“Alright, we’re going for 10,000 meters in the next 4 minutes! Give it everything you’ve got!” 

As if competing (or Vikings), everyone in the room pushed harder, fans were whirling, and slowly but surely, the number on the screen began to climb. Nobody was getting spotlit for doing more than their fair share, and no one was getting critiqued for doing less, but we all saw the goal and knew that we were playing a part. 

This is a small example but a potent one. 

Think about how different this is from standard assessments and demonstrations of learning in school. There are some places (music, theatre, team sports) where the experience embraces a more collective demonstration of skills, but this ethos rarely makes its way into classrooms or even into the fabric of what we tell young people to know and do. 

We are at a global moment where challenges can rarely be solved alone. Each of us has a moral reckoning with ourselves, our local and global communities, and the environment. This will not happen by accident, it must be intentional. In the words of Tom Vander Ark, “The future is diverse teams working with smart tools and complex problems. ”To do that, we must radically rethink our relationship with the individual and the collective. 

In our conversations over the years, we’ve framed this as “contribution” and “difference making,” learning approaches that require learners to think about their real-world impact on their community. Fundamentally, this is purpose-driven work. 

Personalized Portraits within a Community 

Our recent publication, The Portrait Model, serves as a valuable resource for educators and edleaders to take a critical look at themselves, their schools, and their community and ensure that the visions are aligned such that they reinforce and sustain each other. We advocate for the following process:

“To facilitate and empower leaders in this transformative journey, we start with a comprehensive visioning and strategic process that revolves around five interconnected and dynamic portraits: the Portrait of a Learner, the Portrait of a System, the Portrait of a Leader, the Portrait of an Educator and a Self-Portrait. The framework’s interrelated and adaptable elements have interconnected and discrete competencies. Done in an intentional order of Learner, System, Educator, Leader, then Self, the resulting framework provides clear guidance and transparency to the redesign process.”

Across the nation, we witness the creation of Portraits of a Graduate created by states, districts, networks, and individual schools, often stacked on top of each other (i.e. a state has a portrait, a district has a portrait that iterates on it, etc.). This model of personalization allows leaders to better cater to their community while aligning with the broader goals and initiatives of the state, decreasing friction and increasing access to opportunity. 

Collective Assessment

Moving beyond the school level, every learner and leader must investigate their own portrait, identifying how they plan to contribute.

“Centering the entire system is understanding self. The “Self-Portrait” process provides opportunities for learners to articulate goal-setting, strength evaluations, description of learning preferences, well-being, hope, social network, etc. While technology solutions like Thrively, Unrulr, and AYO allow learners to capture their portraits, simple systems can be created to capture the Self-Portrait portfolio over time using journaling, documents, or websites.”

As we explore collective assessment and personalized graduate portraits, we are starting on a path that goes beyond the conventional norms of education. The rowing class example serves as a metaphorical paddle of a future where collaborative efforts, communal goals, and shared accomplishments become the norm. However, as each rower contributes to the overall distance covered, learners and leaders must navigate their unique roles within the broader community. The Portrait process becomes a compass, guiding us to articulate our aspirations, strengths, and contributions while fitting into the collective narrative.

• Learning as a Collective
• Community is Learning
• Assessment as Revelation, Not Destination
• Building a Capstone Program

The post The Productive Tension of the Me and the We appeared first on Getting Smart.

Join me in a thought experiment where we envision creating a school focused on cultivating dependent students. Yes, you read that correctly—dependent learners who rely heavily on others for guidance and decision-making. While this concept might initially strike us as unsettling, let’s temporarily set aside our judgments and explore how such a school could be developed. 

First, our hypothetical institution would prioritize structured learning environments. Students would navigate carefully orchestrated steps, minimizing the need for independent problem-solving. We’d enforce limited autonomy, furnishing students with explicit rules and guidelines for every facet of their educational journey. To further restrict freedom, we’d implement rigorous daily routines, rigidly dictating students’ schedules. 

When it comes to the curriculum, we’d decree the subjects they study, leaving little room for choice. To bolster their dependence, we’d offer abundant academic and emotional support resources, ensuring they could lean on assistance whenever needed. Information sharing would be closely guarded, concealing planning processes, policy decisions, and disciplinary verdicts to keep students in the dark and reliant on authority figures. 

Continuous supervision would be paramount, minimizing opportunities for independent problem-solving. Classrooms would exude conformity, celebrating uniformity with well-defined learning objectives, discouraging individuality and independent thinking. Direct instruction would dominate, emphasizing teacher-centered learning to restrict independent exploration. Assessments would focus on finding singular correct answers, discouraging diverse perspectives and creative solutions. Risk-taking and experimentation would be discouraged, sheltering students from the consequences of their choices. Predefined pathways would limit exposure to options, discouraging vocational exploration. 

Ultimately, this approach would solidify students’ dependence on authority figures, reinforcing the notion that authority possesses the right answers. Critical thinking and independent inquiry would be discouraged in favor of conformity and reliance on external guidance. 

Ok, whew, the thought experiment is over. 

Of course that was just an exercise, but the trouble is this—an imaginary educational design that would cultivate dependency in its graduates dangerously resembles the current design of most K12 schools across our country. Rigid schedules, adult-made rules, mandated curriculum, and single-answer tests are the norm. Students—and many teachers, for that matter—have limited choice and autonomy. 

Today’s K12 students are spending the vast majority of their time in classrooms listening to answers to questions they did not ask and following rules they did not have a hand in making. Given that this dynamic goes on for years, what is it doing to students’ minds and spirits? To their agency and empowerment? Are we unintentionally graduating dependent young adults? 

The Achievement Era in Hindsight

We haven’t arrived at our current state haphazardly. In her book Schooling America, former Harvard Graduate School of Education dean Patricia Graham divides a century’s worth of educational history into four distinct eras, which she labels as the four A’s: Assimilation, Adjustment, Access, and Achievement. We’ve been in the latter focus of Achievement, she contends, since the 1980s and the publication of A Nation At Risk. The focus in this phase has been on shepherding students toward academic achievement and gainful employment. We’ve stiffened school structures to hit this bullseye. 

Five-ish decades in, the Achievement era has been a mixed bag. Some upsides of an achievement focus are increased accountability, measurable progress, and student preparation for success (in some arenas). But there are plenty of downsides, including an overemphasis on grades, fear of failure, a sense of competition over collaboration, and an overreliance on adults for both instruction and validation. With an achievement focus, students are incentivized to seek satisfaction and assess their self-worth through accomplishment and others’ opinions. 

