5 Predications for K12 Education in 2025

I was surprised to learn that an Australian blue healer dog made my 2024 Spotify Wrapped list for most listens.

Yep, Bluey’s “Dance Mode” made my top 5, thanks to my daughter. Let’s not get it twisted though, I do love me some Bluey! In fact, I dressed up as Chili, the dog mom for Halloween, so I can’t pretend this isn’t a bop that I enjoyed right alongside my daughter many times in 2024.

Go get it, Bandit!

And now, here’s what made the biggest splash in 2024 in the world of our organization, Thriving Students Collective , as well as trends we predict for 2025 based on what we’re hearing from our administrators, teachers, and school psychologist members across the county in our Thriving Students Platform.

1) Burnout Prevention for Educators Must Go Beyond “Self-Care Sunday”

My soap box I will never dismount is that burnout is not a personal self-care fail. Burnout is not just a worker issue, but a workplace issue. The solution to the “great resignation” of educators is not telling them to take longer bubble baths and remembering their “why.” It’s looking “upstream” as to what is causing stress in the first place and giving targeted support.

While there will always be a place for self-care after work (I’m in favor of it, obvi), solutions in 2025 for our educator and mental health shortage need to stop oversimplifying burnout as a personal problem.

Here’s me getting in a soapy lather about this particular soapbox issue in this prior Thrive Archive post.

And here’s an ironic moment (and your cringe TikTok video of the month!) on this topic of how hard it is to leave work at work for educators:

I spend all day telling people to make sure to rest, take time off, and recharge, and then I found myself at a coffee shop over Thanksgiving break “catching up” on emails. And then, the universe thought to teach me a little “practice what you preach” lesson.

I spilled an entire cup of coffee on my laptop and it died. As I waited 5 days for repair, I had a little free time and made this autobigraphical TikTok that shows what burnout really looks like for educators (and why self-care is so challenging!).

My middle school daughter’s review of this TikTok: “I never want to see that again.”

2. Professional Development Should Be in the Flow Of Work, Not Just on a Random Friday.

I love me a good professional development day. It usually happens once or twice a year with colleagues, and when the topic and timing is just right, it can be invigorating.

And yet…

Oftentimes, professional development (PD) in K12 schools is too late. Like, if I have a kid who is engaging in self-injurious behavior, I can’t wait until someday when we have a PD on that. If a teacher has a student with Autism in their classroom and no training on how to support students with Autism, she can’t cross her fingers that one day, the focus of the next PD day will be evidence based practices for inclusion of Autistic students.

In 2025 and beyond, professional development needs to be on-demand when it is needed, in the flow of work.

Humble-brag time: This is what our Thriving Students platform does! Need a training on Autism? We got a 20 minute “5 to Thrive” video series with the top 5 tips from an Autism educator/expert and adults with Autism providing insights into their needs. Want immediate support for a student with anxiety? You’re one click away from a school psychologist’s support and tips. Need a little something-something for yourself to boost your positive energy through micro-habits for educators? Clickity do-dah, you got it.

4. Micro-credentials. So Hot Right Now.

Time scarcity is one of the top barriers to folks getting high quality professional learning done in the flow of work and during school hours.

Slicing content into short, social-media like content and bundling it as a small “micro-credential” is definitely a trend to watch in 2025.

For example, our members watch short videos at the top of their staff meetings together, in Professional Learning Communities (PLCs), and at their leisure to earn CEUs and up-skill in areas of interest. (Not to mention how fun in can be to get your “Burnout Prevention Ninja” badge and redeem it for cool swag in our prize store.) Let’s face it, even adults love a little fun in their learning!

5. AI is a Game Changer for Taming the Special Education Bureaucracy Monster

This is a special one for my fellow school psychologists. And for those of you who don’t know, school psychologists spend a good amount of time chained to their laptops, writing up reports and dotting i’s and crossing t’s on special education paperwork. While writing assessment reports and documentation is a vital service, it’s not all we can do!

This is why we launched LilyAssist report writer for school psychologists. It automates the parts of the report than can be automated, and frees up time and “brain juice” for school psychologists to focus on interpretation, consultation about findings, and intervention. I mean, it’s 2024, so there’s no reason we can’t auto-magically populate information into a report instead of manually entering it.

No doubt that 2025 will definitely show an explosion of AI resources for educators.

A Final Shout Out!

Gushing gratitude moment, incoming.

2024 was a whirlwind for me — I presented over 40 times to schools and organizations in the US, virtually in Australia and UK (in the middle of the night my time), and (a bit out of my comfort zone) as “sharkbait” at an Ed Tech shark tank pitch in NYC.

As a team, we launched our new platform, created an AI report writer, partnered with dozens of school districts, hundreds of individual school psychologists, and ended the year with hiring amazing new team members to bring our mission to life!

I’m beyond thankful to our “marigold” district partners, our members, and especially my team for helping our organization thrive. Here’s to continuing to Thrive in 2025!

See you in January for the next Thrive Archive digest!

If you’re interested in being a part of the Thriving Students Collective community and would like more information about how to bring the Thriving Students Platform to your school or district, CLICK HERE to connect with us.

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Dr. Rebecca Branstetter is a school psychologist and co-founder of The Thriving Students Collective, which provides professional development, engaging online courses, and a supportive online community that prioritizes whole-school wellness and equips educators and parents with practical tools to empower every learner’s success. She also has a TikTok account all about burnout prevention in K12 that her middle school daughter has endorsed as “Cringe, but good dancing.”