SUPPORT From a National Educational Leader
Donald P. Nielsen is a longtime business leader and former CEO who has spent decades working at the intersection of innovation, education, and public policy. He previously served as a member of the Seattle School Board, where he helped lead efforts to strengthen district leadership and improve academic outcomes and student well-being. His work has emphasized identifying and supporting leaders capable of driving meaningful change in large public systems.
His leadership and contributions to business, education, and civic life have been widely recognized. Nielsen received the Harvard Business School Alumni Achievement Award (2004), the Leadership Award from the University of Washington Foster School of Business (2009), and the McNaughton Award for Civic Leadership (2009).
Donald P. Nielsen, American Center for Transforming Education Author, Every School
Real education reform is not about adding new programs—it is about redesigning systems so that every child can succeed. For more than a century, our public education system has largely followed a model designed for a different era, long before modern developmental science provided these insights.
The Washington Youth Mental Health & Public School Promise Initiative recognizes that we now have both the knowledge and the opportunity to do better. By translating modern developmental science into practical learning environments and launching public microschool demonstration pilots within existing districts, this initiative offers a thoughtful and responsible path forward. Establishing a standard of care aligned with modern developmental science can help schools better support student engagement, academic success, and well-being while strengthening the public education system itself. That combination of scientific grounding, practical implementation, and commitment to public schools makes this effort especially promising.
John Merrow, Former Education Correspondent, PBS NewsHour, where he reported on education for 35 years.
SUPPORT From a National Educational Leader
“This is a thoughtful, well‑constructed initiative. I am impressed by both its analytical rigor and its constructive, non‑blaming approach. I have shared it with several influential education leaders and will support this effort in any way I can.”
— John Merrow
Josh Reppun, Former Executive Director, What School Could Be; longtime Hawaiʻi educator
Over the past four decades, most of my time spent as an educator and mobilizer of conversations around education reimagined, I have ponded one question above all others: What will it take for our American education system, designed in the 1800s, to wake up and really understand the extent to which its obsolescence is harming our kids. The Washington Youth Mental Health & Public School Promise Initiative understands this question, feels it deeply and is taking action.
Founder, Matt Beck and his team understand that this is no longer merely a question of innovation. It is a matter of scientific, moral, and legal responsibility. We should not blame and/or indicit teachers working courageously inside broken structures. We must instead demand action from those who govern those structures. When leaders know harm is foreseeable and preventable—and that better, more humane alternatives exist—inaction becomes a decision. Districts should lead this redesign; if they refuse, families are justified in pursuing every lawful means of accountability. Our children do not owe an obsolete system their childhoods.