Where this goes

Year one is two things. This is the rest of the arc.

A community that lasts is built the way anything lasts: one thing at a time, with nobody carrying more than they can hold. What follows is not a schedule anyone has to keep. It is the order these pieces tend to want to arrive in.


Year one · where every community starts

The pledge, and the people who hold it.

The pledge — the what

Eight promises, signed household by household, private until eight families in a grade have signed. Everything else in this project is downstream of it.

The leaders — the how

A Director, an Assistant Director, and a Homeroom Host or two per room. Four or five families, a few hours a month — and each of them free to lead in the way that fits them.

The full role descriptions →


The framework

Six pillars, one rule — arriving in order.

Every practice traces back to a single sentence a child can recite. Two of the six are what year one builds; the other four are what the years after it can add.

Pillar 01

Community

Year one

A Director, and a Homeroom Host in each room to be the point of contact — so every family hears about the pledge and nobody at the edges goes unnoticed. This is the leadership structure, and it is half of year one.

Pillar 03

Shared language

Year one

The pledge itself, plus a glossary that turns “drama” into specific, discussable behavior. The other half of year one — a standard a child, her parents, and the other family can all name.

Pillar 04

Conflict navigation

Year two

The parent-to-parent protocol, taught rather than merely published — and a first bench of trained facilitators for the conversations that get stuck. The protocol is written and free to use from day one; what year two adds is practice and people.

Pillar 02

Formation

Year two

A parent series on social aggression, conflict, and childhood. Eight sessions is the full curriculum; most communities should start with two or three and see who comes.

Pillar 06

Digital oversight

Year two or three

The household norms are already in the pledge, promise six. What comes later is the community layer — a shared guide, a family tech agreement, a vetted shortlist of tools, and the collective nerve to hold a common line on phones.

Pillar 05

Upstander kids

Year three and on

Monthly meetings where children rehearse courage — skits, stories, and scripts until standing up is muscle memory. The most ambitious pillar, and the one that needs an established community of adults underneath it first.

None of it starts without the first page.

The whole argument, with the research behind it, is in The Case; the year-by-year detail is in the plan.

Get started