About
About Foreword Forum
Most students do not fail for lack of ambition. They stall because nobody sat down with them and walked through the steps: which deadline comes first, what the FAFSA actually asks, how to talk about yourself in an essay without sounding like someone else.
Foreword Forum exists to do that walking-through.
Who runs it
Jessica D. Maine-Jackson founded Foreword Forum in Dallas. Students join in person in Dallas or live online from anywhere in the country.
She began in corporate leadership, then moved into the classroom as a teacher. She is a certified educator with a B.A. in Communication Studies from Sam Houston State University. Over 14 years in and supporting public education she moved into leadership at the campus level, then the district level, and served as an educational consultant to Dallas ISD, one of the largest school districts in the state.
She is certified in speech and special education and served as an AVID educator and coordinator. That training shapes how she teaches: she plans for different learning styles, paces, and needs, and adjusts instruction so every student and adult can take part fully. She is also a certified business coach, a certified life coach, and a mentor, which is the foundation of Foreword Forum's empowerment track for teens, young adults, and adult men and women.
The center of her work in public education was a college and career readiness program she led, in a district ranked among the top 1% in the nation for readiness programming. She also led multiple campuses to accreditation for excellence. Across her years leading the program, the numbers held: 100% of participating students graduated and were accepted to college, 81% were awarded scholarships, and those awards totaled more than one million dollars.
- 100%
- of participating students graduated and were accepted to college
- 81%
- were awarded scholarships
- $1M+
- in scholarship awards
That is the record behind Foreword Forum. It is not a theory about what helps students. It is a method she has already run, at scale, with results that were measured.
From there she turned to entrepreneurship, for the chance to make a more significant impact. Across fifteen-plus years in strategy and operations, she has run her own successful consulting firm serving founders, nonprofits, school districts, and coworking spaces across Dallas-Fort Worth. The short version: she builds the systems that make things actually happen, on schedule, with the people involved treated well.
She is a community advocate for all kids. She serves as First Vice President of Top Ladies of Distinction, Inc., Dallas Chapter, mentors through iCouldBe, and is a founding member of HER Texas. She is also a member of the Franchell Boswell Educational Foundation, the Dallas Black Chamber of Commerce, and the NAACP. That work keeps her in regular conversation with young people about what they want and what is in the way. She has two kids in North Texas schools, so the deadlines and the late-night panic are not theoretical to her.
Why it is built this way
Jessica has taught students with real ability and no plan, and she has worked alongside adults whose advantage was mostly that someone once showed them the steps. Encouragement by itself runs out. A checklist by itself does not get used. Students need both, from someone who keeps showing up.
Foreword Forum runs on two arms, and both are the real program.
Paid workshops and cohort seats
Foreword Forum Prep
Foreword Forum Prep offers paid workshops and cohort seats for families who choose that route.
Scholarship seats
Foreword Forum Foundation
Foreword Forum Foundation, our nonprofit arm, raises funds to cover scholarship seats as funding allows, so cost is not the reason a student sits this out.
Same curriculum, same mentors, same standard of care. How a seat is funded is a back-office detail, not a tier.
What the work looks like
Our first cohort, Volume I, begins October 15, 2026.
Students work through First Draft, the college and career readiness track. It covers the college and job application process, essay writing and revision, financial aid and FAFSA, test preparation, and planning for what comes after graduation, whether that is a four-year school, a two-year school, a trade, or work.
Each student is paired with a Co-Author, a near-peer mentor who went through the same process recently enough to remember the details.
Speak Volumes, the empowerment track for teens, young adults, and adult men and women, follows the same seven chapters. The focus is coaching and mentoring for confidence, communication, and personal and professional goals. Co-Authors mentor on both tracks.
The name comes from the foreword of a book: the short opening that explains why the story matters before the story starts. That is the stage these students are in. The opening pages, not the whole book.
Your story starts here
Bring your questions and your half-finished plans. We will work out the rest together.