity is now more than $2 million, Mandarini said.)
A school bus sits in a parking lot at Essex North Shore Agricultural & Technical High School in Danvers, Mass. Credit: Sophie Park for The Hechinger Report
Over the years, the partnership model has spread to eight career and technical schools in Massachusetts. At some, the union pays a teacher’s salary, and at others it does not, Mandarini said. “We want to be in every vocational school in Massachusetts,” he said, “and hopefully every vocational school in New England. That’s where our workforce is coming from.”
In rural western Louisiana, it was a private company that encouraged a local trade union to partner with public high schools. The company, CapturePoint, which sells carbon storage services, reached out in March 2023 to the local branch of the United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipefitting Industry, asking if the union would help build out a new career and technical track at the Vernon Parish School District.
To make it happen, the company paid for the electricity, classroom equipment and furniture to help turn an old woodworking shop at one of the district’s high schools into an updated welding shop. CapturePoint also took on several ongoing costs, paying for student transportation — the students can come from nine different high schools — and some administrative expenses. The union paid for some reconstruction and all the tools, and provided an instructor. The school offers the space and enrolls 30 students, who can skip their first year of apprenticeship if they join the union after graduating, thereby starting at a higher pay rate. “All of us have skin in the game,” said Lance Albin, who led the partnership for the union.
At high schools with trade union partnerships, there’s no shortage of interested students. Isabella Gonzalez, 17, creator of the “hard hat hair don’t care” sticker, said she hopes to move straight into an apprenticeship with Local 22 when she graduates in a year and a half. Aspiring laborers learn more diverse skills than students in related tracks like plumbing and electrical, she said, opening up the possibility of a greater variety of work.
That day last fall, juniors in the program practiced using a compactor to prep the ground for installation of a patio floor, part of the final stages in rebuilding a large cottage on campus. The construction students have been involved in the project since they poured the cement for the foundation in the summer of 2020, wearing masks during the pandemic’s early days, even outdoors.
By afternoon, the students had transitioned to another work in progress: the vegetable wash station by the greenhouse, where they needed to install enough wire mesh and rebar to do the concrete pour early the next week. “Put your hard hat on and help out,” their teacher Moore reminded a group of students holding back as the rain hardened. “No … statues here.”
Students in the Construction Craft Laborers program at Essex North Shore Agricultural & Technical High School lay mesh while working on a greenhouse washing station at Essex Tech in Danvers, Mass. Credit: Sophie Park for The Hechinger Report
Students say the partnership with Local 22 provides them increased career security and the confidence that they are learning relevant, up-to-date skills: Moore until recently worked part time in the field, including on Boston’s project to restore the tunnel to the city’s Logan Airport.
Paniagua, the 16-year-old student in the program, said he can command a higher pay rate than most of his peers at a part-time carpentry and landscaping job because of the expertise he has gained in the Essex Tech program. He’s used the extra money to buy two new trucks. The union partnership has also allowed him to make more thoughtful, informed choices about career steps, he added. Leaning on his teachers as mentors, Paniagua said he decided to continue studying at a specialized welding school in Wyoming after graduation to maximize his future earning potential. “We know what we want to do here and get on it,” Paniagua said, noting that it’s a stark contrast to some of his friends who are conflicted about the value of a four-year college degree. “We’re not lost,” he said, “or wasting money.”
Former President Joe Biden was exceptionally supportive of the labor movement, and specifically of partnerships between unions and schools. Some labor experts expect some of that support might continue in the new Trump administration. “We’re seeing indications of a Trump administration that might not be as hostile to unions as you might think,” said Shalin Jyotishi, founder and managing director of the Future of Work and Innovation Economy Initiative at New America. He cited Trump nominee Lori Chavez-DeRemer, opposed by many in the business community, for Labor secretary, and the president’s support of the longshoremen’s union over their anti-automation stance.
In any event, “these bottoms-up innovations are already happening locally,” Jyotishi said. “Federal decisions can help or hurt … odds of success, but the proof-of-concept is already out of the bag.”
A bigger question mark may be whether there is the will to expand capacity significantly on the ground. Some of the existing programs have not yet reached students in the most underserved communities who could potentially benefit most from a fast track into a union apprenticeship.
