We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Karen Dubrule. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Karen below.

Karen, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s jump right into the heart of things. Outsiders often think businesses or industries have much larger profit margins than they actually do – the reason is that outsiders are often unaware of the biggest challenges to profitability in various industries – what’s the biggest challenge to profitability in your industry?

Billion-dollar publishing companies own the educational marketplace.

Karen, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

It could be that my career path as an educational leader has been fueled by dissatisfaction with my own Kindergarten through high school academic experiences along with acquired revelations working with underperforming schools and districts. In a nutshell, not all teachers and school leaders are equipped with the tools to be effective and there’s very little accountability that ensures that students receive effective instruction.

The path to shaping improvements in schools included becoming a science mentor to teachers who had limited science experience, a wide array of committee assignments, Teacher on Special Assignment for Gifted Education, multiple principal assignments in opening new school facilities, several district leadership assignments including Superintendent, university adjunct professorships, and educational consulting to support schools beyond my own district.

When I realized gaps of integrity with the consulting firm that had recruited me, I started my own company — Certified Education Consultants, Inc. (CEC)

In 2003, CEC was recruited by the Department of Education to assist underperforming school districts to achieve student achievement gains. After a decade of implementing improved systems and targeted professional development, we recognized the universal need to replace inconsistent or absent writing instruction with a proven-effective instructional program that was not dependent on teacher training. That was the birth of Writing by Design.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

If being resilient means facing difficulties head-on instead of falling into despair, I have had numerous opportunities to practice this skill. And, I do believe that situations that evoke the need for resilience are gifts toward building a mental reservoir of strength to handle stress and hardship.

One prominent event in my life that demanded resilience was the unexpected discovery of my husband’s drug addiction and death when he was 36. Not only did I lose the relationship to the man I had been with since high school, I lost my investment in his veterinary clinic and instantly became a single parent to my son who had to be told at age 11 that his father was dead. Reflecting on this experience, I realize that it became necessary to experience five important elements of developing resilience.

Self-awareness – This required a greater focus on my purpose in life and a shift to a new role as a single parent. Because the experience felt like my Cinderella carriage had abruptly turned into a pumpkin, developing a new life plan was challenging and continues to be a lifelong practice.

Attention to flexibility and stability of focus – Dealing with the death of a loved one requires sorting through multiple layers of financial, legal, and emotional exercises. To manage the details requires stamina and maturity, qualities that have strengthened my role as an educational and community leader.

Letting go physically – For me, selling my home and buying another provided a new environment to recognize my ability to manage my life independent of a partner.

Letting go mentally – The nature of my husband’s death required an immediate shift of emotions and actions. This step is much more difficult for people whose partners sustain long-term illnesses.

Accessing and sustaining positive emotion – I discovered and still maintain the practice of making a list of things I am thankful for at the end of each day. This exercise of mindful gratitude is amazingly powerful. I have also benefitted from expressing gratitude toward others. This act of human kindness is too often neglected and always has a positive effect on the receiver and giver.

What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?

Embraced unexpected opportunities to change; it’s inevitable. Flexibility and adaptability can deliver cost savings, increased productivity, and ­ most important of all ­ the ability to thrive in a rapidly changing world.

IN 2003, when Writing by Design was established, it was highly dependent on teacher training and coaching. Recognizing the limitations of school and district professional development time and budget constraints, the program was adapted to provide teachers with proven-effective prepared lessons that could easily transfer to classroom practice. Most other programs require teacher lesson preparation, an additional burden to the array of other teaching responsibilities, and a significant factor causing inconsistent lesson delivery.

In 2010, to ensure that all U.S. students would have equal access to instruction, States made a wise decision to formulate Common State Standards (CCSS). As a result, California standards-aligned Writing by Design content had to be adapted for CCSS-alignment, as well as the few states that did not embrace CCSS. While this required significant time and investment, it created improved content, extended application to other states, and improved references to explicit standard alignment.

Most district calendars allow for only three professional development days per year. With a typical “Welcome Back” school orientation and a myriad of district initiatives absorbing this time. In 2015, Writing by Design created a free 53-minute online program orientation that can be viewed any time and is available as a refresher for veteran teachers and orientation for new teachers. Accompanying no-cost grade level demonstration lesson videos were also created for teacher viewing at any time.

While Writing by Design was a teaching time-saver in terms of eliminating lesson prep, teachers still had to find the time to grade student writing. Grading student writing, even if only five minutes per paper, requires approximately 2.5 hours for one writing assignment. This grading time typically happens during teachers’ personal time as they juggle other responsibilities outside of the instructional day. And, that time typically happens long after students write their papers resulting in delays in feedback to students. To address this, Grading by Design online assessments were developed in 2016 to eliminate this additional teacher pressure, provide immediate feedback to students, and generate automatic progress reports to teachers for targeting individual student support.

In 2019, with the Pandemic-driven close of schools, teachers faced complicated challenges in providing remote instruction. To support this new universal teacher stressor, Writing by Design video lessons were developed to reduce teacher-delivered instructional time.

While the evolution of product design and delivery occurred in response to unexpected circumstances and required significant time and investment, it resulted in significant improvements and more powerful tools for effective writing instruction.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.WritingbyDesignK8.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/writingbydesign/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WBDK8
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karen-dubrule-439338a/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/WritingByDesign
• Youtube: (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiBktUvk78t3HWW-EgE_Bag/featured)