Venture Onboarding Journal

The short version. Brian Sullivan, Venture Academy’s head of school, asked Roar to build something rarer than an employee handbook: an onboarding experience that could hold a brand-forward, mission-driven school’s culture, values, and professional growth in one place. The result was the Venture Onboarding and Professional Learning Journal, a book built to grow with a teacher across their first year, and every year after.

Where they started. Venture Academy opened in 2022 with kindergarten through seventh grade, on its way to a full PreK through 12 school. It is unusually brand-forward for a new school: Venture wants every teacher to be a professional and to genuinely understand and carry the brand, not just work inside it. Brian came to Roar with a challenge and a list. The challenge: onboarding gives a school only a few days to introduce a new hire to the culture, the campus, the community of leaders who will support them, and the curriculum, the fourth C, on top of everything else a new job asks of a person. Three days is a tall order to get someone fully bought in. The list: about ten ideas Brian wanted Roar’s help shaping into something real, including collector pins for the year a teacher joins and each year after, and welcome backpacks filled with Venture swag for new hires.

The move. The most exciting piece to come out of Brian’s list became the Venture Onboarding and Professional Learning Journal. Professional learning at most schools feels like a layer bolted on top of the day-to-day work of teaching and mentoring, disconnected from it. Roar built one framework instead of a stack of disconnected sections, one that walks a teacher, new or returning, through the school’s mission, vision, and values, then gives them a place to return to all year: a spot for personal and professional goals, and a structure every professional development session runs through, what the opportunity is, what they hope to learn, what they need to let go of first, notes and action steps, how it folds back into their practice, and how they would evaluate it. The whole book lives inside a Circa Notebook system by Levenger, built so pages can be added and swapped as a teacher’s first year unfolds, and as their tenure at Venture continues.

What we made:

• The Venture Onboarding and Professional Learning Journal, one framework for onboarding and professional development, built in a Circa Notebook system by Levenger
• Collector pins, one for the year a teacher joins and one for each year after
• Welcome backpacks filled with Venture swag for new hires

What happened. Roar has reimagined and updated the journal three years running, swapping in each year’s professional learning journey, a new thematic verse, and a running list of improvements Venture and Roar keep making together.