In Massachusetts, for instance, many of the high schools the laborers work with have become increasingly selective in admissions. Students from low-income homes were 30 percent less likely to be accepted at the state’s vocational schools in 2023 and 2024 than those from wealthier households, according to an analysis by the Boston Globe. Similar disparities existed for students receiving special education services and English learners.
The laborers have yet to expand their partnership model to Boston’s Madison Park Technical Vocational High School, where nearly all of the students are Black or Hispanic, about 85 percent come from low-income households, and 92 percent are identified as “high needs” — an umbrella term in Massachusetts that includes students with disabilities, English learners and low-income students, among other groups.
Madison Park, part of the city’s public school district, has some partnerships and many strong programs and instructors, said Bobby Jenkins, an alum and long-time advocate of the school. But the chronic turnover of both superintendents and school leaders in recent years has hindered progress in undertaking some more ambitious partnerships.
Isabella Gonzalez, 17, a junior in the Construction Craft Laborers program at Essex North Shore Agricultural & Technical High School, compacts gravel at the Larkin Cottage, a project site at Essex Tech in Danvers, Mass. Credit: Sophie Park for The Hechinger Report
Mandarini agreed that political and bureaucratic obstacles have made it more challenging to partner with Madison Park. But the union has made it a priority and is in promising talks with city officials about partnering with the school when a proposed new facility might be completed.
“When I was part of the building trades, I used to say, ‘I don’t understand why you aren’t taking more kids, especially in the city of Boston,’” Mandarini said. “Every single trade should be in (Madison Park).’”
For now, that attitude has not spread to all union leaders. It will take a cultural shift from trade union groups to expand their school partnerships beyond scattered, boutique programs. Among other things, they will need to prioritize flexibility and the learning and growth of young people more than they are accustomed to, said White, of New America.
She noted that many union leaders seem aware that they have a pipeline and recruitment issue but remain unsure what to do about it. More school-based partnerships could help not only with that challenge but also with reenergizing and selling unions to future generations of workers — and voters, White added. “All of the polling suggests that young people are pretty pro-union,” she said. “There’s a missed opportunity on the part of unions if they don’t capitalize on that.”
Reporting on this story was supported by the Higher Ed Media Fellowship, where Carr was a fellow in 2024. This year, Carr has a fellowship from New America to report on early childhood issues.
The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.
Criticism of government and public officials is at the core of First Amendment protections. But the Institute of American Indian Arts in New Mexico is ironically using its anti-bullying policy to browbeat student critics into silence.
Last spring, David McNicholas, senior editor of the Young Warriorstudent magazine, published two student submissions reacting to recent news of the abrupt resignation of Karen Redeye, a beloved student success advisor at IAIA.
The first submission was an anonymous editorial urging students to speak up against IAIA’s “oppression” and accusing Redeye’s supervisors of bullying her to the point that “good people have no choice but to leave or sacrifice their own mental, emotional well-being.” The second submission, also from an anonymous student, was an image of a flyer referencing rumors that Nena Martinez Anaya, the dean of students, misappropriated grant money meant for food aid. The flyer read, “Karen Redeye keeps pantries full[.] Nena Martinez robs them[.] Redeye Redemption[.]”
Immediately after the magazine’s publication, IAIA Provost Felipe Colon told McNicholas he was being investigated over complaints that the publication constituted bullying. Specifically, he was told that the “damaging and defamatory content” and “derogatory and unfounded misinformation” violated IAIA’s expansive anti-bullying policy — which bars everything from “teasing, name-calling” and “taunting,” to “telling others not to be friends . . . with someone” and “offensive text messages or emails.”
A third complaint, filed by Lorissa Garcia, interim director of the Student Success Center, echoed the others but added a new accusation. Namely, that in his role as public relations officer for the student government, McNicholas used its Instagram account to “promote and distribute derogatory and unfounded misinformation and rumors” concerning Garcia’s role in Redeye’s resignation.
Garcia based this allegation on the claim that the student government’s account “liked” a student’s post sharing an image of the “Redeye Redemption” flyer.
