Our founder, Michael Delman, nearly left the teaching profession early on due to struggles that he later realized were typical for many teachers. By working on his own Executive Function skills and then teaching them to his students, he found ways to make teaching enjoyable for himself and increasingly valuable for his students.

At this point, Michael went on to create and lead a 300-student middle school of his own. Then, after years of seeing people of all ages succeed when incorporating executive function skills into their lives through his first company, Beyond BookSmart, he had a vision of bringing the same tools for success directly to principals, teachers, and their students. He brought Susan Lohman, an online teacher education expert, to lead this new division.

Susan lives by her belief that growth occurs from self-reflection, problem-solving, and being open to new possibilities. While coaching adults in 1:1 sessions at Beyond BookSmart, Susan was also coaching teachers on instructional best practices in the classroom. In these similar experiences, she was sharing tools and strategies and guiding professionals to more efficient and effective work habits. Seeing teachers using this insight to successfully teach their students about Executive Function skills gave Susan even further motivation to help build and lead BrainTracks. Susan realizes both the great impact BrainTracks has on students and the joy of teaching that it revives for teachers.

As leaders who have been in the roles of teachers and administrators we have a deep understanding of the challenges involved in creating outstanding classrooms. For that reason, instead of asking teachers to do even more, BrainTracks simply helps teachers easily integrate executive function skills into the delivery of the curriculum. With the explosion of online learning, specific EF skills have become even more necessary, as students need that much more focus to prioritize and complete their work while managing the constant distraction of their screens.

Executive function skills, such as the ability to be calm and focused and to plan out work and complete it, allow students to succeed both in the classroom and while doing their work at home and, of course, in their lives beyond academics.With executive function skills in place, students can succeed in the classroom, after high school, and in their adult lives.