When I talk with our team about the world we’re preparing students to enter, I remind them of two truths.
First, we can’t control the socio-political climate that endangers immigrant youth.
Second, we can control how powerfully we prepare them.
That belief has shaped me since childhood. I grew up in California’s San Joaquin Valley, the son of Mexican immigrants who often asked me, “What role and purpose do you want to play in society?”
That question taught me that education is not a ladder out — it’s a bridge forward. Preparation, not luck, turns access into opportunity.
Today, as I lead Enroot in Cambridge and Somerville, I see the same need in our students: a system that prepares them not only to enter opportunities, but to navigate, persist, and succeed within them.
This is what led us to launch Success Labs, our reimagined student-centered model now operating daily at CRLS and Somerville High School.
Why We Chose Labs
When we redesigned Enroot’s program model, we wanted something that reflected how real learning happens — through inquiry, collaboration, testing ideas, and reflecting on results. The high-school science lab became our inspiration.
In a lab, students work in diverse groups, follow procedures, test hypotheses, learn from setbacks, and document discoveries. It is structured, collaborative, and outcome-driven — exactly the environment immigrant youth need to build the skills required for postsecondary success.
Success Labs mirrors that environment.
They replace fragmented activities with a cohesive daily framework grounded in academic support, social-emotional learning, and intentional collaboration.
Every Lab builds community, confidence, and the habits that sustain students beyond high school.
Anchoring in State and National Vision
This past spring, Governor Maura Healey and Secretary Patrick Tutwiler released the Vision of a Massachusetts High School Graduate, identifying six core competencies: academically prepared, critical problem-solver, self-aware navigator, intentional collaborator, effective communicator, and responsible decision-maker..
These aren’t abstract ideals, they are the exact skill sets students practice daily inside Success Labs.
As Thinkers, students tackle complex challenges and develop intellectual discipline.
As Contributors, they learn to navigate systems and collaborate across cultures.
As Leaders, they communicate with purpose and make informed choices.
National research reinforces the same message.
The Education Trust’s report Mapping Postsecondary Pathways urges states to “align K–12, higher education, and workforce systems so students graduate prepared for both college and career.”
That alignment is exactly what Success Labs was built to accomplish.
The Science of Intentional Preparation
Every element of Success Labs is purposeful:
Integrated Support Systems — pairing academic coaching with mentoring and social-emotional scaffolds.
Targeted Pillars — Academic Readiness, Career Readiness, and Belonging & Community — the anchors of the Labs’ daily rhythm.
Persistence & Completion Focus — helping students not only access opportunities, but stay and succeed once there.
Success Labs turn readiness into a daily discipline — one that builds agency, confidence, and direction.
Introducing Yanka Petri Rodrigues and the Bridge to Applied Tracks
As students develop within Success Labs, many demonstrate the readiness, curiosity, or interest to go deeper. That’s where Applied Tracks come in.
Think of the model this way:
Success Labs are the base curriculum — every student participates and builds foundational competencies.
Applied Tracks are the advanced pathways — similar to honors or AP experiences in high school. They’re immersive, skill-based opportunities in fields such as digital storytelling, the green economy, and health and human services.
FutureReady! is the engine — ensuring everything students gain in Labs and Tracks leads to real college, career, and life outcomes.
To guide this bridge from preparation to application, we’ve welcomed Yanka Petri Rodrigues as our Manager of Career-Connected Learning and Partnerships.
Yanka is more than a new team member — she is an Enroot alum, returning as a leader to help the next generation move further and faster. She knows what it feels like to sit in the Lab, to build a sense of belonging, and to imagine a future that once felt distant.
In her role, she will design, launch, and manage the partnerships that power our Applied Tracks and FutureReady! pathways. Her leadership will ensure students move from the safety of the Lab into the complexity of the real world — equipped, confident, and visible to the employers and networks shaping Greater Boston’s opportunity landscape.
She embodies what our students experience every day: curiosity, rigor, and courage. And because her journey began where theirs begins now, she carries a perspective that will fuel both her success and ours.
Our Collective Responsibility
We are living through a time when national rhetoric often reduces or devalues the contributions of immigrant communities.
Our answer is not retreat, it is preparation.
By grounding our work in Massachusetts’ Vision of a Graduate and the national call for equitable pathways, we are demonstrating that preparation is both a form of resistance and empowerment.
With Yanka’s partnership and the continued evolution of Success Labs, Applied Tracks, and FutureReady!, we are building a generation of immigrant youth who are thinkers, contributors, and leaders, ready not just to adapt to the world, but to shape it.
Onward / Adelante,
Daniel Enríquez Vidaña
Executive Director, Enroot