Confluence has worked across the education landscape, from early childhood and K-12 through higher education, on educator safety, school safety policy, workforce development, and instructional innovation. What the engagements share is a process designed to surface what the official record misses.
Educators surveyed · findings contradicted all prior state data
Reported being physically injured by a student
Members in Colorado’s largest education stakeholder working group
Colorado educators had been reporting unsafe working conditions for years. The data available to state leaders did not reflect what was actually happening in classrooms. HB24-1320 created the Colorado Educator Safety Task Force and directed it to examine aggressive and violent behavior by students toward staff. The Office of School Safety contracted with Confluence to manage and facilitate the work.
The 17-member Task Force met monthly from September 2024 through June 2025, supported by four subcommittees that brought in dozens of additional participants with subject matter expertise, lived experience, and direct professional knowledge. To generate findings the existing data had missed, Confluence designed and administered a survey of more than 1,100 educators.
More than 50 percent reported being physically injured by a student, a finding that contradicted all available prior data and reframed the conversation about what state action was actually required. The gap between what the system officially knew and what educators were actually experiencing was not a data problem. It was a conditions problem. The process created the conditions for educators to say the true thing, and over 1,100 of them did.
Educator Safety Task Force, Roadmap for Action
In 2023, Confluence convened the Colorado Safer Schools Initiative in partnership with the Public Education Business Coalition, building on a framework Abramson had developed for a community- led examination of the full range of issues affecting school safety. The initiative brought together system leaders, educators, students, parents, government officials, mental and behavioral health experts, law enforcement, security professionals, and community leaders.
Within three months, the initiative had grown to more than 180 stakeholders from across the state. By the end of 2023, membership exceeded 250, making it the largest working group of education stakeholders in Colorado. The initiative developed strategies for reducing violence involving students at the school, system, and community levels.
Colorado Safer Schools Initiative, Safer Schools & School Communities Report
16 published recommendations · Foundation for multiple pieces of legislation
As a sub-group of ESRII, the work group of more than 20 practitioners and
experts examined challenges to recruiting and retaining talent in early childhood education and childcare. The group met throughout 2021 and 2022, heard from local, regional, and national experts, and published recommendations in fall 2022.
Practitioners and subject matter experts
2021–2022 · Recommendations published fall 2022
The process did not just produce a report. It produced a different picture of reality
for the people responsible for improving it.
On the Educator Safety Task Force · 2025
State agency leaders, Governor’s offices, county governments, and organizations navigating problems that have resisted every standard approach reach out directly. The engagement starts with a conversation.
CO · NC · FL · National
