December 2025 Signals

Hello there!

As you know all too well, December can be a vibrant but exhausting season in school life. Auditoriums are full with performances, winter sports are in full swing, student projects are being celebrated, and parent volunteers are constantly on the move. In the middle of all this meaningful hustle, it can be hard to pause, catch your breath, and really reflect on how the year has unfolded since August.

Before heading into 2026, here’s a simple tool to help you take stock of your current reality and strengthen value and impact across your community.

Tool: Workflow Reset

Take a moment to look back at the fall term with your leadership team, assess the school’s workflow, and begin to identify areas where you can eliminate low-value work, align systems, and refocus energy on what matters most. Hearing every voice, see what emerges.

• Eliminate: Look for routines, reports, and meetings that no longer serve student learning or school health. Eliminating low-value work creates space for higher-impact leadership.
• Synchronize: Ensure the right people are receiving the right information at the right time. Misalignment often shows up between divisions, academic and business offices, or campus leaders and boards.
• Streamline: Focus energy on what directly informs decisions. Cut long reports, simplify meeting structures, and remove unnecessary steps in approvals or communication chains.
• Automate: Use technology to reduce manual tasks that drain staff time. Digital workflows for admissions, HR onboarding, financial forecasting, and communication can reduce admin burden. 

Also, be sure to explore this month’s Trend Tracker and Pulse Perspectives for timely insights and practical perspectives as you strengthen your workflow and navigate an evolving educational landscape.

In this edition of the Trend Tracker, we highlight the following signals and trends. Within each area, a number of clickable resources are available. 

01 Worklife ROI
02 Whole Learner
03 LD Research Studies
04 AI Integration
05 Learning Pathways
06 Market Perceptions
07 Leadership Habits
08 Octopus Org

Web Version, Trend Tracker, December 2025

Reflecting real-time perspectives representing the voices in our association, we solicited feedback from SAIS Curriculum Professionals in November to complete a pulse survey focused on mission/curriculum alignment, managing change, challenges, and priorities. Some key findings include the following:

• Assessment design and differentiated instruction emerged as the top professional development priorities, highlighting a strong focus on improving how learning is measured and how instruction is tailored to diverse student needs.
• Curriculum leaders rely heavily on direct observation and assessment data to evaluate effectiveness, with classroom observations, student assessments, and teacher feedback as the primary tools.
• Top challenges and priorities center on capacity and coherence, including time constraints, balancing tradition with innovation, aligning assessments, and strengthening vertical curriculum alignment and instructional strategies.

See slide deck for full results.

Web Version, Pulse Perspectives, December 2025

This past fall, we hosted Blueprint Sprints in Charlotte and Nashville, where leadership teams left with clear, practical plans they can begin implementing now. As we look ahead to the spring, we are excited to bring these strategy sprints to additional sub-regional locations, making it easier for schools to participate. We encourage heads to consider sending a small team to join us for a focused, hands-on experience designed to turn strategy into action.

Blueprint Sprint 2026
January 26-27, Nashville
February 2-3, Birmingham (Sold Out)
March 16-17, Orlando
April 20-21, Charleston

As new ideas take shape and strategies come into focus, we wish you and your community a healthy and hopeful start to 2026.

Dr. Brett Jacobsen
SAIS President