Issue 0: Charting a New Course 🧭

Welcome to Compass EDU!! Peck Education’s monthly dispatch that syncs big-picture theory with boots-on-the-ground tactics, written by practitioners, for practitioners. While LinkedIn has lots of voices speaking to how to navigate AI in education, few can say that they are in a K-12 school each day, managing IT budgets before first bell and navigating AI policy after last bell. This isn't zero-sum. It will take all different perspectives to disrupt and transform the traditional paradigm, Compass EDU is one of those voices. 

So what is Compass EDU!?

Compass EDU is the first waypoint in a growing ecosystem—consulting, cohort courses, and tools like TechAdvisor AI (more on this later), all designed by a school leader, for school leaders. This newsletter won’t be a monthly sales pitch. Instead, expect:

• Signals from the edge of ed-tech

• Thought-provoking riffs on where learning is headed

• Ready-to-use assets that empower your leadership

• Updates from Peck Education

To learn more about the writing I do, feel free to stop by my blog! Before we get to the regularly scheduled program...

Issue 0 is different. Though Peck Education LLC was quietly incorporated in January, this letter is the public launch of what feels like a lifetime's worth of late-night hours. By day, I’m the Director of Technology & Innovative Learning for a K-12 district; after hours, I am building Peck Education to help fellow leaders navigate digital transformation without the hype.

Today’s Issue 0—our Founder’s Letter—dives into who we are and what’s ahead. In two weeks, Issue 1 will land with actionable signals, tools, and prompts you can deploy right away.

Founders Letter – June 9, 2025

“Technology is racing ahead—and for too long K-12 has been jogging in place.”

Why I’m writing

Seventeen years ago, I stepped into a seventh-grade classroom armed with a textbook, worksheets, a stack of transparencies, and a single laptop. Today, every student in that same building carries a personal Chromebook, yet the core experience, the bell schedule, the worksheets, and the siloed subjects look eerily familiar.

Meanwhile, outside the school walls, I’ve watched AI agents building businesses on Facebook, synthetic tutors providing calculus hints in real time, and Web3 projects rebuilding credentialing from the ground up. The distance between the leading edge of technology in industry and how school works is now accelerating.

That distance and the urgency it creates for the people who lead our systems drives the work at Peck Education LLC.

Peck Education exists because leaders need more than inspirational quotes, 50 page frameworks, prompting guides, and soundbites on the latest AI models. They need a practical, values-driven tool and strategies for action from practitioners doing the work of transforming schools. The three pillars below will serve as the blueprint for the work that we do. They define who we are, how we operate, and why every decision we make must shorten the gap between today’s incremental fixes and tomorrow’s transformative possibilities.

Peck Education Three Pillars;

1. Practitioner first: I still lead a public-school technology department every day. I troubleshoot Wi-Fi at 7 a.m., then lead technology professional development at 3 p.m. I don’t pontificate from the sidelines. You get context-rich insight straight from the on-the-ground experience.

2. Provision, not dependence: Great consulting should make you less reliant on the consultant. My products and services are designed to hand leaders the frameworks, tools, and foresight skills they need to keep innovating long after I’ve stepped away.

3. The Three-Bucket Lens: A good friend and mentor of mine shared this approach to school transformation.  It’s a simple yet effective way to frame the work that lies ahead.

Every service, template, and coaching session maps to one of those buckets.

What We’re Building in 2025

TechAdvisor AI – your pocket CTO: What better way to learn about AI then build with it. Tech Advisor AI is an AI-powered co-pilot trained on public resources from ISTE, CISA, the U.S. Office of EdTech, and other leading education and IT organizations. Ask it anything from “Which LMS best meets our privacy regs?” to “Draft an AI acceptable-use policy for grades 6-12.” Why build Tech Advisor? Because Technology leaders are often the jack of all trades! I joke that anything that plugs into a wall eventulaly becomes our purview. In our interconnected world, your IT leaders can be drivers of innovation, and Tech Advisor helps fill in the gaps.

My stretch goal: 100 paying subscribers by December, because every Technology Director, Instructional Coach, Curriculum Director, and Superintendent deserves on-demand strategic advice.

AI Leadership Accelerator – cohort-based mastery A six-week blend of asynchronous micro-lessons and live group coaching that arms leaders with strategic foresight, scenario planning, and concrete AI pilot blueprints. We’re targeting the launch of a beta cohort in Q3 to audit the asynchronous learning modules, and by Q4 host our first blended cohort. Those graduates will form the nucleus of a private community where district teams share playbooks and hold each other accountable. 

Our goal is to offer a program designed by school leaders for school leaders, which includes toolkits and connections that leaders need to take immediate action in their contexts.

Targeted Consulting & Workshops For districts that want more personalized support, I’m looking forward to guiding organizations in helping them audit infrastructure, craft AI governance, and prototype new learning models. These engagements feed real-world lessons back into the Advisor and Accelerator, keeping both tools grounded in practice.

What We’ve Done So Far

• Practitioner-focused insights and updates from the leading edge of the intersection of technology and education.  You can check out my blog and my Youtube Channel for some of my most recent work. 

• Led 100+ leaders through AI boot camps and conference sessions in the past 12 months. From conference sessions to AI bootcamps, leaders have shared that the need for grounded context-rich support for school leaders is more needed than ever. Peck Education has and will continue to serve those in need.

• Early TechAdvisor beta users have logged 300+  queries, saving an estimated 50 director-hours on strategy, policy development, and professional development drafting.

Where We’re Heading

By 2026, we want 500 District CTOs, Tech-Coaches, and forward-thinking Superintendents to carry their pocket CTO, which grows smarter each time the community hits Enter. We envision a network of AI-literate leaders who exchange real-time insights and strategies, issue micro-credentials in emerging-tech leadership, and co-design the future of education.

How Can You Join the Work?

1. Subscribe to the Compass Edu newsletter.  Set your course for the future by staying up to date on the latest from Peck Education.

2. Head to Peck Education to check out my latest work and be the first to catch the latest updates by subscribing. 

3. Hit reply. Tell me the single biggest AI or tech challenge on your plate this summer. Your frontline questions shape the roadmap.

sync up soon,

Mike

Dr. Mike Peck Founder, Peck Education LLC 

Director of Technology and Innovative Learning, K-12 Public School 

Relentless tinkerer