The most insidious downside of the Achievement epoch is that all students are guided to learn the same or similar skills, knowledge, and mindsets (i.e., one size fits all) instead of being guided toward their own personal growth. When children are pushed to achieve goals that are set by others, they lack self-direction. That is a tragedy. Like adults, every young person has thoughts, feelings, and plans. Unfortunately, the design of the industrial-age school model—a batch processing approach—usually shuts them down in children. People become dependent when they lack awareness of their thoughts, feelings, and plans (Goldman, 1995). 

But what if the opposite were true? What if schools empowered children to flourish? What if schools were the places where they could explore, identify, express, and develop their thoughts, feelings, and goals? There’s power in the uniqueness of every child. It’s time that school designs honor students’ unique calling, preferences, and goals, and encourage them to pursue those. It’s time to move fully into a new era for learning where learners can develop greater self-leadership than ever before. 

Building a Future-Ready System

Thankfully, the work of building a future-ready system full of excellent schools is already underway. Many leaders in the public and private school sectors are redesigning learning models to help children learn what they need in order to live the lives they want. Though their styles vary, these leaders are generally making five key moves when leading school transformation.

Articulate a bold new vision. School leaders work directly with their communities to unearth parents’ and caregivers’ hopes and dreams for their kids. They also ask students about their goals and treat those goals as precious and foundational. Then they co-create and champion a compelling vision for excellence in education. This vision serves as a guiding light, aligning the efforts of everyone involved. Leaders identify innovative teaching methods that foster deep disciplinary learning, student collaboration, and authentic assignments. They build new signature learning experiences that give students choice and voice. The ninja move that most leaders make at this stage is creating a vision that works within the constraints of their system. Select leaders manage to upend and reshape the landscape to improve conditions more quickly. Either way, the new vision, methods, and experiences set the stage for transformative change. 

Clarify the knowledge, skills, and craft that teachers need to bring the new vision to life. With new methods, often the educator competencies required are new, too. In their preparation or prior experience, teachers may not have encountered the abilities or mindsets needed to activate new methods. Some leaders use the title “Portrait of a Teacher” to describe needed competencies. Each portrait can be tailored to the school’s unique approach and serve as a framework, guiding teacher development, recruitment, and support. 

Leaders design signature learning experiences for educators. Seeing themselves as learning designers, leaders create experiences that align with their vision and Portrait of a Teacher. These experiences become invaluable tools for professional development. They help ensure that what happens in classrooms matches the school’s bigger vision to maximize opportunities for children. Some of this work is threading through to our nation’s graduate schools of education, albeit slowly. Forward-thinking leaders start their own teacher training programs. 

Leaders work tirelessly to gain buy-in for the new vision. Though the work of getting legitimacy and support starts at the first stage of co-creating a new shared vision, it is work that never ends. Change always faces resistance. So leaders must perpetually cultivate buy-in from teachers, parents, students, and school partners. Leaders find strategies to foster a deep belief in the importance of transformation. Leaders learn both public-facing and also behind-the-scenes tactics to garner support. It’s incredibly hard work. It’s like tilling rocky soil for a seed to take root and grow. 

Leaders establish systems for continuous improvement. Amy Edmonson (2008) calls this “organizing to execute” and “organizing to learn.” Transformative work is messy. No one gets it right the first time. Leaders in ‘advanced player mode’ figure out how to deliver quality experiences, learn quickly from imperfections, and keep the entire community informed and talking. Sustained progress amidst organizational change requires effective systems and structures. So, these leaders develop community practices, communication strategies, and continuous learning mechanisms to know what to keep doing, what to stop doing, and what to change.

Preparation is key. Leaders looking to take their schools on a transformation journey are well served by building their own leadership skills in certain areas. In particular, Elizabeth Chu (2023) of Columbia University’s Center for Public Research and Leadership contends, racial and cultural fluency, creative problem-solving, communication, teamwork, team building, and project management are key skills that empower them to be top-notch guides shepherding the process. 

Despite the arduous transformation journey, skilled leaders can guide communities to a promising frontier. Recalling Graham’s four eras—Assimilation, Adjustment, Access, and Achievement—what if the next era in education was Abounding, where all students flourish? Where they can experience personal growth and opportunity. Where ultimately they’re self-directed, interdependent learners instead of dependent ones. Where they can explore, express, and develop their own thoughts, feelings, and plans in service of finding a calling that will change the world. It won’t be perfect, and there will be downsides. But it will be better suited for our times. 

Courageous school leadership can help make this vision a reality. Let’s applaud and support visionary educators helping shape our children’s future. In fact, the next time you see or meet one of them, give them a hug, high five, or an encouraging word because this work is far from easy. And it’s vital for the next generation.

Dr. Tyler Thigpen is Academic Director of the Leading School Transformation program at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education, and head of The Forest School: An Acton Academy and Institute for Self Directed Learning in Trilith south of Atlanta.

The post Building Better Schools: The art of leading change in education appeared first on Getting Smart.

Recognizing the urgent need to address the shortage of educators, various stakeholders at the federal, state, and local levels, along with intermediaries, are implementing innovative solutions. “Grow your own” programs and teacher apprenticeships are emerging as key strategies to cultivate a sustainable pool of educators. New school models are popping up across the country, providing alternative structures and fresh opportunities. These initiatives acknowledge the essential investment required to retain education leaders in the field for the long term.

We must create systems and spaces that allow for dynamic and diverse workplaces, leveraging collective expertise, to ensure future and current education leaders find purpose and joy in what they do and have the knowledge and tools to prepare students for the complexities of our world. We need to continue to reimagine the way we staff schools, implement new school models, provide supportive and varied opportunities for growth and prepare our future educators.

Redesigning Staffing Models

Last year, we highlighted the Next Education Workforce model and the role of teachers shifting away from the one-teacher one-classroom model. Playing to the strengths of each individual educator and placing collaboration at its core, ASU’s Next Education Workforce model is less about management and is more about collaboration. Across a school, certified teachers, paraprofessionals, interventionists, special educators, community volunteers and leaders in teacher prep programs may all have a hand in facilitating the learning of a large shared cohort of students.

Placing emphasis on specialized expertise within teacher teams, each member contributes their unique skills and knowledge, creating a diversified and well-rounded unit capable of addressing various learning styles and needs. Instead of working in silos, educators collaborate and leverage their individual and collective strengths to create a more comprehensive and engaging learning experience for students that not only enhances the quality of education but also prepares students for a world where teamwork and collaboration are essential skills.

New School Models

As we continue to reimagine the way we staff schools, it is imperative to explore and implement new school models. These models should be designed not only to meet the evolving needs of students but support a variety of opportunities for professional growth among educators.

