Stronger Systems. Better Teaching. Brighter Futures.
Advisory2Work™ is an education consulting firm that prepares secondary students for the STEM careers that are actually hiring — and builds the school systems that get them there.
Every Student Needs All Four. Most Schools Can Only Reach One.
Most schools are not short on effort. Attendance teams work on attendance. CTE works on placements. Counselors work on applications. The effort is real, and it still falls short — because there is no link between the person watching a student slip in ninth grade and the person trying to place that same student in a job three years later.
The Career Lab™ Framework is that connection: four stages, twelve components, one continuous pathway from a student’s first day back in the building to their first day on the job — with the same partners, the same evidence, and the same language the whole way through.
Every Advisory2Work™ component is defined in the Framework. That is how you know where it fits, and what it connects to.
Foundations
Build the base for success.
- Academic On-TrackAttendance, course progression, and graduation pathways.
- Belonging & EngagementPositive relationships, student voice, and school connectedness.
- Mindset & Well-BeingSelf-awareness, resilience, and a future-ready identity.
Opportunities
Connect learning to the real world.
- Career ExplorationExpose, inform, and inspire.
- Work-Based LearningInternships, job shadowing, and industry projects.
- Industry PartnershipsEmployers, mentors, and community connections.
Readiness
Equip with the skills to succeed.
- Essential SkillsCommunication, teamwork, problem-solving.
- Real-World ApplicationProject-based learning and workplace simulations.
- Credentials & PathwaysIndustry-recognized certifications and clear next steps.
Employment
Transition to what’s next.
- Placement SupportResume, interview prep, and job matching.
- Ongoing SupportCoaching, check-ins, and continued mentorship.
- Alumni NetworkStay connected, open doors, and pay it forward.
Most Portraits of a Graduate Describe a Student No System Is Built to Produce.
Nearly every district has one. Communication. Critical thinking. Collaboration. Adaptability. Civic and cultural identity. They are the right words, agreed to by the right people — and then printed, framed, and hung in the front office, because nothing in the master schedule actually produces them.
A Portrait of a Graduate names outcomes. It is not a delivery system. The Career Lab™ Framework is the delivery system: four stages a student moves through, where each attribute is taught, practiced in real work, and documented in a form a graduate can carry into a job interview or a college application.
We do not replace the Portrait your community already agreed to. We map it onto the framework, so every attribute has an owner, a place on the calendar, and evidence that it happened.
Where a student learns to reason through a problem — and to see themselves as someone the work belongs to.
Practiced in front of adults who are not their teacher: partner briefings, presentations, real audiences.
Cross-functional teams with assigned roles and shared deliverables, assessed on contribution as well as product.
Rotating roles and shifting requirements inside the Career Lab™ Simulator, where the brief changes and the student adjusts.
This is a starting point. Our team will build the blueprint with you — taking your district’s own Portrait language, attribute by attribute, and showing where each one is taught, who owns it, and what evidence proves it happened.
Challenges Are Systemic, Not Isolated.
Secondary leaders navigate unprecedented complexity. A student who stops showing up, a student who cannot reach a placement, and a student who graduates with no next step are not three problems — they are one pathway breaking in three places. We partner with schools experiencing:
Career Lab™ Simulator
A workforce-readiness simulation that connects instruction, employability skills and real-world application. Career Lab™ is a flexible, simulated workplace model that prepares students for life after graduation through career exploration, work-based learning, employability skill-building and postsecondary planning.
Schools deliver it as an Intensive Model of 40 hours, or a Flexible Model of 40 to 120 hours — and may implement the full simulator or select only the components their students need.
The workplace is simulated. The work is authentic.
4 hrs/day
10 consecutive days
40 hours
4 hrs/Sat
10 Saturdays
40 hours
2 hrs/day
20 school days
40 hours
Intensive Model scheduling — 40 hours total. Serves 15–50 students, school-day, after-school, virtual or hybrid, aligned to WBL standards. Pilots typically run 15 students per cohort.
High-Fidelity Simulated Workplace
Students are given a department and a role. They keep deadlines, sit in meetings, take feedback and earn advancement, using the same tools adults use.
Authentic Partner Projects
Government agencies, nonprofits, community organizations and local industry bring work they actually need done.
Evidence-Backed Performance
A record of what each student actually did: their work, their partner’s feedback, the skills they showed and the hours they earned.
