What Kate Lechner and Sarah Tupper have built at Indigo Montessori, a Wildflower school in Baltimore, Maryland, isn't a revolutionary reading program. It's something harder to replicate: a school structured to give every child what good reading instruction has always required – consistent 1:1 lessons and real time to read.

None of these schools comes into being through the work of educators alone. Each is the product of a community choosing to believe in what might be possible for its children—and of donors, families, community leaders, landlords, charter authorizers, and other Wildflower champions helping Teacher Leaders move an idea from possibility to reality.

Tommy's story answers what it looks like to center the child – when energy spent on control becomes available for curiosity. But it raises the question: how do two people sustain that kind of work — constant observation, flexibility, release of control — without burning out?