While students don’t typically attend these meetings, this one was different: students were present and at the center of the conversation. Scholars spoke candidly about their experiences with the school’s evolving model for clubs and internships — what was working, what could be improved and what they hoped would come next. The students were reflecting on a program called “Worldview Wednesday,” which allows them to explore academic and career interests during the school day. The goal of the staff meeting was to identify implementation trends, including those raised by students, and improve structures for the following school year’s programming.  

What‘s remarkable about CHEC’s approach to staff meetings is not just the clarity of the students’ insights or their sincerity in wanting to help improve programming; it‘s the way the adults lean in, quite literally. Teachers nod, take notes and ask follow-up questions, resembling a co-design session more than a traditional staff meeting. 

That was the CHEC leadership team’s goal. During school year 2024-2025, Principal Maria Tukeva and her staff had set the ambitious target to engage 20% of their learners in traditional adult decision-making spaces. They exceeded that aim, with 30% of their scholars participating over the course of the school year. That also led to student sense of belonging increasing by 7%, according to a school climate survey. 

I see members of the CHEC team modeling a monumental shift in power as staff members center student voice and revamp school culture. Across the country, pockets of school innovation and improvement have historically gained traction in one classroom or school, but their impact is often isolated. Innovative teachers and school leaders are busy people. Districts rarely have the resources, capacity, and system-level enablers to codify and diffuse promising school-level practice widely.  

Codifying and scaling school-level practice can look like curating resource libraries, developing blueprints or playbooks, or even establishing demonstration sites and hosting visits from other school teams so they can see promising practices in action. Districts play a key role in this process, from monitoring and elevating bright spots to providing added capacity and resources to invest in codification. 

They can also create enabling conditions for school innovation through flexible policies and infrastructure that allow promising practices to take root and grow. The , in partnership with the , has implemented some of these strategies to overcome challenges that districts have faced nationwide. The district  is fortunate to have dedicated Design Lab staff members who work with schools to design and evaluate programs, facilitate cohort-based development initiatives, and shape infrastructure and policy through collaboration with other district leaders. 

At CHEC, the student-centered, decision-making model during the school’s meeting in their cafeteria has become an exemplar for youth voice across the district. It has shaped district guidance for key planning processes — such as how stakeholders are engaged in the development of annual comprehensive school plans. I have even heard high schoolers from across DCPS present their own solutions to address chronic absenteeism at our Student Design Days. Some of our schools adopted these student-led ideas, resulting in an increase in-seat attendance by as much as 20%.  

Not far from CHEC is Paul Laurence Dunbar High School — America’s first public high school for Black students — where every eligible senior participates in an off-campus internship with a local nonprofit, government agency or business. The school’s “City as Classroom” model has contributed to an 18% increase in students on track for promotion and graduation. Driven by Dunbar’s pioneering efforts, DCPS codified processes for off-campus learning — clarifying site approvals and attendance tracking — making it easier for other schools to replicate the model. 

Just down the road at Cardozo Education Campus — every ninth grader engages in structured career exploration before selecting a pathway during a celebratory “Declaration Day.” Since launching this model, Career and Technical Education pass rates for the first course in chosen pathways have climbed to 93%. Encouraged, DCPS is expanding support for exploratory CTE opportunities districtwide. 

If we want innovation to scale beyond isolated stories of success, districts can invest in the infrastructure to help support and amplify promising innovations. That can mean creating dedicated roles and teams to provide capacity for codifying and disseminating best practices or building systems to capture and share these practices across campuses.  

But first, it means fundamentally recognizing school-level innovators as leaders for the future of learning. Treating local brilliance as the starting point for system-wide change unlocks the full potential of our schools and the communities they serve. The future of learning is already unfolding in our schools, and I am proud of our young people and our staff for leading the way. 

Disclosure: is a financial supporter of The 74.

“I felt loved while I was on campus by my professors,” Johnson said. “I felt affirmed. I saw people who looked like me aspiring to complete higher education, and telling me, ‘I want to be a doctor, I want to be an educator or a lawyer.’ ”

Johnson is now looking to make that experience possible for a new generation of students of color, as the founding principal of the first early college high school in New York City inspired by historically Black colleges and universities. HBCU Early College Prep High School, which opened in Queens, New York, in fall 2025, is part of a broader effort to create innovative, community-driven and accelerated high schools designed in the style of HBCUs like Delaware State.