The STEAD School in Commerce City, CO, which stands for Science Technology Environment Agriculture and Design, is a new public charter high school that opened in the Fall of 2021. I had the pleasure of visiting recently and learning more about their model and community. The school leadership spoke about ensuring that “heads, hearts, and hands” were engaged in learning. They refer to their teachers as ‘guides’ who get to “co-create and co-vision” with their fellow education leaders and students.

Another Colorado example is La Luz, a competency-based lab school in Denver with the mission to reinvent middle school. They acknowledge that learning happens everywhere and each day students head off campus to connect with community partners. They also refer to teachers as guides and seek out educators who are strong relationship-builders, skilled at unscripted lesson-planning and want to have fun in their profession.

Supportive Professional Development

We cannot expect to fill teachers up with a few sit-and-get PD days each year; we need to consistently support edleaders with opportunities to learn and share frequently and in a variety of ways. Teacher-centered mentorship models can provide ongoing support and serve different learning styles. CommunityShare offers professional development in the form of a national educator fellowship that supports educators in learning how to co-design community-engaged learning experiences. Teachers want real-world learning too.

Leadership programs, like the one recently implemented by Long Beach Unified School District, equip educators who aspire to lead schools and districts in their own communities. Let’s not stop at students and teachers; transformation is a metamorphosis of entire structures and mindsets.

Preparing Future Educators

When Brent Maddin, Executive Director at Next Education Workforce, was on a podcast with Getting Smart a few years ago, he stated, “[educators] have to have agency, voice and the ability to personalize their path. Next Education Workforce offers Educator Pathways in the areas of Professional, Community and Leadership, presenting more ways to become educators and a wider array of opportunities to gain certifications and specializations.

Grow Your Own programs continue to sprout up, like St. Vrain Valley School District’s P-TEACH program and Seed Teachers, a program of Degrees of Change in Tacoma. The need for high-quality and affordable pathways, like apprenticeships, is greater than ever and many school districts are implementing this model of earn while you learn. We touched on this during a town hall at the end of last year on Apprenticeships for Tech and Teaching.

Two years ago, we published Katie Kimbrell’s blog, It’s (Past) Time to Redesign the Teaching Profession, in which Katie, Director of Startland Education, poses the question, “What would it take to design a profession so appealing that it attracts our best, brightest, and most inspiring humans?” In preparing our future educators, we need to see beyond how we have traditionally trained with teaching methodologies to really meet the “heads, hearts and hands” of leaders with a purpose-driven pedagogy. The ongoing transformation in education demands a collective commitment to reimagining structures, embracing innovation and prioritizing the well-being and professional development of educators. By doing so, we can create an educational landscape that not only addresses current challenges but also paves the way for a future forward system that prepares students to navigate life.

This all reminds me of a poem I saw painted on a wall when I was on a site visit recently at Watershed School:

The post The Changing Role of Today’s EdLeader appeared first on Getting Smart.

At the time, Jeanes Teachers were funded through the Negro Rural School Fund, established by the Anna T. Jeanes Foundation in 1907 with an endowment of $1 million and recruiting Booker T. Washington to be the chairman of the Trustees. By 1909 -1910, there were 129 Jeanes Teachers operating in thirteen southern states. Soon, North Carolina took the lead with 36 Jeanes teachers by 1915.

To build on this legacy, in 2022 North Carolina created the Jeanes Fellowship. The Jeanes Fellows Program is a partnership between The Innovation Project (TIP) and the Dudley Flood Center designed to provide consistent and intentional infrastructure to support community-school relationships using an equity lens. 

The revitalized program builds upon and operationalizes needed action from 3 foundational documents: 

• The Leandro Action Plan: Sound Basic Education for All: An Action Plan for North Carolina can be found here. A few key recommendations called for a qualified and well-prepared teacher in every classroom and finance and resource allocation. 
• DRIVE Task Force Final Report and Recommendations: a report with 10 key recommendations to increase teacher diversity. Recommendations include affordable postsecondary access, diversity goals for schools and districts, and support networks for educators of color.
• NC State Board of Education Statewide Strategic Plan: a plan grounded in the guiding principles of equity and the whole child with goals to eliminate opportunity gaps, improve school and district performance, and increase educator preparedness to meet the needs of every student, all to be fulfilled by 2025.

This first cohort of fellows is working hard to advance equity, diversity and cultural responsiveness in districts across North Carolina. From EdPrep partnerships with community colleges to micro-credentials through the diversity office, these educators and district-level leaders are making a huge difference in North Carolina. 

A New Approach to Advocacy Curriculum

One Jeanes Fellow, Saletta Ureña, is laser-focused on advancing racial and culturally responsive curriculum across Guilford County Schools in a new district role focused on supports and leaning into her fellowship position. As a veteran classroom teacher (Spanish and Language Arts), it is important to her not to get too far removed from “what kids are doing in the classroom.” 

Her new district-level position allows her to find a unique space within schools and systems change. “Some people told me to try for principal, but I’ve never wanted that role,” said Saletta. In her current role, she reports directly to the Chief of Staff and is grateful for the ways that the district has supported her growth and recent training in access mapping and liberatory design. “[Guillford has] all the bells and whistles,” she says.

In her classroom days, Saletta began to recognize that she heavily focused on building a decolonized curriculum. This became the unifying thread that tied each of her roles together. She began to notice that students were not participating in spaces that encouraged good civic behavior: discourse, tolerance and advocacy. “Student councils are a great practice ground for some of the core mechanisms of civics, but they’re not diverse, and their goals aren’t diverse.” With the Jeanes Fellowship, Saletta was able to start changing that narrative. 

Using her curriculum background, Saletta focused on creating a no-prep lesson for social studies teachers with a focus on advocacy. Much of this curriculum hinged on a children’s book that was perfect for second graders. Unfortunately, that book was flagged by some recent legal challenges, and Saletta had to do a quick pivot. At a time in which the political landscape is uniquely fraught, particularly around what’s being taught, Saletta adds, “This work is not about indoctrination, it’s about systems recognition.”

Saletta was able to use the unveiling of a recent newcomer school named after the de-segregationist Sylvia Mendez to build and announce a curriculum around her book Separate is Never Equal. Currently, the curriculum is best suited for 5th-8th graders. She already has one school on board and ample funding for many more students to participate, so she begins the courting process to make the lesson a whole grade requirement or, perhaps even, a whole course. 

“North Carolina is one of the states that is constitutionally bound to provide an ‘adequate education’ to all learners,” said Saletta. “If we’re not graduating children with core literacies, character and understanding of the systems they are in and how to participate we are quite literally breaking the law.” 

