The Transcend Trailblazer Award honors district leaders who bring research, evidence, and the voices of educators, families, and young people together to reimagine what school can be and who have the courage to build it.

Announcing our inaugural recipient, Dr. Kelly Withers Superintendent, Rowan-Salisbury Schools

Meet Dr. Withers

Dr. Kelly Withers has spent nearly her entire career, save nine months, serving the same community she now leads as superintendent. She began as a high school science teacher, building relationships with students and designing learning experiences that produced real results. She went on to serve as a high school principal for a decade, earning recognition as North Carolina Northwest Regional Principal of the Year and twice named Rowan-Salisbury’s Principal of the Year.

What sets Dr. Withers apart is her conviction that the people closest to a school, its students, families, and educators, belong at the center of designing it. In 2023, she deepened that conviction through Transcend’s Superintendent Fellowship, bringing community-based design to Rowan-Salisbury and beginning to build something the district had never seen before.

Trailblazers Create the Conditions for Community-Based Design

Community-based design in Rowan-Salisbury begins with young people. Dr. Withers and her team listen first. They want to understand what students are experiencing, what they need, and what is missing. From there, they go deep into the research, using evidence and data to triangulate what they are hearing and better understand what is actually happening in their community. They then look outward, drawing inspiration from other environments and the growing science of how children learn and how schools can work differently.

The body of research and evidence-backed models that shapes their work includes:

• The Science of Learning and Development
• Dr. Bruce Perry’s Neurosequential Model
• Relationship and attachment research, including the Harvard Grant and Glueck study and John Bowlby’s attachment theory
• Trauma research, including insights from Harvard’s Center on the Developing Child and The Adverse Childhood Events (ACE) framework
• Global and national data on in-demand skills, industry projections, and evolving employer expectations from sources including the World Economic Forum, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, and major employer surveys.
• Reports, field research, quality frameworks, and policy analyses from organizations such as TNTP, Jobs for the Future, Getting Smart, Advance CTE, Bellwether, Big Picture Learning, and the Kauffman Foundation

This research, together with the wisdom of their community, pointed toward a new vision for Overton Knox. The school is being designed to maximize two of the most powerful shifts in student experience: Agency and Relevance. Students will pursue learning that connects to real careers, real problems, and real life developing genuine ownership over their learning.

Transcend’s Theory of Change Made Visible

When communities are supported to design learning environments that are rigorous, locally-owned, and grounded in evidence, young people get something they have always deserved. Schools that see them fully. Schools built around who they are and who they can become.

Dr. Withers is the inaugural Trailblazer. She will not be the last. Every community has the capacity to build something extraordinary. Every district has leaders who are ready. What they need are the right conditions, the right support, and the right models to learn from.

That is exactly what this award exists to prove.

Transcend Exists to Make Extraordinary Learning Available to Every Child

Transcend supports communities to create and spread extraordinary learning for all. We partner with schools and districts to design learning environments that are rigorous, community-driven, and built on the best evidence from the science of learning and development.

The Transcend Trailblazer Award is an expression of that mission. It is our commitment to finding the leaders who are doing this work, telling their stories, and showing the field what is possible.