One More Thing: Rethinking What We Ask of Educators

Claire Smith

5 days ago

6 min read

In education, “one more thing” might be four of the most dreaded words in the English language.

One more initiative. One more platform. One more meeting. One more form to fill out. One more program to implement. One more thing to remember in a profession already full of things.

So when districts consider Hilight, we hear a version of this question pretty often:

How do we make sure this doesn’t become one more thing?

The truth is: Hilight is one more thing. Everything new is.

But Hilight was never built because educators needed something else to do.

It was built because, as educators ourselves, we kept seeing something that didn't make sense. Schools are overflowing with incredible moments every single day, and so few of them ever get seen beyond the people who happen to be there.

A teacher finds a way to reach a student everyone has been struggling to reach. A colleague quietly steps in when someone else is having a hard day. A custodian does something small that completely changes a student's morning. A front office staff member makes a family feel like they belong.

These moments are happening constantly.

And yet, so much of what gets documented, measured, reported, and talked about in education is what went wrong. The problems. The gaps. The things that need to improve.

We built Hilight because the good deserves a system, too.

That creates an important tension. How do you build a system for seeing and sharing more of what's good without adding another burden to the very people doing that good work?

For us, there are a few things that make the difference.

One thing that gives something back

So much of what we ask educators to do requires something from them.

Complete this. Implement this. Attend this. Track this. Learn this. Submit this. Remember this.

And then, of course, there is the actual work of educating kids.

A teacher might adjust a lesson on the fly because students aren't getting it. Calm down a child having a hard morning. Cover a colleague's class. Call a parent after school. Help a first-year teacher through a tough day. Notice that one student who has been unusually quiet. Stay late to make tomorrow a little better than today.

Schools are filled with thousands of these moments.

And an enormous number of them happen without anyone ever saying:

I saw that.

Hilight starts with what educators are already doing.

It isn't built around asking educators to accomplish more so they can earn recognition. It's built around recognizing the incredible things they're already doing.

Someone notices.

Someone takes a minute to share it.

And suddenly, a moment that might have disappeared into an exhausting Tuesday becomes visible.

That's an important distinction.

Most “one more things” require something from educators. Recognition has the potential to give something back.

Pride. Connection. Energy. A reminder that the work mattered to someone.

When educators are already carrying so much, the goal isn't to pile something else on top. It's to help more of what they're already carrying feel purposeful, visible, and valued.

Hilight is one thing designed to honor all the other things.

Recognition can't be one person's job

There's another reason traditional approaches to recognition can start to feel like one more thing. Too often, we make recognition the responsibility of a very small number of people.

Maybe it's the principal.

Maybe it's HR.

Maybe it's the communications team.

Maybe it's a culture committee or one particularly enthusiastic person who has somehow become responsible for staff morale on top of their actual job.

The problem isn't that these leaders don't care enough about recognition.

The problem is that we've designed recognition systems that depend on a handful of people noticing everything.

That's impossible.

Think about a principal leading a school full of adults and hundreds of students. Even if that principal spent the entire day walking the halls looking for great things happening, they still couldn't see it all.

They aren't in every classroom.

They don't hear every conversation.

They don't see the custodian quietly helping a teacher solve a problem before school. They don't necessarily know about the colleague who stepped in during a difficult moment, the front office staff member who made a family's stressful morning easier, or the veteran teacher who spent her planning period helping someone new.

But someone saw those things.

That's why Hilight is peer-to-peer.

Any staff member can Hilight another staff member.

Instead of asking a handful of leaders to carry the work of recognition for an entire organization, Hilight distributes the ability to notice.

The people closest to the moments can surface the moments.

That doesn't make leaders less important to recognition. It makes meaningful recognition at scale possible.

Instead of putting another recognition program on a principal's or HR leader's plate, with the expectation that they remember to recognize everyone, keep track of it, and somehow make sure nobody gets missed, recognition becomes something the community carries together.

The work is distributed because the ability to see is distributed.

And the recognition is often more meaningful because it comes from the people who were actually there.

A system replaces guesswork

There's another kind of “one more thing” that doesn't always show up on a to-do list.

It's the mental load of trying to keep track.

For leaders who care deeply about their people, recognition can come with a surprisingly difficult set of questions:

Have we been recognizing the same people over and over?

Who hasn't been recognized lately?

Are some teams feeling more seen than others?

Are we actually living out the values we say matter?

Is this happening consistently across our schools?

Without a system, answering those questions often depends on memory and gut feeling.

And it's incredibly difficult to maintain an invisible mental ledger of hundreds, or even thousands, of people.

Sometimes that uncertainty can even make recognition harder. If you're worried that you're recognizing some people too much or accidentally leaving others out, it can become easier to pull back altogether.

But the answer to imperfect recognition isn't less recognition.

It's better visibility.

Hilight turns recognition into culture data.

Leaders can see what's happening across their organization. They can understand where recognition is happening, where it isn't, what people are being recognized for, and where there may be opportunities to help more people feel seen.

Instead of wondering, leaders have something concrete to work from.

Recognition becomes less about trying to remember everything and more about understanding your people.

And yes, it has to be easy

None of this matters if the system itself becomes a burden.

That's why we've intentionally kept Hilight focused. We're not trying to become the place educators do everything. We're trying to make one important thing, seeing and celebrating the people around you, as easy as possible.

That means simple access, single sign-on, and an experience designed to take minutes, not another training manual to master.

Because we're not just competing with other technology.

We're competing for educators' time and attention.

And those are precious.

So, is Hilight one more thing?

Yes.

Everything new is.

But not every one more thing asks the same thing of people.

Some things add to the pile.

Some things help distribute a load that a few people have been carrying.

Some things replace guesswork with visibility.

And some things give a little bit back to people who spend their days giving so much to everyone else.

Hilight won't capture every incredible moment happening in a school. That's not the goal.

But what if, across a school system, we got much better at noticing some of them?

What if the teacher who handled a nearly invisible moment beautifully knew that someone saw it?

What if the principal didn't have to personally witness every great thing happening in the building for those things to be celebrated?

There will always be one more thing in education.

We can't make all of those things disappear. But we can make more of them visible. We can make sure more of the people doing them feel seen. And we can make recognition something an entire community carries together, rather than one more thing sitting on a leader's plate.