Aylon Samouha

Morning circles replaced roll call.

Mindfulness breaks alongside rigorous lessons.

Measures on student belonging that matter as much as test scores do.

After months of piloting and iterating, these pieces came together into a coherent model where every student feels safe, connected, and ready to learn.

When I visited, I saw a seven-year-old named Jalisa who had an emotional outburst in the classroom.

Her friend Amara gently guided her to a calming space where they practiced breathing together.

Within minutes, Jalisa was back on track.

No tension, no punishment, just learning for both of them.

That's why even as other DC schools issued dozens or more suspensions each year, Van Ness issued none and exceeded district averages in reading and math.

Today, one in four DC elementary schools is adopting this approach, and it's spreading to more than 100 schools across the country.

Yeah.

And community-based design works in places that couldn't be more different.

It's how Matthew, a high school senior in rural North Dakota, went from dozing through class to forging his own path, in every sense of the word, after discovering blacksmithing, his school was ready.

Because it had been redesigned around real-world learning, he had the structure and freedom to turn his curiosity into craft, applying math, science, and design to building a small business of his own.

Now, imagine pairing community-based design with today's technology.

AI can help us accelerate learning and facilitate immersive experiences that spark every student's passion so that thousands more Matthews can find their purpose if we design on purpose.

from Brooklyn to DC to North Dakota, in 500 schools across the country.

We've seen what happens when communities design learning around how young people actually learn and live.

When you put student experience, engagement, motivation in the center, not as a bonus, but as a driving principle, everything changes.

The data backs it up.