Colon found McNicholas responsible for bullying, placed him on probation through the end of the 2024–25 school year, suspended him from student housing, and ordered him to issue written public apologies to Garcia and Martinez Anaya — and publish retractions in the Young Warrior and on the student government Instagram account.
Redeye then emailed IAIA President Robert Martin to explain that she had indeed resigned from IAIA due to “maltreatment” and “bullying from direct supervisors.” Despite Redeye corroborating the editorial’s factual assertions, an appeals panel lifted the other sanctions but upheld the probation.
FIRE wrote IAIA last month, urging it to rescind the remaining sanctions and revise its overbroad and vague anti-bullying policy:
The First Amendment protects the freedom of the press to publish vehement criticism of government officials (including college administrators) like that contained in the anonymous editorial submissions printed in the Young Warrior. In fact, such criticism is at the core of the Constitution’s guarantee of expressive rights. . . . As the Supreme Court has explained, “debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and . . . may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials.”
IAIA cannot ban “teasing” and “offensive text messages” simply by labeling them bullying. In order for so-called “bullying” speech to be punishable, it must rise to the level of actionable harassment — that is, it must discriminate based on protected status and be severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive, among other criteria. An anti-bullying policy expansive enough to cover “taunting” and “telling others not to be friends . . . with someone” is unconstitutional.
But IAIA refused to rescind the sanctions or amend its policy. According to the school, its actions did not violate the First Amendment:
Mr. McNicholas was not disciplined because he published critical commentary about IAIA officials, as you state; he was disciplined for publishing harmful, hurtful, unsubstantiated and damaging statements about the persons and reputations of members of the IAIA community. There is a big difference between critical commentary and the spreading of unsubstantiated and injurious statements claiming illegal activity.
Contrary to IAIA’s assertion, constitutional protection for speech and the press extends to criticism that is “harmful” or “hurtful.” The Supreme Court has been clear: “Criticism of [public officials’] official conduct does not lose its constitutional protection merely because it is effective criticism and hence diminishes their official reputations.”
Nor does the published material lose First Amendment protection simply because it contains unproven claims. Even false or misleading statements are protected unless the expression meets the high standard for unprotected defamation. Here, that means IAIA would need to show that the published claims about Garcia and Martinez were not only false, but that McNicholas published them despite knowing — or with a “high degree of awareness” — they were false.
IAIA cannot do so. Despite throwing around a lot of terms like “misinformation,” “libelous,” “defamation,” and “slander,” IAIA has not offered any evidence to show the allegations are false, let alone that McNicholas knew they were false. Indeed, the available evidence shows he had good reason for believing the truth of the published allegations.
FIRE defends the rights of students and faculty members — no matter their views — at public and private universities and colleges in the United States. If you are a student or a faculty member facing investigation or punishment for your speech, submit your case to FIRE today. If you’re faculty member at a public college or university, call the Faculty Legal Defense Fund 24-hour hotline at 254-500-FLDF (3533). If you’re a college journalist facing censorship or a media law question, call the Student Press Freedom Initiative 24-hour hotline at 717-734-SPFI (7734).
For middle school students in Broken Arrow Public Schools (BAPS) in Oklahoma, career readiness has become more than an abstract idea. A district-wide effort to integrate career exploration into education has yielded promising results, as evidenced by student surveys conducted at the end of the 2022–23 school year. The findings highlight how structured career readiness programs can shape confidence, broaden horizons, and equip students with practical skills for the future.
Cultivating Career Curiosity and Decision-Making Confidence
A survey of 1,250 middle school students—spanning grades six through eight—revealed an inspiring trend: career exploration initiatives sparked curiosity about various professions and bolstered confidence in decision-making about future pathways. When asked if the programs inspired them to explore career paths, 73% of sixth graders and 69% of seventh and eighth graders responded affirmatively. This curiosity extended to understanding the skills and abilities needed for different careers, with 84% of sixth graders and over 70% of seventh and eighth students acknowledging a greater awareness.
Confidence-building was another hallmark of the program. More than two-thirds of sixth graders and over 60% of seventh and eighth graders reported feeling more assured about making career decisions. The data underscores that structured exposure to diverse career options fosters a stronger sense of direction and self-assurance among students navigating their aspirations.
