About Us

Founded in 2014, Verdant Learning is a Brooklyn-based organization that designs and delivers professional learning for schools that are navigating challenges with motivation, learning retention and rigor, and absenteeism.

In our Student-Teacher Dialogues, we train teachers to bring small groups of students each week into their planning. Groups adjust elements of the “how” in learning, embedding motivation into instruction.

Through our other coaching and consulting, we support school teams, from leadership to attendance teams to CBO teams on how they can amplify classroom instruction and the unique purpose of school.

Across Verdant’s programs, schools develop their capacity to transform compliance-defaulted practices into motivation-driven ones. Our goal is to make school compelling for many more students.

We draw upon lessons learned from top-down school turnaround approaches which were expensive and ineffective, combined with enabling meaningful change in low- and high-tech environments across government, private and non-profit sectors, and in multiple countries.

Where We Work

We have extensive experience working with New York City DOE community schools, renewal/receivership/turnaround schools, and magnet schools. We can work with schools of any type and location.

In NYC’s Community School District 8, Verdant Learning has been supporting JHS 123: The Bronx Urban Community Magnet School, Grades 6-8, since January 2022. In April 2022, JHS 123 was awarded the 2022 Secondary Magnet School of Merit Award of Excellence by the Magnet Schools of America.

In Community School District 14, we have been supporting A-Tech High School since Spring 2020. Previously, we supported IS 71 Juan Morel Campos School of the Arts, Grades 6-12, from 2016 to 2020, PS/IS 157 Franklin Magnet, Grades PK-8, from 2018 to 2020, and MS 582, Grades 6-8, from 2016 to 2018. In Community School District 13, we supported Park Slope School 282, when it served Grades K-8, and MS 266 Park Place Community School, Grades 6-8 in 2014-15.

Verdant also partners with Counseling in Schools, to support their community schools. We have been supporting Brooklyn Collegiate High School in Community District 23 since 2024 and PS/MS 007 in Community School District 4 since 2023. We partnered with PS/IS 288 in Community School District 21 from 2022 to 2024, and PS 398 in Community District 17 from 2023 to 2024. Previously, we partnered with Grand Street Settlement as a Community School subcontractor, and with Center for Supportive Schools as a consultant on program development and innovation.

Our Team