You Matter
A 23-year educator's call to see, believe in, and celebrate every person in our schools.
You Matter. So Does the Person Next to You.
When was the last time someone told you that you mattered? Not for what you did, but for who you are?
I ask because I don't think we ask each other that enough in schools.
So, let me start there.
You matter.
I could end the article right there. But twenty-three years into this work, I've learned something: people don't always believe they matter until someone takes the time to show them.
I'm entering my 23rd year in education this fall.
Twenty-three years of early mornings, hard conversations, meetings that ran long, and moments I didn't know I needed until they found me.
Education is challenging.
Anyone who tells you otherwise hasn't been in the room when a kid is struggling, a staff member is stretched thin, or a family is asking for help you wish you could give faster.
But this year, more than any other, I want to slow down.
I want to celebrate the wins. The moments that matter. The people who make this work worth doing.
Because here's what I've learned after two decades in this field: every role has a story worth hearing.
Not just the roles with titles that go first on the org chart. Every role.
- The paraprofessional who knows exactly which corner of the room a student needs when things get hard.
- The bus driver who remembers birthdays.
- The speech therapist who celebrates a single new word like it's a touchdown.
- The main office administrative assistant who is quietly the emotional thermostat of an entire building.
What would change if we actually stopped to ask them?
What would we learn if we believed—really believed—that every voice matters, not as a slogan, but as a practice?
I think about this a lot because it has shaped what I call my Gold Standard:
See people, believe in them, help them shine. Look for the best in others so they can start to see it in themselves, too. Because sometimes the smallest moment of connection becomes the one someone remembers forever. Leave people knowing they mattered because you were there.
That's it.
That's the whole philosophy.
Not a five-step framework. Not a mandate from above.
Just this:
See people.
Believe in them.
Help them shine.
I've been thinking a lot about how to live that out more intentionally this year: how to make space, on purpose, for the stories and the wins that so often get buried under the next deadline.
I don't have it all built yet.
But I'm building something around this belief: that every person in a school building is carrying a story worth telling and that we are all better when we take the time to hear it.
So, consider this your invitation to start paying attention.
- To the win that felt small but wasn't.
- To the colleague who showed up for a kid in a way no one saw.
- To the person who made a difficult day a little easier.
- To your own moment that mattered, even if you've never said it out loud.
Because if you take nothing else from this, take this: the message I keep coming back to—the one I'd want every person in my building to carry with them on the hardest days—is this:
You don't have to be perfect to belong here.
You don't have to have your best day every day. You just have to keep showing up.
There is someone who believes in you. Someone willing to see beyond a label, beyond a behavior, beyond a difficult day.
You are more than your hardest moment.
And you matter, not because of what you accomplish, but because you are you.
Twenty-three years in, and that's still the truest thing I know about this work.
You matter. So does the person next to you.
Let's start acting like it.