A Journey of Self-Discovery and Skill Development
Beyond inspiring career exploration, the program helped students uncover their strengths and interests. Nearly three-quarters of students across all grades credited the initiative with enhancing their understanding of personal aptitudes and interests. This self-discovery process empowered students to align their career goals with their unique talents.
Students also highlighted the practical skills gained through the program, particularly in areas like financial management and productivity. Activities such as budgeting exercises not only provided hands-on learning but also reinforced essential life skills. For instance, students gained insights into financial planning, patience, and task management—competencies that extend far beyond academic settings.
Broadening Career Horizons
One of the program’s most significant impacts was increasing awareness of diverse career options. Approximately 80% of students across all grades reported learning about new professions, sparking interest in fields they had not previously considered. From nursing and coaching to creative industries and technical roles, students expressed excitement about the vast possibilities their futures could hold.
At Oliver Middle School, localized feedback from students offered further insights. Many praised the program for its user-friendly design and step-by-step guidance, which made career exploration accessible and engaging. Students also appreciated the real-world relevance of projects that connected classroom learning with professional scenarios.
Looking Ahead
These findings affirm the critical role of career readiness initiatives in middle school education. By fostering curiosity, confidence, and self-awareness, these programs lay the foundation for informed decision-making and lifelong learning. As the district continues to refine its approach, incorporating student feedback will be key to ensuring all learners feel represented, supported, and engaged.
For Broken Arrow Public Schools, the success of this initiative underscores the importance of proactive career exploration. Empowering students with the tools and knowledge to navigate their futures not only enriches their educational experience but also prepares them to contribute meaningfully to the world beyond the classroom. By continuing to invest in career readiness, BAPS is setting a standard for how schools can cultivate future-ready graduates.
This is a summary of a Case Study by Defined, “The Impact of Defined Careers on Engaging Middle School Students in Career Readiness”. To read the full Case Study, please click here.
Los Angeles, CA — As students navigate an increasingly complex world defined by artificial intelligence, social media, and rapid technological change, the need for essential life skills has never been greater. The Edge, an innovative, research-based social-emotional and life skills curriculum, creates a dynamic and effective learning environment where middle and high school students can build the social-emotional and life-readiness skills needed to succeed in school, relationships, and life.
Designed in collaboration with educators and aligned with the CASEL framework, The Edge is the first curriculum to meet educators’ demands for high-quality instructional materials for SEL and life-skills readiness. The curriculum helps students cultivate communication, problem-solving, and self-awareness, as well as essential life skills like entrepreneurship, negotiation, financial literacy, and networking, to boost their academic abilities.
“The Edge represents a paradigm shift in education,” says Devi Sahny, Founder and CEO of The Edge and Ascend Now. “It’s not just about helping students excel academically—it’s about helping them understand themselves, connect with others, and develop the resilience to face life’s challenges head-on.”
By combining bite-sized lessons with project-based learning, The Edge creates a dynamic and effective learning environment with ready-to-use, adaptable resources educators use to help students develop both hard and soft skills. Its advanced analytics track student progress whilesaving valuable preparation time. Designed to enable educators to adapt as needed, the curriculum is flexible and requires minimal preparation to support all learning environments—asynchronous and synchronous learning, even flipped learning.
Key highlights include:
Integrated Skill Framework: A robust curriculum featuring 5 pillars, 24 essential skills, and 115 modules, blending SEL with employability and life skills such as negotiation, financial literacy, and digital literacy, all aligned with CASEL, ASCA, and global educational standards.
Educator-Friendly Design: With over 1,000 customizable, MTSS-aligned resources, The Edge saves teachers time and effort while allowing them to adapt materials to meet their unique classroom needs.
Hard Skill Development Meets SEL: By engaging in activities like entrepreneurship, critical thinking, and leadership training, students develop technical proficiencies while enhancing communication, empathy, and resilience.
Real-Time Analytics: Advanced data tools provide administrators with actionable insights into student progress, enabling schools and districts to measure outcomes and improve program alignment with educational goals.
Compelling Content.The curriculum features engaging content that integrates the latest insights from learning sciences with professional writing from skilled authors affiliated with SNL, Netflix, and HBO Max. This combination guarantees that the material is educationally solid, relevant, and thought-provoking.
