What Helps Students Thrive? Five Conditions WNC Educators Say Matter

What would students experience differently if schools and communities strengthened the Essential Conditions that help them thrive?

That question guided one of the main conversations at the 2026 WNC Resilience Project Summer Convening.

Educators, school and district leaders, students, and community partners from across Western North Carolina explored five Essential Conditions that have emerged through the WNC Resilience Project’s work with schools and communities.

The graphic above shows the basic idea: when these five conditions get stronger, students are more likely to experience greater engagement, academic growth, and wellbeing.

The conditions are meant to be useful. They can help teams look at what students are experiencing now, notice what is already working, and identify something they may want to strengthen.

During a World Café at the Summer Convening, participants shared examples from their own schools and communities, named gaps, and talked about what each condition can look like in practice.

Use the ideas below as a starting point.

What is already happening in your setting? What do students need most? What might be worth trying?

Students paint together while reflecting on the importance of learning about local rivers.

1. Belonging, Wellbeing & Student Support

What participants emphasized

Belonging grows through relationships, consistency, representation, and systems that help students feel known and supported.

What this might look like

• Dedicated time for students and adults to build relationships

• SEL connected to core content learning

• Predictable routines that help students feel safe

• Students seeing themselves and their communities represented in curriculum

• Intentional relationship-building practices

• Systems that help students connect with trusted adults inside and outside of school

Consider: Where are students already experiencing a strong sense of belonging? What is helping create that?

A seventh grade student prepares coffee at the Spring Convening. Photo by Jason Carter, Science Teacher @ Evergreen Community Charter School.

2. Community & Career-Connected Learning

What participants emphasized

Learning becomes more relevant when students can connect school to their communities, possible careers, and real problems worth working on.

What this might look like

• Community-connected projects

• Partnerships with local organizations, businesses, and community colleges

• Career walks and career exploration

• Internships and work-based learning

• Exhibitions and community-facing events

• More visibility for creative, technical, and locally relevant careers

• Using local places, people, and challenges as part of learning

Consider: Where could students have more opportunities to learn with people and places beyond the classroom and how can we connect the learning back to core instruction?

At Valle Crucis School in Watauga County, students were asked two questions during lunch: If you could change one thing about your community or the world around your, what would it be? What is something you are interested in doing, making, or learning more about. This feedback was shared with teachers and will inform future activities, curriculum, and opportunities.

3. Student Thinking, Inquiry & Communication

What participants emphasized

Students need time and space to ask questions, investigate, reflect, explain their thinking, and make sense of what they are learning.

What this might look like

• Students asking and pursuing real questions

• Structured reflection

• Discussion and critique

• Projects with real audiences and purposes

• Service learning

• Students explaining their thinking

• More opportunities for curiosity, reflection, and student voice

Consider: During a typical day, how much of the thinking and speaking are being done by students?

Stephanie Lassalle and WNC educators discuss what makes adult collaboration effective.

4. Adult Collaboration & Improvement Systems

What participants emphasized

Collaboration matters most when it helps educators learn from one another and leads to a better experience for students.

What this might look like

• Shared planning time

• Teacher-led or co-led PLCs that emphasize teaching practice

• Peer observations and instructional rounds focused on elevating best practices and learning from each other

• Looking at student work together

• Stronger co-teaching structures

• Teacher support systems inside and outside of school

• Learning across classrooms, schools, and districts

• Trying something as a team, looking at what happened, and adjusting

Consider: Where do educators already learn well together? How could that collaboration become more useful?

Alyssa Parcel shared a wooden arrow that has been painted (on the side we cannot see) to make a change idea visible. Making goals, milestones, and progress visible is one of the qualities that collaborative leaders use to ensure systems are continuously improving.

5. Leadership for Continuous Improvement

What participants emphasized

Leadership can make improvement easier by protecting time, keeping priorities clear, listening to educators, and removing barriers.

What this might look like

• Collaboratively designing a shared vision people can remember and say out loud

• Protected time for planning and collaboration

• Fewer competing initiatives

• Educator voice in decisions about teaching and learning

• Leaders reflecting on what is and is not working

• Making strong practices visible

• Creating opportunities to learn from other educators and schools

Consider: What could leaders protect, remove, connect, or make more visible?

A Starting Point for Your Own Work

The five Essential Conditions are a way to look at your own setting and start a conversation.

You might use them with a school team, PLC, department, community partner, or on your own.

A few questions can get you started:

• What are we already doing well?

• Where are students having strong experiences?

• Where is there a gap between what we want students to experience and what is happening now?

• Which condition connects most closely to work we already care about?

• What is one change we could try?

Start where there is already some energy. That might be an existing initiative, a promising classroom practice, a persistent challenge, or an idea people have wanted to try for a while. Then make the next step small enough to learn from.

Want to Take the Next Step?

The WNC Resilience Project Learning Lab is designed for Western North Carolina educators and teams who want to move an idea forward during the school year.

You can bring something that is already underway, something you want to improve, or an idea that is still pretty rough.

The Learning Lab will help teams clarify what they want to change, choose a manageable Change Idea, try it, look at what happens, and decide what to do next.

Reach out to wes@openwaylearning.org if you have any questions!