Students will graduate with not only a high school diploma, but also an associate’s degree and a guaranteed spot at Delaware State, founded in 1891 and ranked 10th overall among all HBCUs today. Just as important, they will experience a unique school culture modeled after Delaware State and other HBCUs. In fact, by their junior year students will be taught directly — but remotely — by Delaware State professors for certain courses.

Although New York City is home to more than 100 higher education institutions, it has no HBCUs. In fact, there are none in all of New York state.

“Young people of color just are not being exposed to HBCUs at all,” Johnson said. “We’re not even talking about HBCUs,” whose distinguished list of graduates include former Vice President Kamala Harris, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., former Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and actor and producer Samuel L. Jackson, to name a few. “And if we are, we’re either discrediting them, or we’re telling students that they can’t afford it, or they don’t give scholarships — none of which is true.” 

That concern is echoed in UNCF’s recent , which finds that many K–12 students — especially students of color — still lack meaningful exposure to HBCUs. The report underscores the urgent need for clearer, intentional pathways connecting young people to these historically Black institutions.

The new school, and the broader effort to develop HBCU-inspired high schools, is made possible with support from a partnership between UNCF (formerly the United Negro College Fund), the XQ Institute and Transcend, a national nonprofit that helps to design and support innovative schools. This coalition of organizations is also in the early stages of transforming an existing New Orleans public school into an HBCU-inspired, early college high school, with other communities also being explored for such efforts.

“This work only happens because of the strength of the partnership,” said Sarah Navarro, the chief of schools and systems for the XQ Institute. “UNCF brings deep expertise in what makes HBCUs so powerful for student success. Transcend supports and facilitates the design process with communities. XQ ensures the model is built to transform high school — not just launch a single school. 

“Together, we’re not just opening a new campus. We’re building a scalable model for how high schools across the country can connect students to college, culture and opportunity in a lasting way.”

Key hallmarks of HBCU Early College Prep include accelerated coursework, youth voice and choice, real-world learning and a deep connection to the local community.

Students are taking college courses beginning in ninth grade, with teachers receiving training by faculty at Delaware State, said Shawn Rux, a senior executive director in the Office of New School Development & Design at the NYC Department of Education, a key partner of the coalition. Eventually, those students will take virtual classes with Delaware State professors.

“The ‘intentionality around the school design” is key to this enterprise,” said Sekou Biddle, vice president for advocacy at UNCF. As part of the effort, the team asked, “What is it that we know about the HBCU experience that is so catalytic for students? And what if we were intentional about bringing those elements into high school?”

“It’s around [school] culture, it’s around instruction, but then it’s around bringing those principles to life,” Biddle said.

Channeling the ‘HBCU Magic’

To Rux and others, it’s not just the academic challenge; it’s the combination of that rigor with a strong, positive school culture that nurtures students and provides them a thoughtfully designed support system.

“I call it the HBCU magic,” said Rux, a Delaware State alumnus himself.

A valuable resource and reference point for the design of the new school came from a 2020 UNCF report, Biddle said.

“HBCUs are often overlooked as sources of effective methods for producing high-achieving Black students, although their existence is based on this very premise,” the Imparting Wisdom report notes. “HBCUs have been engines for ingenuity, academic excellence and social justice for decades, and the strategies and practices they implement can inform educational practices and systems.”

The report identifies a series of recommendations based on three “best practices” among HBCUs including: cultivating nurturing support systems with a high level of student and faculty interaction; leveraging African American culture and identity; and setting high academic expectations and an intentional college-going culture.

Competition to attend the new public high school was fierce, with some 1,000 applicants for about 100 seats. The school will grow each year, as it progresses from having ninth graders only to eventually a full slate of students in grades 9 through 12.

To apply, students are required to not only submit their academic credentials (including test scores), but also write a short essay about the Amanda Gorman poem, “The Hill We Climb,” and submit a video statement about themselves. While many students in the new class attended other New York City public schools previously, some came from private and parochial schools, according to Johnson.

“Our school is actually bringing students back into the public school system,” she said.

Designed for Belonging

Among those to earn a spot at the new Queens public school are ninth graders Mya Williams and Chance Thomas.

Mya, an aspiring veterinarian, was attracted to the school after hearing about it at a school assembly. Principal Johnson had been visiting middle schools to drum up interest.

