A look back on school year 2025

Advancing Sustainability and Scale Through Strategic Partnerships

At the Center for Whole-Child Education at ASU, we made meaningful progress this year in building a sustainable financial model that blends earned revenue with targeted philanthropic investment. In FY25, 57% of our operating budget was generated through earned revenue — a strong signal of demand for our work across the field. School systems turned to us to help them advance educator capacity in whole-child practices, integrate whole-learner approaches into literacy instruction, strengthen community schools and foster coherence across county-wide initiatives.

Philanthropic support — thanks to the generous investments of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Oak Foundation and Siegel Family Endowment — allowed us to expand our professional learning offerings and develop new resources, including the launch of digital professional learning courses through  ASU’s Professional Educator Learning Hub (PELH). What sets the PELH apart is its integration within ASU’s knowledge ecosystem, offering research-based professional learning that leads to meaningful, stackable credentials such as certificates, micro-credentials and transcriptable credits. 

Learn more about some of our exciting strategic partnership work below.

An equity-centered approach to improving literacy outcomes for California’s most vulnerable students

Project ARISE 2024–2025 represents a comprehensive initiative aimed at improving literacy outcomes for California’s most vulnerable students. Over the course of four years, the project has focused on four core targets: equipping educators, empowering educational leaders, implementing intensive interventions, and developing students’ executive functioning skills. The initiative offers free access to courses and workshops for approximately 300,000 educators across California, spanning rural, urban and suburban areas. In partnership with Contra Costa, Glenn and San Diego County Offices of Education — as well as UCSF, NCII, TNTP, CCEE and the California Department of Education — the project has made significant strides in improving literacy for over 1,200 learners. Eighty-six percent of teachers across three districts reported increased student engagement in literacy instruction, with many expressing greater confidence in applying developmental relationship strategies.

Educators and leaders taking the course have said:

“This should be a prerequisite for all teachers and administrators before they start a job.”

“Changed the way I understand developing readers…”

“The [tools] make these small changes feel easy and possible.”

“I felt inspired to grow as an educator, but also empowered by how much I was doing right already.”

 

Supporting a statewide “Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child” vision

The Center for Whole-Child Education (CWCE) is advancing California’s “Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child” vision by helping California educators implement coherent, child-centered practices across major initiatives like Community Schools, MTSS, Expanded Learning and College and Career Pathways. Its foundational publication, clarified what whole-child education means and highlighted promising practices already in place. 

CWCE now supports over a dozen County Offices of Education, as well as districts and partners like Oakland USD and Contra Costa COE, to apply this lens to literacy, mental health, SEL, PBIS, Linked Learning, and more. Through its partnerships and presentations, CWCE has reached nearly 40% of California’s educators, impacting over 2 million students.

“[The Center] helped us see how everything we do connects—and how we can do it better, together.”

– California Educator

Grant-funded literacy training, coaching, and support to middle grade (6–8) educators

The Adolescent Literacy Planning & Implementation Collaborative (ALPIC) is a professional learning cohort designed to enhance adolescent literacy instruction, whole-child practices, and address equity gaps in education. Funded by a federal grant over two years, ALPIC provided targeted literacy training, coaching, and support to middle grade educators (grades 6–8), ultimately reaching a significant number of teachers and students. 

The project fostered key partnerships with organizations such as UnboundEd, CORE Learning, and the American Institutes for Research (AIR), further strengthening its impact.Testimonials from educators and district partners further highlight the program’s value and influence on both teaching practices and student outcomes.

“I feel like it married the whole child to literacy in a way where I had never really thought that specifically… Just coming to school, you have to think about a student’s social and emotional needs. But I had never related it to literacy… And so, I appreciate [that] the APLIC is integrating into that. I feel like you’re teaching me…”

– Project Participant

Looking Ahead

This shift in our financial model reflects growing trust in our work from both the philanthropic community and the educators we serve. In the year ahead, we’ll continue to pursue a  balanced approach to revenue—combining earned income and philanthropic investment—to fuel innovation, scale what works and reach more schools and communities, especially those with limited resources.

The Center for Whole-Child Education wants to partner with you in the upcoming school year! Reach out to Gretchen Livesey (glivesey@ASU.edu) to learn more about bringing the Center’s work to your teachers, leaders, and school community.