The Edge immerses students in real-life, complex scenarios that challenge them to think critically, collaborate effectively, and apply social-emotional learning (SEL) to everyday situations. For example, one lesson about conflict resolution uses an actual problem that Pixar faced when allocating resources for new movies.
Early adopters of The Edge have reported remarkable results. The Edge was used by rising high school seniors during a three-week summer college immersion program (SCIP) at Georgetown University, which prepares high school students from underserved backgrounds to apply for college. At the end of the program, 94% reported learning important skills, and 84% said they discovered something new about themselves.
ABOUT THE EDGE
The Edge is the latest innovation from Ascend Now US, dba The Edge, a US-based education startup committed to increasing both college and career readiness for all students. Sahny founded The Edge in the US after building and scaling Ascend Now Singapore, which has provided personalized academic and entrepreneurship tutoring to over 10,000 students and 20+ international schools over the last decade.
eSchool Media staff cover education technology in all its aspects–from legislation and litigation, to best practices, to lessons learned and new products. First published in March of 1998 as a monthly print and digital newspaper, eSchool Media provides the news and information necessary to help K-20 decision-makers successfully use technology and innovation to transform schools and colleges and achieve their educational goals.
As we welcome a new year, educators and industry leaders are excited to discover the biggest education trends for 2025. The past few years have been characterized by fresh and innovative solutions for learning, as well as transformative, technology-forward approaches to education.
Each year, we like to look ahead and anticipate the biggest upcoming education trends. There are many topics education professionals can expect to be at the center of the conversation in 2025–from new perspectives on artificial intelligence for education to the emergence of nontraditional school models amid an increasingly competitive enrollment environment.
For 2025, schools and districts are focused on making learning more engaging for students, creating a more positive environment for educators, and transforming school culture to meet the diverse needs of the school community. As schools work to accomplish these goals, we expect to see an expansion of AI and other emerging technologies in the classroom, enhanced professional development and support for teachers, and more individualized learning opportunities for students.
Here are five of the biggest education trends for 2025:
1. Nontraditional school models
Everything from career opportunities, technology, and the world around us has changed significantly over the past decade, yet the traditional model of public schools in the U.S. has remained largely unchanged for generations. As this industrial-age school model persists, many students feel bored and disengaged with their learning.
When the COVID-19 pandemic caused school interruptions in 2020, many families decided it was time to pivot to new and nontraditional learning opportunities for their children. Since 2019, over 1 million students–the equivalent of one student from every class in the country–have left the conventional classroom to seek out different educational approaches and more innovative learning environments. The National Center for Education Statistics projects that public schools, including public charter schools, will lose an additional 2.4 million students by 2031.
Today’s students desire more individualized learning approaches, which empower them to use their creativity, explore their passions, and engage with their peers in more collaborative ways. In 2025, we will see a greater emergence of nontraditional school models that center student engagement, collaboration, and creativity, and prepare learners to graduate into a continually-evolving workforce.
Some of these emerging nontraditional education models include microschools, online and hybrid learning programs, and project-based or student-led schools, as well as long-established nontraditional school programs such as homeschooling, Montessori, and career and technical education schools. In 2025, we also anticipate that public schools will step up to meet the diverse needs of students through innovative approaches, mirroring some of the elements of these nontraditional school models in order to maintain enrollment, enhance engagement, and equip students with applicable career-ready skills.
2. Expanded use of AI in education
As we predicted last year, artificial intelligence (AI) has become prevalent in the educational space, and this emerging technology shows no sign of stopping its rapid growth as we make our way into 2025. This year, we expect the conversation around AI to shift, reflecting a more widespread acceptance of the technology as a beneficial tool to enhance education and productivity.
In 2025, schools will continue to integrate more AI into the curriculum, guiding students to use it appropriately to enhance their learning. Many schools and districts have already developed formal AI school policies and modified student codes of conduct to ensure safe, effective, and ethical use of AI tools in the classroom.
Furthermore, many educators are now taking the initiative to incorporate AI tools into their lesson plans to help students build familiarity with the technology. Introducing students to AI in a safe and controlled environment enables them to learn how to use it effectively and ethically. Equipping students with foundational skills in AI is already regarded as an essential skill set for college and many careers.