An Iterative Journey

During the planning phase of the project, the Jeanes Fellows began working with Open Way Learning (OWL) to hone their liberatory design skills. In one half-day design sprint, Fellows analyzed historical Jeanes supervisors’ case studies along with current data from their home districts. This analysis helped to ground their projects in empathy data of their place and people, including the district’s learners, their families, communities, and educators. With this foundation, they then built empathy maps around each stakeholder’s point of view, uncovering common problems hindering their learning, health, and opportunities in school, home, and the community.  

This session engaged Saletta and gave her the materials she needed to communicate an emerging project idea to her leadership teams. She later explained, “Liberatory Design is EYE OPENING. My immediate takeaway from the initial session was that this was a more in-depth way of looking at and including stakeholder groups.”

In another example, Jessica Parker in Edgecombe County Schools led community co-design sessions in order to build trust between communities and support this shifting population of learners (and their conflicted families). Her experience using design thinking in prior school team collaborations, also to great effect for her learners and educators, gave her a valuable foundation for picking up and shaping liberatory design tools to engage and connect the goals of her district leadership, affected communities, and their learners and families.

In a second half-day sprint as the school year started their projects, Fellows reconvened to iterate on their original ideas with agile prototyping tools, starting with a revised problem definition based on the power of story and NOISE strategic planning. In this meeting, they were encouraged to see their role as developing and engaging with their district’s equity “coalition of the willing” by identifying the innovators and early adopters they could build relationships and partnerships with as they piloted their Fellowship efforts.

Saletta believes that this experience has given her a name for something that she has always had, a “Jeanes Fellowship Mindset,” and she hopes to spread that message at educator gatherings in the years to come. This mindset can help her and other Fellows ensure that their projects’ outcomes translate into equitable change in their districts based on a foundation of trust, collaboration, and innovation.

“You can make changes from wherever you are.”

The post Honoring A Legacy of Leaders: The Jeanes Fellowship appeared first on Getting Smart.

During these early years, we received training and support as we transformed schools and districts. I decided to reverse-engineer one of the tools from this training, creating a process that has been indispensable in my leadership journey. Although I made some tweaks, I often refer to it as the Interrelationship Diagram, its original name, because it is about causal relationships. The original intent was to provide a visual way to unravel complex problems by illustrating connections between factors. I still use this as a valuable way to dig into challenges related to adult collegiality and cultivating a learning culture. For additional information on the Interrelationship Diagram, organizations like ASQ (American Society for Quality) and David Langford’s Tool Time, have offered comprehensive insights and step-by-step guides for decades. HTH Graduate School of Education and Mind Tools does as well.

In my work with school leaders, we often need to assess organizational strengths and starting points. A modified Interrelationship Diagram solved this challenge. This visual aid, now known as the Focused Impact Tool (FIT), has become instrumental in efficiently directing organizational energy. Used as a collaborative process, it has proven to be an effective way to direct action in redesigning learning models, improving school cultures, and addressing learning transformation with school leaders.

The Focused Impact Tool is not just a diagram but a structured approach to unraveling the intricate web of relationships within educational systems. The process facilitates prioritizing issues, analyzing causal connections and offers a pathway for informed decision-making. Combined with effective facilitation, this tool harnesses rich dialogue among staff members, creating a conducive environment for collaboration and reflection.

Discussions within this context are crucial and necessitate sufficient time for collaboration. The duration, ranging from 15 to nearly 60 minutes, adapts to the tension around the topic and the team’s familiarity with the process. Acknowledging the challenges in managing these aspects, an external facilitator can prove beneficial. From my facilitation experience, instances where principals or district leaders actively participated reinforced the process for other staff. This approach also allowed them to distance themselves from topics of personal significance and engage as participants rather than leaders.

The ‘secret sauce’ of this process lies in valuable reflection and analysis through meaningful dialogue within a team. Effective and meaningful dialogue requires revisiting established group norms. For certain topics, specific protocols may be necessary to ensure all voices are heard and conflicts are navigated, especially if not explicitly addressed within the group norms.

The Focused Impact Tool Process

Step One: Identify Key Actions

Actions can be programs, protocols, or identified processes for an approach to help transform a learning organization.

Define the purpose. Some examples might be: 

• Align the Learning Model to the Graduate Profile
• Activate personalized learning in a K12 system

Group Norms are established for collaboration.

Generate a list of the key areas/actions to meet the identified outcome. This list can be a result of brainstorming and mapping tools, or it may be a current list of actions already in place. If this topic is relatively new to the group, you may wish to consider brainstorming techniques. A mapping tool, such as an affinity diagram is a great way to solicit responses.

An example list: 

Step Two: Select Areas of Focus

The following steps can happen in reverse order if the group is struggling to consolidate or to agree on consolidation. The voting can then be used to assist with consolidation. 

Consolidate similarities from the brainstormed list.

Prioritize. Select a power voting protocol. Options: Dot Voting, Nominal Group Technique (NGT), 

Example:

Step Three: Define Relational Impact

It is critical to revisit established group norms to ensure all voices are heard. 

Draw the Diagram. Create a circular diagram with each key area represented as a category. 

Determine the Impact of the Relationship. Use arrows to connect categories, visually representing the relationship between key areas to indicate directional impact. For each connected pair; determine which action, if performed first, would have the most significant impact on the other and then draw the arrow facing that direction. 

For example, consider the scenario of revising a learning model and altering assessment practices. Which one would exert a greater impact on the other? While it might appear that the learning model would directly influence assessment, the reality is that learning organizations exhibit diverse levels of readiness for change and have strengths in various areas.

Step Four: Define Relational Impact

Teams or individuals strongly associated with an action that may not initially have the highest impact will understand that initiating work in this first area will eventually influence their primary focus. Additionally, other action items will become the subsequent goal for concentrated efforts sequentially.

Quantify Relationships: Count the number of arrows going into and out of each key area. This quantification helps in identifying which areas have the most significant impact on others.

Identify and Prioritize the Action: Look for the category with the most arrows going out of it. This action has the most impact on the overall system. 

Quantifying causal connections and prioritizing actions based on outcomes are essential parts of strategic planning. The Focused Impact Tool process, outlined in these stages, navigates key actions, and selection processes, and defines relational impacts. Informed by the analysis and results obtained through the process, a learning organization can strategically prioritize actions to maximize impact. 

The post Transforming Learning, Deciding Where to Start: Practical Steps for Educational Leaders appeared first on Getting Smart.

As the summer neared, TPS Superintendent Dr. Josh Garcia addressed the City of Tacoma Joint Municipal Action Committee (JMAC), an assembly of officials from various governmental organizations, with a challenge to not let the tragedy of the last year go unnoticed. The community needed to act. 

