A high school diploma should mean that all students are ready for college "and" a career, but in Rhode Island, it did not. According to a 2019 audit, just four in a hundred Rhode Island seniors were prepared for both college and a career, and more than half graduated without concrete career skills. When the author became commissioner of the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) in 2019, she committed to ensuring that Rhode Island would start providing all its high school students with equitable opportunities for postsecondary success. RIDE pressed ahead during the pandemic. In June 2020, XQ and RIDE staff presented audit findings to the Rhode Island Council on Elementary and Secondary Education, or K-12 Council for short, which is organized under the state board of education and oversees K-12. This article presents how the council challenged educators to identify solutions and create a plan to address the barriers Rhode Island students faced.