Because AI is a fairly new technology for everyone, including educators, we anticipate that more schools will implement AI professional development opportunities this year, enabling teachers to deliver more effective AI instruction. Some schools are also beginning to employ AI tools for administrative productivity, which will require training and guidance to ensure educators and staff can successfully integrate these tools into their work.
3. Targeted support for educators
Over the past five years, many districts have been focused on allocating Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funding to implement new educational programs and tools, support student wellbeing, and overcome learning loss. Now that the final ESSER deadline has passed, 2025 will see schools and districts shift their attention to providing targeted support directly to educators.
With all of the new technology, refreshed learning spaces, and updated curriculum districts have recently introduced, professional development is essential to ensure effective implementation of these enhancements. In 2025, schools will incorporate new professional development programs that empower educators to foster engaged learners. By providing the tools and resources teachers need to be successful, schools can help educators improve their productivity and attain professional goals, while still keeping teacher wellbeing as a top priority.
Teachers are the primary influencers of the K-12 educational experience, so supporting educators is a holistic approach that benefits the entire school community. To address rising workloads, schools will implement new tools and strategies to support teacher efficacy and wellbeing. Some schools are even piloting automated and AI-powered technologies to take repetitive and administrative tasks off teachers’ plates, freeing up invaluable time for them to connect with students and focus on teaching.
Additionally, districts have begun to recognize the importance of a healthy work-life balance, as many teachers have left the profession over the past several years. In 2025, districts will continue to explore ways to cultivate a more positive job experience for teachers. Teachers want solutions for student behavioral issues, more attentive leadership teams, and more manageable workloads. Schools will work to improve these matters, while maintaining aspects of the job teachers value most, including school culture, opportunities for professional learning and certifications, and STEM and arts programs.
4.A focus on school and district culture
With a growing list of education options, students and their families are seeking out learning environments that not only provide high-quality curriculum and resources, but also align with their values and prioritize school-home communication. In this increasingly competitive enrollment environment, cultivating a positive culture and connected school community are the qualities that make schools stand out.
Funding and resources are directly related to the number of students at each school, so cultivating an inviting school culture is key. In 2025, schools and districts will take time to refine their school brand in order to attract and maintain students. School leaders will focus on creating more opportunities to engage with students and families, implementing new communications tools, initiatives, and events that bring the school community together.
In the past few years, some K-12 administrators have piloted mobile teaching stations to increase their visibility and daily impact throughout their school. We anticipate more school leaders will embrace this approach in 2025, enabling them to build stronger relationships with students and teachers. By working from mobile workstations, administrators can directly engage with students and staff, making face-to-face connections on a daily basis. Frequent positive interactions with school leadership help students, teachers, and families stay engaged with the school community, promoting a culture of connection and support.
5. Universal design for learning
Today’s students are making more choices about how and where they want to learn than ever before. Universal design for learning (UDL) promotes achievement among diverse student bodies by giving each student access to resources and environments that help them learn. Accessibility goes far beyond ADA compliance, and schools are recognizing this through the application of UDL across the learning experience. Understanding the diverse needs of students is crucial for creating learning experiences that are inclusive and supportive.
In 2025, UDL will be at the center of creating comfortable and engaging learning environments that accommodate all students’ needs. For instance, more schools are implementing sensory spaces, ensuring neurodiverse learners have a safe and comfortable space to self-regulate throughout the school day. These spaces don’t just serve neurodivergent students–all students benefit from having areas at school that are dedicated to supporting wellbeing.
As in previous years, accessibility and equity will continue to be prominent topics in 2025, but the conversation will pivot to focus on ways UDL can positively impact curriculum. UDL emphasizes providing students with multiple, flexible types of engagement, different ways of presenting information, and multiple ways to demonstrate their understanding in the classroom. This practice supports students who are neurodivergent and/or experience learning challenges, but also improves the learning experience for neurotypical students.