The response to Dr. Garcia’s challenge was the establishment of the Summer Late Nights in Tacoma. This initiative was an incredible demonstration of what rapid and effective community collaboration can look like. Metro Parks Tacoma spearheaded marketing and grant writing, while nonprofits like the YMCA and Boys & Girls Clubs provided staffing and programming. Their combined efforts raised over $1.4 million from both public and private funders. The result was 12 safe spaces across the city, which, throughout the summer, hosted over 12,000 participants. There were no gun violence-related injuries or deaths among students that summer.

The Beginnings of JMAC

Understanding the roots of JMAC is crucial to appreciating this success. Initially formed in the 1970s to bring the Head Start program to Tacoma, JMAC evolved significantly over the years. The COVID-19 pandemic marked a turning point, transforming JMAC from a social meeting group into an action-oriented body. Under the leadership of Chair Elizabeth Bonbright and Vice Chair Kristina Walker, JMAC focused on Justice, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion (J.E.D.I), Health and Security, and Community Wealth Building. The redefined vision and commitment to action laid the groundwork for future collaborative successes like the Summer Late Nights program.

During this period of reinvigorating the action committee, the team hosted a summit of 60 and invited community partners (including business, non-profit, and faith leaders) to share JMAC’s new united direction and ask for ways to engage with them so that their collective work would be aligned. Even after the urgency of COVID had begun to wane, a group of 75-100 attendees—mostly comprised of interested staff from participating organizations and community partners—continued to move their collaborative work forward. 

In December 2022, they held another Summit and were proud of the significant impact they achieved by shifting away from agency-siloed thinking in favor of aligned policies and funding.  

Leveraging Relationships

TPS already had a collaboration framework in place, having worked with Metro Parks Tacoma and Greentrike on the Beyond the Bell and Club Beyond programs. These programs provided after-school care to meet the post-COVID child care void and were quickly adapted for the summer initiative. The district offers TPS families free or low-cost (pay as you can) extended learning opportunities after school between the hours of 3 – 6 p.m. every weekday during the school year. The community vendors provide a wide range of engaging activities including STEAM programs, tutoring, sports, art, music, theater, and leadership opportunities. Metro Parks coordinates and Greentrike manages the vendors by recruiting vendors, performing background checks and paying for their services. By leveraging the existing infrastructure and partnerships, the community was able to quickly deploy the Summer Late Nights program.

In late April/early May of 2023, Dr. Garcia challenged JMAC members to commit dollars to stand up a program for Middle School and High School students during the summer every weekday from 5 – 10 p.m. for the 10 weeks of summer.  “We adapted the Beyond the Bell/Club B model with similar staffing but a less structured environment. And we provided hot nutritious dinners to all participants at all 12 sites.”

Throughout the program, TPS maintained a strong leadership role. Dr. Garcia’s involvement was pivotal in rallying community support and ensuring the program’s alignment with the “Whole Child, Whole Educator” approach. Half of the 12 sites were housed at a TPS Middle School and the district provided janitorial services and other in-kind supports for our 6 sites.  In addition, TPS staff often dropped in on the 12 sites throughout the summer to speak with students and Late Night staff to learn more about the impact and any suggestions for improvement and canvassing to ensure the community knew about the great opportunity.

One of the key components of Beyond the Bell, Club B and Summer Late Nights is that all staff working with TPS Students are trained in and must use their “warm welcome” and  “zones of regulation”. 

“Warm welcomes” and “zones of regulation” are components of the Tacoma Public Schools Whole Child approach to education. A “warm welcome” involves greeting each student by name and asking each student about their “zones of regulation” (how they are feeling at that moment: GREEN = Good/Happy or YELLOW = anxious/nervous/worried or BLUE = sad/depressed or RED = angry/highly emotional). These basic self-disclosed bits of the real-time emotional status of each student provide TPS teachers and afterschool providers with critical information to help them best operate a successful environment for all the students in their classrooms/activity space.

The story of the Summer Late Nights program in Tacoma is a shining example of how community collaboration can address and mitigate pressing social issues. By pooling resources, expertise, and commitment, TPS and the Tacoma community created a safe, engaging summer environment for their youth. 

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These are hard times for educators. Students are striving to make gains after the biggest disruption to student learning in the history of American education. Students and adults have significant social-emotional needs, staffing shortages are real, and districts are confronting everything from budget shortfalls to political battles. From my own experience as principal of Burroughs Elementary, it is possible to make significant gains in student outcomes and create a joyful, sustaining school culture – by narrowing your focus.

Our school serves a wonderfully diverse community a stone’s throw from the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. When I first became principal, I had these grand ideas of eight or nine initiatives that we were going to focus on throughout the year. But what I noticed as the year went on was that we were not getting great at any one specific thing. It just felt like we were maintaining the status quo.

Around that time our school and area superintendent started working with a coach from Relay Graduate School of Education. She encouraged us to pick one or two areas of focus and stick with them for the year. And she gave us a tool to help with that: A leader’s Playbook, which is both a document and a process that helps school leaders identify their highest-leverage priorities and build their teachers’ skills in those areas. 

We started by looking more closely at student work and classroom practice to identify one or two areas of focus that were likely to make a meaningful difference in student learning. Then we spelled out exactly how we would use our time to build the team’s skills — whether through professional development sessions, weekly team meetings, student work analysis, coaching cycles, and more. Creating a Playbook kept me centered on my priorities and plans to address them – day by day, and week by week.

The first year we tried this we landed on the priority of strengthening small-group instruction in order to provide more targeted instruction. That year we saw meaningful improvements in student learning – something we hadn’t seen the year before. I saw that when you don’t focus on too many things, the team really takes ownership. When the instructional team coaches their peers on just one or two things at a time, both the coaches and the teachers get really good at it. We utilized coaching cycles and planning meetings with teachers that allowed them to grow and thrive. And we had a monthly focus on small-group instruction during staff meetings. And that builds confidence. 

Once teachers became experts in teaching in small groups we shifted focus to more personalized small group instruction. We set up groups based on need and flexibility, ensuring they were meeting students where they were, instead of having them remain in the same groups throughout the year. Later we shifted again to dig deep into student discourse, helping students learn to clearly articulate their ideas, listen to others, and test their thinking – in both ELA and math. Teacher feedback was also crucial here. We worked individually with educators who requested help in this area to provide personalized coaching, to build on top of other priority areas. Student discourse is now one of the cornerstones of our culture at Burroughs, as it not only deepens student understanding of the material but contributes to a collaborative, warm culture. With student discourse now established across grades, we’ve recently prioritized challenging but quick writing tasks, so teachers can monitor and respond to student work more frequently. 

