Fleur Johnson | Workforce Analytics, Retention & Wellbeing, & Strategic Planning
In the newsletter today: Tools and data to center workforce development, Coherence by Design, & ASU+GSV Sunset Boat Cruise
🎙️ Tuesday’s Learning Can’t Wait Episode
Fleur Johnston, Founder & CEO of PeopleBench, joins the Learning Can’t Wait podcast for a timely and deeply insightful conversation about one of the biggest challenges facing education today: the people behind the system. From teacher overwhelm and burnout to leadership shortages and unplanned churn, Johnson brings both urgency and clarity to what schools and districts are really up against.
Fleur moves beyond naming the problem. She explains why intuition alone isn’t enough, how workforce data can surface the “quieter voices” (hint: it’s not who I thought!) leaders may be missing, and why strategic workforce planning is essential if we want healthier schools, stronger retention, and better outcomes for students and communities.
This is a must-listen for anyone thinking seriously about the future of education leadership. Fleur offers a powerful reminder that technology isn’t the solution by itself; it’s the enabler. If you care about building systems where educators can thrive, this episode will leave you with both perspective and practical takeaways.
📚 What I’m Reading
TNTP’s new report, Coherence by Design Building Instructional Systems That Help Students Catch Up, is right on the money. To dive into it, let’s start with what coherence is not. It is not multiple curricula layered on top of each other. It is not worksheets pulled from a dozen sources to fill a period. It is not the random insertion of content to check a box or satisfy a compliance calendar. These practices may look like instruction. They may even feel like busyness. But they do not add up to learning, especially not for the students who need the most from every single minute of the school day.
Coherence is aligned, subject-specific content that has students tackling challenging work right in their zone of proximal development every day. It is the structural condition under which struggling learners can actually catch up and stay caught up. It’s what the work we do at ElevateK12 and Fullmind understands at its core, and why our approach to core and supplemental instruction reflects, is that the supplemental does not exist in parallel to the core it extends it, reinforces it, and fills the specific gaps the core reveals. Every instructional touchpoint traces back to a designed goal. TNTP’s recent Coherence by Design report puts it plainly, drawing on examples like Knox County’s intentional redesign: schools must deeply understand students’ actual daily experience, diagnose the root causes of fragmentation, address the highest-leverage structural barriers with aligned high-quality materials, and support coherent implementation through clear vision, training, progress monitoring, and scheduling that protects access to strong instruction.
Alignment is the value, not the content in isolation, but the coherence it creates. Only when policies, materials, data systems, and adult practices are intentionally built around a student-centered vision can struggling learners reliably catch up and sustain grade-level success over time. Coherence is not an aspiration. It is the mechanism. And it has to be designed.
If you’re curious, read it here.
🚢 Where I’m Going
We’re running it back for the 5th time. District and School Leaders, join Fullmind + Frenalytics, ElevateK12, Cignition, Thinkverse, OKO, & Youth Guidance for a Sunset Boat Cruise during ASU+GSV on April 12.
We’d love to celebrate another year of drive, dedication, and innovation for an evening of great views, good food, drinks, and even better conversation as we kick off the week together.
Click here to RSVP.
If you’re an EdTech Company and you’d like to sponsor the event, please email me at hayley@fullmindlearning.com.