Dr. Christina Counts, MiEN Environments
Dr. Christina Counts, VP of Education at MiEN Environments, is a proven leader with over 17 years of experience transforming learning spaces. Her background includes roles as a teacher, district leader, school administrator, and innovative learning designer. She currently leads a team supporting schools transitioning to flexible, collaborative, student-centered environments. Dr. Counts holds a doctorate in K-12 Educational Leadership, is National Board certified, and an Accredited Learning Environment Planner (ALEP).
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The University of Tennessee’s pharmacy school twice investigated a grad student for her sex-positive social media posts.
UT voted to expel her from her doctoral program — but reversed its decision when FIRE intervened.
Today’s settlement is a warning to colleges around the country: If you police students’ personal online expression, there will be consequences.
Student: ‘We all need to speak up when someone tries to take our rights away — our voice is way too powerful to let anyone shut it down.’
MEMPHIS, Tenn., Jan. 29, 2025 — After her First Amendment lawsuit set precedent last fall for student free speech rights, Memphis pharmacist Kimberly Diei agreed to a $250,000 settlement with the University of Tennessee.
School administrators twice investigated and nearly expelled Diei over her sex-positive social media posts on her personal account. Concerned she and other students would face future investigations for speech fully protected by the First Amendment, Kim connected with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression to sue UT on her behalf in 2021.
“UT’s pharmacy school learned an important lesson today,” said FIRE attorney Greg H. Greubel. “There is nothing unprofessional about students expressing love of hip-hop and their sexuality on social media. Kim has proven something FIRE has said for 25 years: The First Amendment robustly protects students’ rights to have a voice outside of school, even if college administrators don’t like what they have to say.”
Just a month into her studies in September 2019, UT’s pharmacy school investigated Kim for her social media content focused on sexuality, fashion, and music. The college justified the investigation by using vague “professionalism” standards — standards it never provided to Kim — but ultimately dropped that first investigation.
In one tweet, Kim contributed to a trending discussion on Twitter about the song “WAP” by Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion, suggesting lyrics for a possible remix. In another, she posted a selfie and referenced lyrics from a popular Beyoncé song.
Unfortunately, Kim’s ordeal was not unique. For years, colleges around the country have wieldedprofessionalismcodes against students for their expression even when the student’s speech has no bearing on their ability to succeed in a given field. Kim’s posts were wholly separate from the college, as her accounts operated under a pseudonym and did not reveal her then-identity as a student.
Yet by the following year, Kim was under a second investigation, and UT administrators voted to expel her. In the midst of preparing for exams, she appealed to the dean, who reversed the decision after hearing from FIRE. Then, FIRE sued on behalf of Kim in February 2021.
“I wasn’t about to let my university get away with silencing me or any other student for speaking our truth,” Kim said. “Staying positive while fighting for my rights for years wasn’t easy, but it was necessary. We all need to speak up when someone tries to take our rights away — our voice is way too powerful to let anyone shut it down.”
Kim’s posts complied with the social media sites’ policies and involved expression that the First Amendment squarely prevents public universities from investigating and punishing.
In 2024, a federal appeals court agreed, ruling that her expression — which administrators called “sexual,” “crude,” and “vulgar” — was “clearly protected” by the First Amendment. Crucially, in a blow to the qualified immunity that often shields government actors from paying damages for violating constitutional rights, the court emphasized that previous Supreme Court precedent and prior Sixth Circuit rulings put “beyond debate” that the First Amendment protects Kim’s speech.
“Students don’t give up their free speech rights the day they sign up for grad school,” said FIRE attorney JT Morris. “Without FIRE, UT could have derailed Kim’s whole professional career. We were proud to fight for Kim. Her win will help protect students everywhere from campus censors at public universities.”
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to defending and sustaining the individual rights of all Americans to free speech and free thought — the most essential qualities of liberty. FIRE educates Americans about the importance of these inalienable rights, promotes a culture of respect for these rights, and provides the means to preserve them.
CONTACT:
Daniel Burnett, Senior Director of Communications, FIRE: 215-717-3473; [email protected]
School administrators provided mostly positive feedback to lawmakers curious about implementation of a 2023 law prohibiting students from using their phones.
School officials provided the House Student Academic Success subcommittee feedback last week on HB 379, a 2023 law that prohibits phone use during instructional time, prohibits access to certain websites on school networks, and requires instruction to students to responsibly use social media.