Vicki Bullock, a K-5 Math Instructional Coach at Burroughs Elementary School has seen the value of having students articulate what they are doing, ask questions, and listen to each other – especially in the math classroom. She likes to remind her teachers, “If the students can’t talk about it, they can’t write about it.” Through professional development and feedback sessions, she coaches teachers to ask students,” What do you see? What do you notice?” before they simply dive into solving a problem. Students then learn not just to focus on their own ideas, but to listen to others, which helps expand their thinking and teaches real-world soft skills. 

In October 2023, the nonprofit EmpowerK12 named Burroughs Elementary School a “Bold Performance School.” This was the second year in a row we received the honor, which goes to schools that have made academic strides and serve predominantly “priority students — students designated as at-risk, students with disabilities, and students of color.” We’re really proud of our results – in 2022-23 our ELA proficiency grew by 11%, and math by 17%. 

While not perfect, things are feeling good at Burroughs Elementary. Teachers are in good spirits. The kids are in good spirits. Of course, there are a lot of factors that contribute to school success – from establishing a positive, safe, and structured school culture, to high-quality curriculum, to teacher content expertise, to working closely with our instructional superintendent, Tenia Pritchard, and our Cluster 3 peer schools (two others of which have also been named Bold Performance Schools). We know that prioritization and focus has created a sense of unity and purpose at our school. We give educators the time they need to internalize and refine key skills – a practice we also want to model for our students. We will keep narrowing our focus to the few things at each moment where we know we can improve. We’re in it for the long haul.

LeVar Jenkins is the principal of Burroughs Elementary School, District of Columbia Public Schools

The post Go Slow to Go Fast: Change Through Focus appeared first on Getting Smart.

Education has long been focused on achievement, something that’s tough to square with the loss of schooling due to COVID-19. Both this achievement gap and the accelerated mental health crisis can be combatted through the utility of data and analytical practices. Unfortunately, access to big data and deep analytical methodologies is often limited in the education sector. Creating educational organizations with baseline capabilities of leveraging and analyzing big data marks a shift from being “forward-focused” — where traditional mental models underpin analyses of achievement linear to standards — to “future-focused” — where multiple measures of ability, achievement, strength, cognitive development, and social-emotional wellness are core metrics of success. This holistic shift will facilitate divergent and personalized systems. When I served as Superintendent of Schools, I sought to make these shifts a reality and was confronted with the obstacle of standardized tests. using the Anchors of Innovation Science and Excellence Loop from the Disruptive Effect Model, I was able to design a model for literacy and social-emotional outcomes.

An Interdependent Model for Social, Emotional, and Academic Acceleration

During my tenure as a Superintendent of Schools — where innovation, excellence, and transforming norms reauthored the literacy framework of instruction — I interfaced with academic data and a strength-based rating scale (i.e., Devereux Student Strengths Assessment) to lament pedagogical differentiation in my learning organization. Working with my team, I was able to create and scale Models of the Multi-Tiered System of Support. 

Expectations Gap: At the core of the model, the learning organization must have a deep understanding of every student including knowing their interests and strengths. The expectation for all stakeholders is to provide relevancy through instructional practices that are differentiated for cognitive and social-emotional growth. High-stakes discussions rooted in data from the DESSA allowed for the strengthening of both the literacy model and social-emotional development. For example, one might take linear data sets of standards achievement and interface it with key social-emotional information. This would enable more differentiated and tailored pedagogy for each student. This approach led to academic and individual practices to ensure relevancy in every student’s literacy trajectory. 

Preparation Gap: Learning organizations must unwrap both academic and social-emotional data sets to align strategies for pedagogy to close the preparation gap. In my experience, leaders and teachers held collaborative discussions aimed at fostering positive relationships. In elementary, this looked like teams unpacking data and challenging existing practices to effectively build relationships using cycled formative benchmark metrics. Additionally, social engagement strategies were employed so students could access core content at grade-level expectations. Moreover, having analytics from the DESSA created a pathology where the instructional climate facilitated the opportunity for students to take calculated risks with content that had historically been arduous to access because of rigor demands. 

Performance Gap: A current contention in the standard literacy model is the linear delivery of pedagogical methods and strategies. To reach all learners, applying analytics focused on cognitive growth will challenge the education ecosystem to move beyond mastery of standards. Thus, improving the performance of all to examine data, students, and content with the whole child in mind. The DESSA assisted with unpacking the authentic needs of students specifically with closing performance gaps from COVID-19. Unpacking cognitive abilities through data analytics will germinate culturally relevant learning experiences in each tier of the integrated MTSS framework which will enhance the performance of leadership and classroom practitioners holistically.

Access Gap: As Superintendent of Schools, an educational priority was to create a learning organization where access and opportunity were equalized in all aspects of the instructional model. Creating an iterative literacy model that focused on academic ability and social-emotional success was a paradox for many stakeholders in the learning organization. Through data-informed discussions and culturally responsive pedagogy, the barriers of access were eliminated. Classroom practitioners would target grade-level text for a shared reading activity (i.e., tier I of the MTSS Framework) with content that focused on resilience and self-management skills. This hybrid connected two phenomena – text structure and social-emotional capabilities among students.

Bridging social-emotional and academic data together for analytical analysis will exponentially raise academic outcomes in a culturally responsive manner while contextually accelerating the process of closing the gap on the loss of schooling created by COVID-19.

The post Closing the Loop on Excellence appeared first on Getting Smart.

Here is the latest list of can’t-miss education conferences for your 2024 planning:

FETC

January 23-26, 2024; Orlando, Florida

FETC is the largest national independent EdTech conference discussing tech trends, strategies and best practices for student and school success. This annual event will focus on the Future of Education Technology and gathering a group of dynamic and creative education professionals from around the world for an intensive and highly collaborative event exploring new technologies, best practices and pressing issues.

BETT

January 24-26, 2024; London

With almost 30,000+ attendees from 123+ countries, representing 600+ leading companies and where 5,000+ people connect, BETT is the world’s largest EdTech conference. Taking place in London, BETT believes in creating a better future by transforming education. This conference is premium, inclusive and game-changing. At every level of education, the themes for BETT  are based on the real needs of the education community, from the tech-nervous newbie to the cool geeky early adopter. BETT themes at the heart of education.

TCEA

Feb 3 – Feb 7, 2024;  Austin, TX

Spanning five days with over 700 sessions and workshops, TCEA is the largest state convention and exposition in the US. TCEA’s Convention & Exposition is the place to meet industry peers, collaborate with other educators, and build a tight-knit, professional learning community. 

