Demont Pope

Walked off stage at a high school last week and a teacher pulled me aside.
She said,

"I've been teaching for 14 years and I've never seen my students sit that still for 45 minutes."

I asked her what she thought made the difference.
She said, "You didn't talk at them. You talked WITH them."
That stuck with me all week.

We're in a moment where schools are banning phones, fighting for attention, trying to reach a generation that's been told a thousand different things by a thousand different screens. And a lot of the conversation is about what to take away from kids.
But the students I meet aren't checked out because they're distracted. They're checked out because nobody's given them a reason to check back in.

So I want to ask the educators and administrators in my network, because your answer actually matters to me:

What's the ONE thing that made a student re-engage in your building this year? Not a program. Not a policy. A real moment.

Drop it in the comments. I'm reading every single one.

24 days until the Model Schools Conference. Here's what I'm actually doing to prepare...

I'm not rehearsing in front of a mirror.

I'm not memorizing a script.

I'm going back to school leaders.

Talking to students. Sitting with teachers.

Because the message I'm about to deliver isn't built in a hotel room.

It's built in the hallways. In the classrooms. In the spaces where the real work is happening.

I want every educator in that room to feel like I've been in THEIR school.

Because in a lot of ways… I have.

Less than 4 weeks out.

The preparation is real.

Most schools are trying to fix a behavior problem... But the real crisis is a belonging problem.

New research is confirming what great educators already know: when students feel genuinely connected to their school, their mental health improves, their grades go up, and the behavior problems start to take care of themselves.

Here's what that actually looks like on the ground:

Students need at least one adult in the building who knows their name AND their story. Not just their GPA.

School culture is set at the top. If the principal doesn't model connection, teachers burn out trying to carry it alone.
Resilience can't be taught in a one-time assembly. It has to be lived in the daily environment.

The kids who act out the most are usually the ones who feel seen the least. That's not a discipline issue. That's a design issue.
Belonging isn't soft. It's the highest-leverage academic intervention a school can make.

I've spoken in hundreds of schools. The ones that are winning aren't just teaching content. They're building culture intentionally, every single day.

If your school is ready to go beyond the surface, let's have a conversation.

Staff development that doesn't change behavior isn't development. It's a meeting with a PowerPoint...

Let me say that again.

Staff development that doesn't change behavior…

Isn't development.

It's a meeting with a PowerPoint.

Real professional development changes what teachers do on Monday morning. Not just what they feel in the conference room.

If your PD doesn't have a plan for what happens after the room empties…

It's not a strategy. It's a placeholder.

The schools that win next school year are investing in the right development RIGHT NOW.

Is that your school?