Superintendent and educational consultant Deborah Wahlstrom cofounded Successline, Inc., a company dedicated to offering tools to improve education, in 1994. During her tenure as superintendent at Mount Clemens Community Schools, Deborah Wahlstrom helped implement the Pathways to Potential program through the Department of Human Services (DHS) in Michigan.
Pathways to Potential is a program created by the DHS to provide better services to kids in schools. The program brings social workers, success coaches, and attendance coaches directly into the schools in order to remove barriers to attendance and otherwise provide support to get kids in school so that they stay and succeed there.
By going directly into the affected communities, the Pathways to Potential staff get to know the particular challenges and possibilities of a certain neighborhood. The staff then help to set up long-term networks so the families in the communities can continue to access support after the program ends. Overall, the program helps provide extra support to struggling schools, and as a result, attendance and academic performance improve in the long term.
