100,000+ students projected to benefit from behavioral coaching annually
72% of educators report Reality Coach, a simulation coaching and training platform, builds higher confidence as compared to traditional workshops
86% of educators believe Reality Coach directly improves their daily classroom outcomes
Secures sensitive student and teacher data with Cloud IAM and Model Armor
Supports training for over 32,500 professionals and reaches hundreds of thousands of learners annually
Boys Town, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit helping at-risk youth and families, launched Reality Coach, a simulation coaching and training platform, on Google Cloud to scale evidence-based behavioral training, empowering educators and improving classroom experiences and outcomes for students.
Boys Town, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit helping at-risk youth and families, launched Reality Coach, a simulation coaching and training platform, on Google Cloud to scale evidence-based behavioral training, empowering educators and improving classroom experiences and outcomes for students.
Overcoming the bottleneck: Scaling behavioral roleplay for student impact
For years, the gold standard for behavioral training has relied on live, person-to-person roleplay, but the logistical reality of matching expert facilitators with thousands of educators created a ceiling for our impact. We knew that to truly support every classroom, we had to find a way to make high-fidelity, evidence-based practice available whenever and wherever a teacher needed it.
Rod Kempkes
President and CEO, Boys Town
As one of the largest 501(c) nonprofit child and family care organizations in the US, Boys Town is dedicated to transforming the way America supports children and families. Through the Boys Town Education Model®, the organization equips faculty and caregivers with proactive teaching and de-escalation techniques. Between 2022 and 2025, Boys Town trained over 32,500 professionals, reaching hundreds of thousands of learners annually.
Despite this success, the most impactful component of their training—live roleplay—faced a systemic bottleneck. Effective roleplay requires trained facilitators, coordinated schedules, and synchronous delivery. As reach expanded, practice opportunities were limited by staff availability, and repetition—the key to mastery—was difficult to achieve. Educators echoed this challenge, noting that while roleplay was the most beneficial part of training, it was also the hardest to access.
Boys Town recognized that a more integrated and scalable approach was required to preserve the realism of these vital interactions while removing systemic staffing barriers. By partnering with Google Public Sector, Boys Town is transforming behavior management into a repeatable, confidence-building practice that serves a national network of educators and caregivers.
Building an intelligent environment
on a trusted foundation
To bring this vision to life, Boys Town partnered with Elastic and Google Public Sector to build Reality Coach, a simulation coaching and training platform built on Vertex AI. Faced with the challenge of scaling high-fidelity practice, the team leveraged an integrated Google Cloud stack to move beyond technical complexity and deliver a more seamless user experience.
In this context, simulated coaching and training is an interactive, AI-driven roleplay environment that replaces traditional, facilitator-led practice. Rather than watching a video or reading a manual, educators engage in a dynamic, two-way dialogue with an AI persona—such as a student in crisis or a frustrated parent.
The Reality Coach platform's mission-critical architecture supports this high-fidelity training through:
- Vertex AI platform: Powers context-aware multimodal models that sustain realistic, rubric-aligned conversations.
- Model Armor: Acts as a strategic safety layer, screening all AI prompts and responses for sensitive data exposure and harmful content.
- Cloud IAM: Enforces zero trust principles by ensuring that sensitive educational data is only accessible to authorized faculty and researchers.
- Cloud Run and Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE): Provides the highly scalable, serverless and containerized infrastructure required for reliable, browser-based delivery across diverse school environments.
- Cloud Storage and Cloud SQL: Manages secure ingestion and structured storage of simulation data and educator performance transcripts.
- BigQuery: Processes real-time performance telemetry and analytics to identify visible improvement trends across thousands of practice sessions.
These technical components ensure that Reality Coach scenarios remain accurately grounded in the demographic realities of modern schools. To ensure every educator is equipped with contextually relevant support, faculty can choose simulations precisely aligned to their specific grade-level needs:
- PK–5: Focusing on high-frequency challenges like tantrums and "storming out."
- Grades 6–8: Addressing power struggles and ignoring instructions.
- Grades 9–12: Tackling complex verbal confrontation and student apathy.
Reality Coach takes the anxiety out of the learning process. It gives our educators a safe, private space to fail, learn from their mistakes, and build the muscle memory they need to walk into a classroom with total confidence.
Rod Kempkes
President and CEO, Boys Town
From actionable insights to the future of education
The results from early pilots demonstrate that AI can move beyond simple knowledge transfer to drive true behavioral change. Data from these initial cohorts shows that 72% of educators report significantly higher confidence in handling behavioral challenges compared to those using traditional workshops alone. Educators reported that Reality Coach provides a nonjudgmental space to experiment and refine their skills. Unlike traditional roleplay, where performance can feel public or evaluative, the AI environment allows faculty to try again until they master the strategy. By combining decades of behavioral expertise with modern AI infrastructure, Boys Town is redefining how educators prepare for the moments that matter most at a scale that was previously impossible.
We brought to life what had only been a vision – an AI-powered coach that helps caregivers practice the hardest conversations, scaling empathy, realism, and training quality like never before.
Dmitriy Khots
Vice President, Data Analytics, Boys Town
The impact is both visible and measurable. Beyond individual confidence, 86% of staff believe their practice with the AI directly improved daily classroom outcomes, leading to more successful student de-escalations. One user observed that after repeated use, their transcripts became shorter and their ability to complete corrective instructions improved significantly. This flexibility allows educators to practice during independent professional development time, ensuring that training fits into the reality of a busy school day rather than becoming extra work.
Looking ahead, Boys Town is using Reality Coach as a blueprint for the responsible use of generative AI in education. With a projected 100,000+ students benefitting from behavioral training annually, the organization is successfully scaling a strategic asset for social well-being. By treating behavior as a measurable vital sign, Boys Town and Google Public Sector are creating the new frontier for proactive, preventative care in our schools.
Boys Town is a national nonprofit dedicated to changing the way America cares for children and families. Through research-based programs and professional learning, Boys Town equips educators, parents, and caregivers with proven strategies to help youth succeed socially, emotionally, and academically.
Industry: Education
Location: United States
Products: Vertex AI, Cloud Run, Cloud Storage, Model Armor, Cloud SQL, Cloud IAM, Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), BigQuery
About Google Cloud partner - Elastic
Elastic is a leading search analytics company that enables organizations to find the answers that matter in real time and at scale. Built on the Elasticsearch platform, the company delivers cloud-based, AI-powered solutions for Search, Observability, and Security. Elastic helps thousands of companies leverage their data to drive mission-critical insights and innovation.
