Meet Jenny Allen-Price: Empowering Students Through Real-World Learning
Discover the journey of Jenny Allen-Price, an author, educator, and founder driven by personal experience and a passion for empowering youth. Learn about her unique approach and the impactful programs she has created.
From personal journey to empowering others
Growing up feeling unheard and underestimated profoundly shaped Jenny Allen-Price's perspective, especially concerning students often overlooked by traditional systems. As an educator and Secondary Transition Specialist in rural Oklahoma, she recognized the critical need for more than just compliance-driven services. Students required genuine opportunities for leadership, meaningful work experience, and a strong sense of confidence through responsibility.
This realization inspired her to create Dragon Brew, a student-run coffee enterprise. Its purpose was to offer transition-age students authentic workplace experiences, leadership development, and a deeper sense of belonging. What began as a modest school-based initiative has evolved into a broader mission: assisting schools in building sustainable, evidence-informed transition systems that deliver tangible outcomes for students.
Today, her work seamlessly blends lived experience, educational expertise, and research-backed practices through speaking engagements, consulting, The Brew Model™, and Next Step Coffee Co. All these endeavors share a singular goal: empowering young people to achieve their full potential.
Building a future where every student thrives
Jenny Allen-Price’s deepest hope is that her work helps students, particularly those who have been underestimated, recognize they are capable of achieving far more than society might expect. Through transition programs, student-run enterprises, speaking, and community partnerships, she aims to build systems where young people gain confidence, acquire real-world skills, achieve independence, and experience a genuine sense of belonging.
She also strives to help educators and schools move beyond simply "checking boxes" and instead create meaningful opportunities that lead to authentic outcomes for students. Her goal is to develop programs that are sustainable, practical, and rooted in both compassion and evidence-based practices, especially in rural communities where resources are often limited but potential is limitless. Ultimately, Jenny wants students to leave school believing they are needed, valued, and fully capable of building a future for themselves.
Bridging experience with practical solutions
What truly distinguishes Jenny Allen-Price is her unique ability to integrate lived experience, educational expertise, and real-world systems into practical, sustainable solutions. She firmly believes that transition services should not merely exist on paper; students learn best when entrusted with authentic responsibility, leadership opportunities, and meaningful work.
Her extensive background in education, transition planning, communication, and program development enables her to construct systems that are both compassionate and highly functional. She places a strong emphasis on structure, student ownership, evidence-based practices, and community collaboration, particularly within rural schools where resources are often limited.
Additionally, Jenny brings a deeply personal perspective to her work. As someone who understands the feeling of being underestimated, she designs programs that help students recognize their own value, voice, and capabilities. Her work extends beyond mere preparation for employment; it is fundamentally about empowering young people to believe in the future they are building.
Impact at a Glance
- 3 years of Dragon Brew
- Grew participation from 8 to 22+ students
- Founder of the Heartland Transition PLC
- Trained multiple rural districts
- Presented at statewide conferences
- Student-run enterprise tied to Pre-ETS and transition outcomes