Last month, GEAR UP professionals from across the country gathered in San Francisco for the 2025 NCCEP/GEAR UP Annual Conference. With this year’s theme, “Planting Seeds,” we were invited to reflect on how small, consistent efforts—when nurtured with care—can grow into generational change. Nowhere was that theme more alive than at the College and Career Readiness Evaluation Consortium (CCREC) meeting, where over a hundred GEAR UP participants gathered to do something powerful: tend to the roots of the GEAR UP story. Because we all know—planting seeds is only part of the work. The other part? Proving they’re growing. That’s where CCREC comes in.
Hosted at the Hilton San Francisco Union Square, the CCREC meeting brought together directors, evaluators, program staff, and national partners to reflect on our collective progress and plan for future evaluations. We kicked off the morning with welcome remarks from Chrissy Tillery, NCCEP’s Vice President of Research and Evaluation, followed by a government relations update from the NCCEP President, Alex Chough, setting the tone for a day rooted in policy, practice, and partnership. From there, breakout sessions tackled everything from the evaluation framework, postsecondary service definitions, to the practical use of evaluation tools, like the R Toolkit—reminding us that good data isn’t just numbers on a spreadsheet, but the groundwork for meaningful impact.
When we use shared language, shared tools, and shared goals, something powerful happens: We make the case for GEAR UP. Not in hypotheticals, but in hard numbers. Not just with anecdotes, but with evidence. And that’s how we move minds—on Capitol Hill, in statehouses, and at the superintendent’s desk. Because when someone asks, “How do you know GEAR UP makes a difference?” —we don’t just need to say it. We need to show it. As the day ended and the group photo was snapped, there was a quiet sense of something deeper at play—something more than just another conference session. In every conversation, every breakout, every slide shared, the theme held steady: We’re not just planting seeds. We’re building systems that track the growth. We’re writing the story of GEAR UP—in data, in outcomes, in lives changed.
To everyone who joined us in San Francisco—thank you for your ideas, your questions, and your commitment to this work. Whether you’re just getting started or have been part of CCREC since CCREC 1.0, your contributions help shape the future of GEAR UP. To all the data managers, evaluators, and GEAR UP champions out there—thank you for proving the promise. For every dataset cleaned, every variable defined, every dashboard built—you are cultivating a legacy. Your work helps us not just believe in GEAR UP, but prove it.
At its core, CCREC exists to prove that the seeds we’re planting—tutoring sessions, college visits, FAFSA nights, dual enrollment programs—aren’t just one-off events. They are investments in futures. They are patterns in the data. They are roots taking hold. And while NCCEP serves as the managing partner, CCREC belongs to all of us—a collaboration rooted in shared governance, built by GEAR UP professionals, and constantly evolving to reflect what we’ve learned. This year’s CCREC meeting invited us to think deeply about how we nurture those seeds. With 49 GEAR UP grantees, almost 200,000 students, and more than 859 schools represented in this ongoing longitudinal study, our time together wasn’t just about evaluation—it was about affirmation.
Let’s keep planting. Let’s keep measuring. Let’s keep telling the story—together.
