Help students belong
Argonaut Advisory Training: Advanced
August 6, 2026 - New York City
Argonaut Advisory Facilitation is a certification program for educators serving middle or high school, enabling them to lead advisory groups which offer deep social and emotional learning.
We see advisory as the heart of a great middle or high school. When implemented well, it generates trust and engagement, offers unconditional belonging, and becomes the ideal place to develop social-emotional intelligence.
This new Advanced offering is for educators who have already completed the introductory Argonaut Advisory Facilitation training. If you are looking for that course, please click here.
See below for details and to register.
What We’ll Learn Together
Skills in the Advanced Training
• Tools to accelerate belonging and connection in groups;
• The mindset to work with the unknown: becoming more confident leading advisories without a detailed lesson plan;
• Tools to become more aware of our somatic intelligence, and apply that to be a grounding, stabilizing force for a group;
• Structures to build high-quality Adult Advisory and Peer Mediation programs, as key supports for an overall advisory program;
• Restructuring how time is used to allow more depth in conversations;
• Ultimately: how to bring more of ourselves alive in this work, becoming the teachers we know we’re capable of being.
Practical Info
What: A 1-day intensive in August 2026 in New York City, for educators who have already completed the 3-day introductory Argonaut advisory facilitation course, and want to refresh and deepen their skills as advisory facilitators.
When: August 6, 2026, 9am - 4pm.
Where: St. Luke’s School, 487 Hudson Street, New York City.
Cost: $350. If this cost is a barrier, please complete this brief form to request a sliding-scale tuition scholarship.
Program Lead: This program will be led by Chris Balme, who is the Founder & Director of Argonaut, Founding Principal of Hakuba International School, and former Head of School at Millennium School in San Francisco. See more about Chris below.
Chris Balme: Program Lead
The Argonaut Advisory Facilitation program is led by Chris Balme, founding Principal of Hakuba International School in Japan, and previously the co-founder and Head of School at Millennium School in San Francisco. Chris has been a leader in designing and leading innovative education programs for more than twenty years. Chris maintains a real-world connection to the techniques taught here through his own advisory groups run via Argonaut, where these ideas and curricula are continually tested, practiced, and developed.
Prior to this work, Chris has been a teacher, a founder and leader of award-winning youth programs, and a writer and advisor on topics in education. He’s the recipient of the Ashoka Fellowship as a leading changemaker in education. His book Finding the Magic in Middle School was published in 2022, and he regularly writes on education topics. More about Chris here.
Questions?
Feel free to get in touch if you have questions about the program, or would like to talk with one of the trainers before signing up.