Scalable Access
Reaches the students who cannot always get to an outside placement, without lowering what is asked of them.
Three Solutions for Students at Risk
One assesses the school. Two work directly with students. Each stands on its own, and most schools begin with the diagnostic to decide which of the others they need.
Beacon of Hope Scorecard™
A structured assessment of how ready your school is across the conditions that keep students present, progressing and prepared. It returns a blueprint for response — a prioritized plan for what to address first — not a score to file away.
Take the Scorecard →On-Track Accelerator™
Direct support for students who are slipping. It surfaces risk early enough to act on, names the adult responsible for each student, and gives the school one repeatable response for attendance, credit accumulation and course progression.
Explore the Accelerator →F.I.R.E. Intercept Method™
Helps students build self-regulation — recognizing the moment before a reaction and choosing a different one. Taught through contemporary literature students already recognize, inside the ELA, advisory, SEL and CTE time secondary schools already have.
Explore the Method →Systems Portfolio
The structures that hold the framework together. Each one strengthens a different part of a student’s path — and now says which part.
On-Track Accelerator™
Identify risk earlier, coordinate ownership, and protect credit progression.
Explore System →Student Engagement Infrastructure™
Relational monitoring to ensure every student is known and supported.
Explore System →Leadership Decision Architecture™
Structured protocols to reduce fragmentation and accelerate response.
Explore System →Barrier Response Framework™
A coordinated approach for removing non-academic obstacles.
Explore System →Postsecondary Infrastructure™
Aligning advisory and career planning for viable pathways.
Explore System →Career Lab™ Simulator
A simulated workplace with real partner projects. 40 hours in the Intensive Model, or 40–120 in the Flexible Model.
Explore Program →Dr. Harper-Richardson Did Not Inherit These Numbers. She Built Them.
In the eight graduating classes before Dr. Harper-Richardson became principal, the school’s four-year graduation rate averaged 87% and fell as low as 77%. In the eight classes since, it has averaged 95% and never once dropped below 91% — placing the school in the top 10% of New York State.
Same neighborhood. Same non-selective admissions. Same students arriving at Level 1. Different systems — and those systems are what Advisory2Work™ builds.
Eight consecutive graduating classes is not a good year. It is a system that holds — which is the only kind worth handing to someone else.
35+ Years
Of urban education leadership and strategic advisory practice. Grounded in executive practice, not theory.
Who We Support
- Principals and assistant principals
- District and instructional leaders
- CTE directors and work-based learning coordinators
- Advisory coordinators and grade-level teams
- Transition services and special education teams
- Schools redesigning advisory programs
How We Support
- Start with the Beacon of Hope Scorecard™ to see where students are falling off
- System design and launch support
- Leadership coaching and toolkits
- Staff facilitation training
- Run the Career Lab™ Simulator with real partner projects
- Future readiness implementation
Dr. Denise K. Harper-Richardson, EdD
Dr. Denise K. Harper-Richardson is an award-winning educational leader and experienced principal in a comprehensive secondary school serving grades 6–12, with more than 35 years of service to students, families and educators. She is known for turning around underperforming schools, strengthening outcomes in Title I communities, and treating student engagement as a strategic driver of attendance and achievement rather than a soft outcome.
She runs Career and Technical Education and Future Ready programs across seven pathways — Data Science, Software Development, Robotics, Drone Technology, Marketing & Social Media, Human & Social Services, and College & Career Readiness — and is a certified Work-Based Learning Coordinator. That is the practitioner ground the Career Lab™ Simulator stands on: she has built and run the pathways she now helps other schools build.
She is a member of ISTE+ASCD, where she continues her own professional learning, and an advocate for student AI literacy — preparing young people to use and question artificial intelligence rather than simply consume it.
Beyond her building, she chairs the Parent Commission for the New York Alliance of Black School Educators and serves as Executive Director of the Black Empowerment Network. She is the founder and CEO of Advisory2Work™ and the creator of Preptrics™, an instructional-planning system built around the strengths and needs of underserved students — and a proud parent and grandparent.
Enterprise Engagement
Built for districts seeking long-term stability through cohesive cross-functional coordination — one framework shared across schools, with the same language, the same partners and the same evidence.
Bring Structure to the Work That Matters Most.
Tell us where the pathway is breaking. We will show you where to start, and what a pilot would look like on your calendar.
support@advisory2work.com
