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Believe it or not, we're nearly halfway through the 2025-26 school year. Students are transitioning from playing games with their families over winter break to turning their alarms back on and getting back in the habit of classes and homework.

At the beginning of the year, we discussed how to get in that back to school groove. Now, on the latest episode of Connect Canyons, we’re hearing from two of our AVID experts about how now getting in a refresher on some of those methodologies would be helpful for teachers, students, and parents alike as we start out 2026.

“It’s important to review the basics with your students,” says Jenny Warner, Instructional Coach at Glacier Hills Elementary. “You almost have to pretend like you’re starting the year again, reviewing the routines and the rules with the students. One thing too, I think is really important, is to let the students have a voice in that. They have such powerful voices and listening to what they think is really important and maybe changing it and making it work for your whole classroom community.”

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Inside the Canyons Innovation Center, a solution to America’s broken school-to-work pipeline

Walk into a traditional classroom almost anywhere in America and you will see a familiar scene: desks in rows and students sitting face-forward, learning largely the way their grandparents did. Outside those classroom walls, however, the world those students are preparing to enter has fundamentally changed.

America is re-onshoring industries and rediscovering the dignity of what it means to make things again. Artificial intelligence and automation are reshaping how work gets done. At the same time, the industries defining the next century of American competitiveness — advanced manufacturing, aerospace, defense, robotics, energy, cybersecurity, and engineering — face a talent pipeline crisis.

The country is at a reckoning point, one that requires public education to evolve to start preparing students as early as high school for immediate entry into these high-wage, high-demand careers, said Canyons District Superintendent Dr. Rick Robins. “Academic achievement is always going to be at the heart of what we do. But we really do need to lean into this philosophy of workforce readiness.”

That is the premise behind the Canyons Innovation Center, a high-tech, profession-based learning center coming in August 2027 to the former regional headquarters of eBay in Draper. The facility is not a school in the traditional sense. It is an R&D-inspired environment where students work with professionals to solve real-world business problems while earning college credit and industry certifications, and developing the work habits and skills that employers say they so desperately need.

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Long before Jordan High Choir Director Jaron Putnam ever stood in front of a choir, music was already shaping who he would become.

“One of my first memories of being a human being was singing "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah" with my family,” Putnam says. “My dad sang in a barbershop quartet growing up and so my siblings were harmonizing, and I just was surrounded by harmony from a very early age.”

That foundation — music as connection and shared purpose — is what Putnam now works to cultivate in Jordan High’s Madrigals, a group that has grown into one of the state’s most accomplished musical ensembles. Whether performing at local events and spreading holiday cheer throughout the community, or competing on prestigious stages, the Jordan Madrigals are demonstrating how music education can open doors in school, work, and life.

The ensemble has taken home top marks in the Utah high school Shakespeare Festival, and is preparing to compete at the San Diego Heritage Festival, where choirs from across the country are evaluated against national adjudication standards.

But accolades are only part of the story.

In the latest episode of Connect Canyons, Putnam is joined by Madrigal members Katie Barnes, Adam Lindsay, Evelyn Shore, John Hamm, and Titus Tyler who reflect on how being part of the choir has shaped their confidence, discipline, and a sense of belonging in the Beetdigger community. Students describe finding their voices — sometimes literally for the first time — while learning how to work as a team and master skills to develop the courage to perform under pressure.