“It’s gone very very well in many of our classrooms, especially I would say it goes really well in our classrooms with struggling learners. The teachers have seen the benefit of that increased interaction with each other, the increased focus,” said Toni Zetzsche, principal of River Ridge High School in Pasco County.
The law, introduced by Rep. Brad Yeager, a Republican representing part of Pasco County, received unanimous support before serving as a sort of model legislation across the nation.
“The first step of this process: remove phones from the classroom, focus on learning, take the distraction out. Number two was, social media, without just yanking it from them, try to educate them on the dangers. Try to help to learn and understand how social media works for them and against them,” Yeager said during the subcommittee meeting.
An EducationWeek analysis shows Florida was the first state to ban or restrict phones when the law passed, with several other states following suit in 2024.
Florida schools have discretion as to how they enforce the law, with some prohibiting cellphones from the beginning until the end of the day, while others allow students to use their phones during down times like lunch and between classes.
Some teachers have taken it upon themselves to purchase hanging shoe organizers for students to bank their phones in during class, Yeager said.
Since the law took effect in the middle of 2023, Zetzsche said, students in higher level college preparatory classes have partially struggled because of the self-regulating nature of the courses and the expectation that teachers give them more freedom.
But for younger and lower-performing students, the law has been effective, according to Zetzsche and research Yeager used to gain support for the bill.
“In some of our ninth and tenth grade classrooms, where the kids need a little more support, those teachers are definitely seeing the benefit,” Zetzsche said.
Orange County Schools Superintendent Maria Vazquez said schools have combatted student complaints about not having their phones by filling down time, like lunch periods, with games or club activities.
Zetzsche said she has seen herself and others use the phoneless time as an opportunity to get to know more students.
“I know I’ve spoken with teachers, elementary teachers, middle school teachers, and high school teachers that have said, ‘I’ve had to teach students to reconnect and get involved or talk to people.’ They are doing a better job of focusing on that replacement behavior now, I think. I think we all are,” Zetzsche said.
“I think, as a high school principal now, when I see a student sitting in the cafeteria and they’re on their cellphone watching a movie, I immediately want to strike up a conversation and say, ‘Hey, are you on the weightlifting team? Do you play a sport?’” Zetzsche said.
Bell to bell
Orange County schools decided not to allow phones all day, while Pasco County chose to keep phones away from students during instructional time, the extent the law requires.
“It was surprisingly, and shockingly, pretty easy to implement,” Marc Wasko, principal at Timber Creek High School in Orange County, told the subcommittee.
Rep. Fiona McFarland, a Republican representing part of Sarasota County and the chair of the subcommittee, encouraged further planning to better enforce the law.
“I will tell you, because not everything we do up here is perfect, there are some schools that I’ve heard of where, even if the teacher has a bag, kids are bringing a dummy phone, like mom’s old iPhone, and flipping that into the pouch where they’ve got their device in their pocket or if you’ve got long hair, maybe you can hide earbuds,” McFarland said.
“I mean, this is the reality of being policymakers, folks,” McFarland continued. “We make a law, we can make the greatest law in the world, which is meaningless if it’s not executed and enforced properly. We could pass a law tomorrow to end world hunger and global peace, but it means nothing if it’s not operationalized well and planned for well.”
Yeager told the committee he does not plan to seek to ban phones outside of instructional time, although other lawmakers could push for further phone prohibitions.
Department of Education obligation
The law requires the Department of Education to make instructional material available on the effects of social media, required for students to learn under the law.
“Finding the time to be able to embed that into the curriculum is really difficult. We are struggling with instructional minutes as it is, when we have things like hurricanes impact learnings,” Zetzsche said.
“We are struggling to get through the content, so it would be nice to have something from the Department of Education that is premade that we can share with students, but maybe through elective courses or some guidance on how they would expect high schools, how they would feed that information to students.”
Administrators said parental pushback has been limited, and Zetzsche added that parents have sought advice from schools about how to detach their kids from their phones.
“When we struggle with the student who’s attached to their cellphone, the parents want to put things in place. They just don’t know what to do,” Zetzsche said, calling for the department to provide additional information to parents.
Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Michael Moline for questions: [email protected].
