My experience with the Yass Prize left me inspired, challenged, and with greater clarity about my next chapter. The experience helped me realize that what we are building at Creative Minds can have an impact far beyond our current walls.

The Yass Prize affirmed a truth I have always believed: Rewriting the algorithm on excellence begins when we acknowledge the individual needs of our students and is brought to life by educators, families, and allies who believe those needs deserve to be met.

Perhaps most importantly, being affirmed by the Yass Prize has elevated Salt & Light’s profile and further established us as STOP educators in this field. I also intend to seriously explore the relationships formed through this experience and consider with whom we can collaborate to serve more children..

Our organization has become stronger as a result of our involvement with the Yass Prize and more confident in our leadership role in this sector.

Because of the Yass Prize experience, I feel more confident in my responsibility, power, and voice as a leader. I am now thinking about my role in advocacy and policy, and I feel more equipped to engage in conversation and community.

Through my experience with the Yass Prize, I connected with education leaders who weren't all doing the same thing, serving the same students, or operating under the same models, but we shared an unwavering belief that children deserve better and that meaningful change requires the courage to challenge conventional thinking.

Through my experience with the Yass Prize, I made incredible connections with people and feel like I have a community that I did not have before.

Through the Yass Prize experience, I left with new ideas about growth, sustainability, developing people, advocacy, and partnerships that we are already applying to our plans.

The Yass Prize has allowed us to hone and codify our core organizational offering, which is neither easy to do nor possible for many organizations given resource constraints. We have not only developed and sharpened our main product offering, we’ve been able to take it to new locations around the country.