Work with Stephen
When the cookbook isn't enough, bring in a chef.
Everything on this site is free to use. When your district wants the path walked with you — with your board, your schedule, your labor market, your politics — that's this page.
Three ways in
Choose the shape of the help
Start-the-Conversation Consultation
A screening call, then a working session: where you are onthe path, your readiness picture, and your three next moves. The entry point for everything else.
Policy Review & Implementation Plan
The Policy Analyzer, done for real: a district-specific review of your state's credit, graduation, funding, and governance levers against your program goals — delivered as a board-ready implementation plan with the citations attached.
Community & Cohort Work
Post-screening community workshops, Portrait of a Graduate visioning facilitation, and the implementation cohort for districts moving through the work together.
Start the conversation
Tell us where you are
A few minutes of context — your role, your stage, your challenges — and you'll hear back within two business days to set up a time to talk.
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Who you'd be working with
Stephen Best
Stephen is an implementation scientist who has worked at every level of the system: classroom teacher, University of Michigan researcher on project-based and applied learning, and leader of statewide improvement and innovation work at the Michigan Department of Education. His own teaching included leading students to design and build a solar-powered car that became the first to cross North America — career-connected learning before the term existed.
CareerConnectedSchools.org is one focused room in a larger house:Systems for Innovative Schools, which supports districts on systems, innovation, AI, and policy. If your question is bigger than career-connected learning, the hub is the front door.