What Schools Ask Before Piloting Boost: Scheduling, Staffing, and Space

Picture a principal in late summer, staring at a master schedule that already looks like a finished jigsaw puzzle. A new program sounds worthwhile. Then the practical questions arrive: where does it go, who runs it, and who covers the room? We call this the Boost program pilot scheduling staffing conversation, and it comes down to three things: when the program meets, who teaches it, and where. This FAQ answers what we can answer plainly and says so where we cannot. By "pilot" we mean a first run of the full 8-week program in your school, so you can see it in your own building before deciding anything bigger. If you are new to us, what the Boost Program is is the short version.

Where Does a Boost Pilot Fit in the Bell Schedule?

A Boost pilot needs about 1.5 hours per week for 8 weeks, and it is built to fit inside a school's existing schedule instead of rewriting it. That is roughly 12 hours across the whole pilot. Boost is flexible for school-day sessions, workshops, or multi-week programs, so the format can bend to your calendar.

How those 1.5 hours are arranged in your week is a decision we make with you, because bell schedules vary so much from building to building. Expect a fair amount of pushback on time, and treat it as reasonable. As one California middle school teacher told EdWeek in a survey of educators about social-emotional learning, "Too much time is spent doing this for students and it takes away much-needed time for academics" (EdWeek). The honest answer to that concern is to keep the ask small, bounded, and clearly scheduled. Eight weeks is short enough to evaluate quickly.

Who Delivers a Boost Pilot: A Coach or Your Own Staff?

Either a certified Boost coach leads the sessions, or a trained and certified member of your staff does. Those are the two delivery options, and both teach the same 26 Boost Skills across People Skills, Character, and Healthy Mindset.

With the coach option, a trained Boost coach comes on site and runs the program with high energy, using interactive sessions, role play, and real-life scenarios instead of lectures. With the staff option, your school certifies an educator, coach, or youth leader to lead the sessions. Training is available in person and virtually, the materials (videos, workbooks, and the full curriculum) are included, and the Boost team provides ongoing support.

Neither option is therapy. Boost coaches teach practical skills and are not therapists or mental health professionals. If you are weighing staff delivery, one piece of outside evidence is worth knowing. A large meta-analysis of school-based social-emotional programs, covering 213 programs and more than 270,000 students, found that programs run by teachers and other school staff consistently produced positive results, and it stressed careful implementation (Kappan summary of the research). That finding is about the category, not about Boost.

What Space, Class Size, and Materials Does a Pilot Need?

Boost is delivered on site and in groups, and each session mixes a lesson with practice and discussion, so the space needs to let students talk and practice with each other. Role play is central to the people skills lessons, which means a room built only for silent seat work is a poor fit.

We do not have a fixed class size or room specification to publish here. Those answers depend on your students and your building, and we would rather settle them with you than hand you a number that does not fit. Materials are simpler. Boost needs no software, no new tech platform, and no long training sessions. Students work through a workbook, and the certified-staff option includes all materials.

What Will Teachers and Counselors Be Asked to Do During a Pilot?

It depends on which delivery option you choose. With a coach-led pilot, the coach leads each session, and we define the role of your staff with you. With a staff-led pilot, the certified staff member leads the weekly sessions, so that person needs protected time.

Protect that time, because teacher workload is the real constraint. RAND's 2025 State of the American Teacher survey found that "teachers reported working a total of 49 hours per week, on average" (RAND). Federal education researchers who reviewed advisory programs reached a related conclusion: implementation varies across advisors, and staff feel overwhelmed taking on additional work (IES Regional Educational Laboratory Northwest). Our own piece on adding a soft skills curriculum without adding to teachers' plates goes deeper, and so does our look at the professional development administrators need.

One role is built into the materials. The Boost workbook is designed to be completed by the student together with a sponsor, an adult mentor, and the sponsor also rates the student on the opening and closing self-assessment. Counselors or advisors are natural candidates to ask.

What Is the Timeline From Yes to First Session?

We do not publish a fixed timeline, because it depends on your calendar and on whether you choose a coach or a certified staff member. What we can say is what has to happen, in order.

First, a discovery call to talk through your goals and your schedule. Second, a decision on delivery: coach or staff. Third, a choice of which 8 weeks the pilot will occupy. If you choose staff delivery, certification comes before the first session, so count backward from your target start date and leave room for it. It is sensible to steer the 8-week window around testing periods and long breaks, though that is ordinary scheduling sense rather than a Boost rule.

How Are Pilot Results Reviewed?

Boost builds in a before-and-after measure called Striving to 100, a self-assessment taken at the start and again at the end. The student and the sponsor each rate the student on a 1 to 5 scale across about twenty skill questions, such as greeting others, making eye contact, listening, honesty, and phone use. On the last day, students also color each of the 26 skills green, yellow, or red and choose where to focus next.

Be clear about what that measures: perceived growth. In our own small pilot of about 30 students, the share who checked "Absolutely" on a question about whether a specific set of skills lets them get what they want in life rose from 20% on day one to 87% on the last day. That is a small, self-reported result, not proof of impact, and Boost does not yet have independent outcome data. Schools that want more can add measures of their own, such as teacher observation, student surveys, or attendance and engagement data.

CASEL, the leading social-emotional learning organization, offers a useful rule here: "We do not recommend that SEL competency measures be used for high-stakes decisions and/or high-stakes accountability systems" (CASEL). Use pilot data to learn and improve, and decide before launch what you will look at. Our framework for evaluating any soft skills provider can help. When you are ready to plan, you can schedule a discovery call and bring your calendar.

Frequently Asked Questions

How Long Is a Boost Pilot?

A Boost pilot runs 8 weeks, with about 1.5 hours per week on site. Each session combines a lesson, practice, and discussion.

Can Our Own Staff Run the Pilot?

Yes. You can certify a staff member to lead the sessions, with training offered in person and virtually, all materials included, and ongoing support from the Boost team.

Does a Boost Pilot Require New Software?

No. Boost needs no new systems, tech platforms, or long training sessions, and students work from a workbook.

What Details Are Settled on a Discovery Call?

Class size, room setup, start dates, and the exact role of your staff depend on your building, so we work them out with you. We would rather fit the pilot to your school than publish a number that does not.

References

• The What Is The Boost Program?
• How to Add a Soft Skills Curriculum Without Adding to Teachers' Plates
• The Professional Development Administrators Actually Need
• A School Administrator's Framework for Evaluating Any Soft Skills Provider
• EdWeek: Does Social-Emotional Learning Really Work? Educators Had a Lot to Say
• Kappan: An Update on Social and Emotional Learning Outcome Research
• RAND: Teacher Well-Being, Pay, and Intentions to Leave in 2025
• IES REL Northwest: Advisory Programs
• CASEL: Choosing and Using SEL Competency Assessments