Digital Learning Annual Conference

February 26-28, 2024; Austin, TX

DLAC aims to bring together practitioners working on real change and is designed for a wide range of attendees, including educators, companies, non-profit organizations, researchers and state education agencies.

AASA National Conference on Education

February 15-17, 2024;  San Diego, CA

This year’s Conference highlights the crucial role that public school superintendents play in creating a supportive, inclusive, and empowering educational environment that meets the diverse needs of all students. By keeping the students at the center of everything we do, we can work together to create a better future for them and for society.

At this conference, researchers, educators and practitioners will experience personal growth, enjoy time for connections and find joy in discovering new research and strategies. 

Green Schools Conference

March 5-7, 2024; Santa Fe, NM

The Green Schools Conference (GSC) brings together everyone involved in creating and advocating for green schools, with a focus on those leading their schools and school systems toward whole-school sustainability. Attendees explore interdisciplinary content in general sessions and collaborate with peers to address specific challenges, exchange best practices, and enhance green school initiatives nationwide.

SXSW EDU

March 4-7, 2024; Austin, TX

The internationally recognized SXSW EDU will include four days of sessions, workshops, learning experiences, mentorship, film screenings, policy discussions and so much more all aimed at impacting the future of teaching and learning. The event will host hundreds of sessions and speakers and continues to stand out as a true thought leadership summit. Check out our live podcast from SXSW EDU 2022 and some of the conversations we recorded at SXSW EDU 2023

We are excited to be a media partner at this event, as well as the co-presenters on a number of sessions! 

CUE Conference

March 21-24, 2024; Palm Springs, CA

At the 2024 Spring CUE Conference in Palm Springs, educators will unite to ignite inspiration, foster connections, and explore cutting-edge teaching techniques and educational technology for their classrooms.

CUE is the largest and oldest EdTech conference in California and is targeted towards educators and EdLeaders looking to advance student achievement by using technology in the classroom. The conference has been a go-to event for educational innovation for almost 40 years and provides a best-value, three-day experience for thousands of educators.

Carnegie Foundation Summit on Improvement in Education

March 24-27, 2024; San Diego, CA

Since 2014, the Summit on Improvement in Education has developed a vibrant learning community by engaging diverse groups of educational professionals—such as school and district leaders, staff from charter management organizations, leaders in state departments of education and professional organizations, entrepreneurs, faculty from higher education organizations, students, parents, and community leaders—in service of addressing complex problems and issues of inequity in educational outcomes.

Deeper Learning Conference

March 26-28 2024; San Diego, CA

Deeper learners from around the world gathered for this beautiful reminder of why educators do this work, and of the limitless potential of schools to be places of hope, healing, and inspiration. DLC has been running incredible gatherings for over a decade! Here’s a recap from our time at the DL2018.

School Climate and Culture Forum

Multiple Dates; Multiple Locations

The Summit offers 4 or more topic-specific conferences so you can learn from experts and colleagues throughout North America. These multi-day events provide an opportunity for administrators, teachers, counselors and other educators to learn about new insights and strategies for reaching and teaching students.

NSBA (National School Boards Association)

April 6-8, 2024; New Orleans, LA

The NSBA Annual Conference and Exposition is the one national event that brings together education leaders to learn about best governance practices, gain insight into child development and learn about new programs and technology that can help enrich student learning. This event is one of the few—if not the only—places where school board members from around the country can receive the training necessary to address the instructional needs of students and how to improve the efficiency of district operations.

CoSN

April 8-10, 2024; Miami, FL

CoSN is the conference to attend if you’re a district tech director or leader to reimagine, redesign and renew. Attendees should be prepared to renew your commitment to advancing digital learning and let the Three “R’s” serve as a collective Call to Action. 

ASU+GSV Summit

April 14-17, 2024; San Diego, CA

This annual conference is the “only conference during the year where you’ll have access to the smartest and most influential Learning & Talent Tech minds from around the world.” The three-day event will host world class speakers in business, entrepreneurship, higher ed and education innovation. Here is our recap of the 2021 summit.

SMU +GSV Mission Summit

May 22-24, 2024; Dallas, TX

The SMU+GSV Mission Summit is an event to accelerate ideas that combine “purpose and profits”. Capitalism needs a refresh. It is our belief that the leading companies of tomorrow will have the ambition of a for-profit and the heart of a non-profit. Join global leaders from across investment, government, entrepreneurship, and philanthropy communities to shape the future of business.

ISTE

June 23-26, 2024; Denver, CO

As the “epicenter of edtech,” ISTE Is where educators and school leaders go to learn about new tools and strategies. This event boasts endless learning opportunities perfect for industry reps, teachers, tech coordinators/directors, administrators, library media specialists and policymakers.

PBL World

June 24-27, 2024; Napa Valley, CA

PBL World is a multi-day Project Based Learning conference presented by PBLWorks. This event brings together educators – K-12 teachers, instructional coaches, school and district leaders – who want to begin and advance their Project Based Learning practice, and connect with a community of their peers. 

ASCA Annual Conference 

July 13-16, 2024; Kansas City, Missouri

Join thousands of school counseling professionals in Kansas City, Mo., for the premier school counseling professional development. Learn, network and re-energize yourself.

Uncharted Learning National Summit 2024

July 16-17, 2024; Chicago, IL

Uncharted Learning’s member schools and guests gather in Chicago’s tech and food hub, the Fulton Market Neighborhood, for two full days of entrepreneurship-focused, master-class-style workshops and events. The festivities conclude with the 2024 INCubatoredu National Student Pitch and Student Showcase on July 17.

JFF Horizons

July 22-23, 2024; Washington, DC

Expect to envision new ideas and capture insights through our workshops, panels, and interactive discussions at this event where more than 1,000 leaders, funders, innovators, workers, learners, and more will share their expertise. Leading thinkers and innovators transforming the education and workforce systems will join forces at this annual summit.

Big Picture Learning Big Bang

July 22-25, 2024; Memphis, TN

Big Bang is Big Picture Learning’s annual conference on student-centered learning, an intergenerational collaboration where students, educators, leaders and partners come together as equals to learn from one another and from our host community. In a nutshell, it’s a celebration. Check out our podcast about our recent Big Bang attendance. 

PLTW Summit

October 3-5, 2024; San Diego, CA

PLTW Summit will continue to be offered every two years in the fall. Mark your calendars for time to connect with STEM educators from across the country where you’ll be a part of transformative professional development approaches and connect with Master Teachers, PLTW partners, classroom vendors, and peers.

Aurora Symposium

November 3-5 2024; New Orleans, LA

Aurora Institute’s annual conference is the leading event for K-12 competency-based, blended and online learning. With hundreds of sessions, it brings together experts, EdLeaders and educators to explore next-gen learning for K-12 students. Here are 10 reasons to attend.

