Beyond Spreadsheets: Fixing Student Support with August Schools

Beyond Spreadsheets: Fixing Student Support with August Schools

Your school has a counselor, a nurse, a dean, a learning specialist, and a dozen advisors — but are they actually working with the same picture of each student?

For most independent schools, the honest answer is no. Student support data lives in spiral notebooks, unsecured Google Docs, disconnected email threads, and the memory of whoever happened to be in the room. That's not a technology problem. It's a student care problem.

In this episode, Bridget Johnson sits down with Pete Russell, co-founder of August Schools, and Victoria Bush, product manager at August Schools, to explore what a truly connected student support system looks like — and what it costs schools when they don't have one. From continuity of care to behavior management, from documentation and legal risk to the potential of AI-informed workflows, this conversation gives school leaders a framework for thinking about student support infrastructure in a new way.

What you'll hear isn't a product pitch. It's a practitioner-level conversation about why students are slipping through the cracks, what data schools are sitting on but not using, and why the nurse's office is often the first place student distress shows up — and the last place that information travels.

In This Episode, You'll Learn:

Why disconnected support systems create gaps in student care — and how schools can start closing them

How continuity of care breaks down at school transitions, and what that costs students and institutions

What role-based data access looks like in practice — protecting privacy while giving leaders the context they need

Why proper documentation isn't just good practice; it's a school's best legal protection

How one school's data revealed an 80/20 gender split in counseling visits — and what they did about it

What attendance patterns actually signal about student belonging and disengagement