The leanest year in the file — and three decisions made inside it that outlasted it.

Twenty-eight slide decks were written this year — a spring session running February through June, a full fifteen-day summer, a fall term. By the file count, an ordinary teaching year. By every other measure, the leanest we have ever run.

What a small organization was carrying

One number from that year explains more than any reflection could.

To keep working with DC Public Schools, OWL is required to carry two million dollars in liability insurance — a threshold the district raised in response to cybersecurity concerns across its systems. For an organization of our size, that premium competes directly with instruction.

In September we asked a family foundation to cover fifty-three per cent of next year’s insurance budget: two thousand five hundred dollars. That is the actual scale at which this work operates. Not a capital campaign. Half an insurance bill.

Every hour of programming this year happened on the other side of that arithmetic.

The year the name changed

This year the school-year programme stopped being called Academic Year Sessions and became the STEM Leadership Corps.

The rename was not cosmetic. “Academic Year Sessions” describes a calendar. “Leadership Corps” describes what we had actually been building since a handful of scholars refused to stop showing up in the autumn of 2016 — a standing body a young person belongs to for years, not a set of dates.

Looking outward

This month we put a partnership proposal to a large professional services firm, asking for three things: volunteers, sponsorship for devices and internet access, and guests for the podcast.

The proposal opened with a sentence we still stand behind: STEM education without social justice is an empty promise. STEM can be a path to success and empowerment, but only if the path is equally open for all.

An organization in its leanest year, writing that down and going looking for partners anyway. We will see what the letter brings.