A Check & Connect® Leader Retires

Eileen Klemm.

Eileen Klemm, PhD, will continue to serve children and families even after she retires as the national training director for Check & Connect ® at the University of Minnesota’s Institute on Community Integration (ICI).

“In a way, I’m going back to what started my initial interest in how children develop,” Klemm said. “After I leave ICI, I’m going back to working as a speech-language pathologist with the St. Paul public schools.”

Klemm started at ICI in 2012, and under her leadership, Check & Connect has grown to serve educators and students throughout the United States and internationally.

ICI’s Check & Connect program is an evidence-based, comprehensive K-12 student engagement intervention designed to reduce dropout rates and increase school completion. The program pairs students with a mentor who regularly connects with families to promote school engagement.

“Relationships are the heart of this program,” Klemm said. “Research shows that students do better when they have one person that they can count on to be there for them. Students want to feel valued, and they like to have a connection.”

Klemm is proud of how her Check & Connect team has trained hundreds of staff members to increase graduation rates and help students feel more engaged.

Duluth Public Schools announced an increase in its graduation rate and credited Check & Connect mentors. Duluth school officials reported the graduation rate increased from 84% to 95% in 2025.

The director of the Institute on Community Integration, Amy Hewitt, said Klemm’s entrepreneurial approach to Check & Connect is one of the factors that made the program so successful.

“Equally as important was her ability to test the effectiveness of this dropout prevention program and build an evidence base through ongoing research, which was used to improve and routinely update the program,” Hewitt added.

The ICI team at the University of Minnesota originated the program in the 1990s from a partnership of researchers, practitioners, parents, and students.

“We started as a rather small program, and we discovered there was a real need for what we do,” Klemm said. Check & Connect saw significant growth during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, which brought new challenges to schools.

Colleagues who worked with Klemm credit her for growing the program and praise her managerial skills.

"Eileen has always centered people in her leadership,” said Jess Swirtz, national implementation specialist at Check & Connect.

“She cares deeply about Check & Connect staff and customers, and sees them as people, not just as assets or numbers. Eileen consistently creates an environment where people feel valued and seen through asking thoughtful questions, maintaining a friendly and open demeanor, and genuinely taking an interest in people’s passions, motivations, and lives beyond work,” Swirtz said.

Klemm also served as principal investigator on two U.S. Department of Education-funded projects: Circle Up: An Integrated Whole School Model to Address Learners’ Social-Emotional Learning Needs, which includes implementing Check & Connect at the elementary level, and Enhancing Secondary/Transition Outcomes Using Check & Connect with the Self-Determined Learning Model of Instruction, a randomized control trial focused on improving outcomes for secondary learners with disabilities.

The new director of Check & Connect, Michelle Austin, praises Klemm’s leadership. “I am sincerely grateful for her tireless dedication and for the strong, values-driven foundation she has built for the National Office and the program,” Austin said.

“While we will deeply miss Eileen in our day-to-day work, we know she shares our enthusiasm and excitement as we continue to advance our mission and vision by expanding our research, strengthening partnerships, and ensuring the program evolves to meet the needs of students, schools, and organizations,” Austin added.

Klemm reported she will miss ICI but looks forward to working more directly with students when she returns to her career as a speech-language pathologist in public schools.

“I’m always a learner,” Klemm admitted. “I think when I return to the public-school setting, I’ll bring a knowledge of research and methods of understanding. During my time at ICI, I learned a lot, and I’m excited to bring that back to the schools.”