National Rural Education Association Conference

October 31-November 1, 2024; Savannah Georgia

The Rural Schools Conference has been designed to create an environment for collaboration and innovation with a diverse community that includes, national experts, K–12 and higher education practitioners, leading researchers, policymakers, and philanthropic leaders. The goal is to help communities innovate and leverage local assets to create meaningful learning experiences for rural students.

Big Picture Learning: Front Range Leadership

December 2024; Colorado

The annual Big Picture Learning Leadership Conference aims to empower leaders to build strong connections with individuals, communities, and networks to enhance, sustain, and elevate their work. Leaders engage with peers through school tours and advisory sessions to discover valuable tools, innovative ideas, and resources for effective implementation. The ultimate objective is for leaders to rejuvenate and strengthen themselves, enabling them to lead with love, care and vulnerability. 

National Alliance of Black School Educators

Date coming soon…..

The National Alliance of Black School Educators (NABSE) is the nation’s premier non-profit organization devoted to furthering the academic success for the nation’s children – particularly children of African descent and host an annual event with over 50 years of leadership and learning. 

HipHopEd Conference

Dates and Location TBD

The annual HipHopEd Conference is a unique event that brings together educators, school leaders, students, and community members to explore the intersection between hip-hop and education. This conference is the premier event in the field of hip-hop and education, and it is dedicated to advancing innovation, scholarship, and practice.

At the HipHopEd Conference, participants engage in workshops and keynote sessions that showcase the latest research, practices, and trends in hip-hop education. The conference is designed to create a space and community where hip-hop educators can gather, connect, and collaborate to reimagine education. Practitioners and scholars present workshop presentations and peer-reviewed papers that exemplify the conference theme. The HipHopEd Conference is not your traditional education conference; it includes student performers and highlights the creative elements of hip-hop culture. 

Education Leaders of Color National Convening 

TBD

At the EdLoC conference, bright spots where change-makers, entrepreneurs, and cross-sector collaborations are dismantling systemic barriers and transforming life trajectories in our communities are on the stage. Presenters and attendees will have space to demonstrate, discover, and discuss how their organizations, programs, advocacy, and/or models are supporting young people and communities of color in earning more, building wealth, and thriving.

Did we miss one of your favorites? Let us know in the comments!

The post Can’t Miss Education Conferences in 2024 appeared first on Getting Smart.

In 2020, however, the pandemic enabled families to see (and often engage in) their children’s school experience. This window into school made transparent the quality, types of learning and community that made up the lived experience of their children. For some, low satisfaction fueled renewed interest in microschooling led by parents, political support and philanthropic dollars.

The last two years of microschool growth (estimated enrollment by the National Microschooling Center at 1-2 million current students), heavily subsidized by the philanthropic sector, demonstrated that the demand exists. Alongside this resurgence, key questions arise: Are microschools sustainable? What outcomes should they measure (if any)? Are they compatible within the public sector? Can they scale? 

Below, we briefly hit upon the first three questions and then dive into the question of scaling.

Sustainability

Most microschools operate in the private sector, sustained by public funds (via Education Savings Account structures) or private tuition. Both of these funding sources supply individual students with far less than can be found in the public sector, making the business models and staffing (1-2 educators and a handful of students without the support of larger operations systems) challenging over time. Organizations like Microschool Revolution (investment model) and Prenda (service and support model) have emerged to address this issue.

Outcomes

In the public sector, there is a heavy focus on narrow slices of accountability which challenges  many families. Although microschools have far fewer accountability expectations outside of the public sector, they do have a responsibility to ensure that every child finds success. As a sector, we remain in the early stages of alternative, efficient, adaptive and flexible forms of measurement addressing both academic and whole child development.

Public Sector

With increasingly diminished enrollment in many districts (3% post-pandemic), the public sector needs to imagine the power of microschools within their existing communities. More specialized approaches, autonomy for teachers and small communities that benefit from larger districts will better serve all students. High school academy models such as CAPS and NAF have scaled around professional pathways to provide more opportunities for high school students.

Scale

Roughly 1-2 million students are enrolled in some form of a microschool, just 2% of all students enrolled in K-12 schools (estimates are difficult as many microschools are not required to report enrollment numbers). If demand is high for microschools – and demonstrated success continues, then scaling support is needed. ASU Prep in Phoenix, Arizona built a Microschool Entrepreneur Fellowship Program program to help facilitate this scaling. Based on the success of their microschool options — powered by ASU Prep Digital and partnered with ASU Prep school or ASU higher education campus — ASU Prep wants to support others in this journey. 

The size of microschools may provide the sense that they are easy to start and run. Yet, anecdotes from the field indicate challenges with sustainability and operations. Partner organizations and programs, like ASU Prep’s Microschool in a Box fill a needed space in the ecosystem to help these programs thrive and scale.

The ASU Prep Microschool Entrepreneur Program provides training and support for microschools. The fellowship spans one year with coaching calls starting for those accepted as early as October. A 3-day in-person Fellowship gathering in February in Tempe, Arizona kicks off the formal programming which leads to an online community of practice designed to build community amongst fellows. They then round out the year with frequent resources and ongoing mentorship and support. The program will support the launch of several new microschools in the Fall of 2024 to serve diverse learners across the country leveraging the assets of ASU Prep. The fellowship covers a range of topics including:

1. Policy and funding. Policy, rules and regulations, and funding models are the lifeblood of the microschool. Adhering to local and state regulations and securing appropriate funding is a key priority that ASU Prep will support.
2. Operations. Hiring, space design, leadership training, and general operations (schedules, transportation, facilities, etc.) can be overwhelming for microschools with 1-2 teachers and no administrators. Using established templates and resources, ASU Prep guides the construction of the operations of the microschool.
3. Pedagogy. While most microschools founders have some ideas of the approach for a school, ASU Prep’s robust resource base from a variety of approaches allows for more rapid development in this area. ASU Prep’s experience with professional learning and growth supports microschool leaders as they maintain relevance in the education landscape.

Funding is often a barrier for entrepreneur support programs like this but the Stand Together Trust has funded this program enabling up to 20 full grants for fellows. Similar programs from the Learning Innovation Fund at Getting Smart Collective and Community Partner Grant Program have also funded microschool models.

Microschools are meeting strong market demand for more personalized, more contextualized and more relevant learning for every student. Programs like ASU Prep’s Microschool in a Box make it possible for more learners to become future-ready with access to affordable, relational microschool learning.

The post Microschool in a Box: Programs Enabling the Microschool Movement appeared first on Getting Smart.