“She talked about how we would get an associate’s degree at the end of our four years, and we would get college credits,” Mya said. “And that really caught my attention.”

Both students describe their new school as academically demanding, but also supportive.

According to Chance, the school is cultivating students’ work ethic and valuable skills like time management. “They definitely push us with the workload and the expectations, because a lot of our peers [at other schools] don’t have that,” she said. “Expectations are really high, but our professors [how teachers are referred to] are really supportive.” 

“I think it’s good that we’re challenged,” Mya said. “It’s preparing us for college.”

The two students also highlighted the “house” system, akin in some respects to sororities and fraternities, or to the student houses featured in the Harry Potter books and films, an analogy offered up by Principal Johnson. In fact, HBCU Early College Prep uses a point system like Hogwarts School, with rewards for those that amass the most. But in this case, the houses are named after well-known HBCUs like Spelman College and Howard University.

The experience “builds a sisterhood and brotherhood within those houses,” Chance said.

“Listen to how these students talk about their school. They’re describing rigor and community in the same breath,” said Aylon Samouha, co-founder and CEO of Transcend. “That’s not an accident. That’s the result of intentional design.”

“When students feel like they belong to something meaningful,” Samouha said, “when the adults around them have high expectations and real support structures, engagement stops being something you have to manufacture. It becomes the natural byproduct of a school that was designed with students’ full humanity in mind.”

Coming “home”

It didn’t take long for ninth graders at the new school to experience Delaware State firsthand. In November of last year, HBCU Early College Prep organized a field trip for students over homecoming weekend.

During the visit, the ninth graders toured campus and participated in a pinning ceremony with the college president. Over time, students will have the chance to attend career fairs and other activities at Delaware State, said Kareem McLemore, the university’s vice president for strategic enrollment management and international affairs. And, they will be earning college credits from the institution each year.

The high schoolers also had a chance to meet with upperclass students at an existing early college high school located on the Delaware State campus to better understand the accelerated model.

As part of the model, each student also is paired with a “success coach,” an upperclassman from Delaware State who can provide remote support, including tutoring and personalized academic advising.

As a brand new school with only ninth graders right now, HBCU Early College Prep is still early in its journey. But Principal Johnson, Rux from the city education department and their coalition partners are aiming high:

“We just want to make sure,” Rux said, “that when students walk out that door at the end of their four years, they’re fully prepared to really take on the world.”

Disclosure: is a financial supporter of The 74.

As if that weren’t enough to keep her busy, she worked with legislators to co-write three climate bills for the Indiana General Assembly, raised $87,000 to support student journalism programs as director of , and helped secure winning votes for Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett in a critical municipal race.

It’s the kind of résumé you’d expect from someone twice her age. Yet when you ask how Maiga got here, she doesn’t talk about awards or titles—she credits her high school.

Maiga is a graduate of Indiana-based , designed in partnership with , a nonprofit working to modernize the high school experience. In 2016, only 12 graduates from Indianapolis Public Schools enrolled at Purdue University, the state’s flagship postsecondary institution. Determined to change course, the community came together to create PPHS, a project-based, STEM-focused high school serving students citywide.

In its first graduating cohort, the school single-handedly tripled the number of Indianapolis public high school graduates entering the university. The network of now three schools has become a statewide model helping to shape policy across Indiana. 

It’s that flexible, out-of-the-classroom thinking that defined Maiga’s four years at PPHS’s Englewood campus. The school gave her the opportunity to discover her passions with interest-driven classes and meaningful internships, shaping her skills and, ultimately, helping her chart her future.

One of those opportunities was the , a pitch competition that gives local high school students a chance to develop their entrepreneurial skills while learning from business leaders and investors. Magia, who had honed her professional skills at PPHS, was well prepared. She and her Compleyes.ai co-founder walked away with first place—and a $25,000 check.

“High school was so important to me,” she said. “I feel like if you talk to a traditional high school student, they probably don’t feel heard enough in educational decisions—that’s pretty different when you talk to students at my school.”

Instead of taking four years of English classes, Maiga interned with a legal organization where she practiced the same reading and writing skills—perhaps with even more rigor—while gaining immersive, practical experience and class credit.

“People think internships are in addition to what you do in the classroom, like joining a sports team or an extracurricular, but they’re not,” she said. “In my internship, I did essentially the same things I did in a lot of my English classes, but it was more technical and advanced.”

Work-based learning let Maiga imagine a career on her own terms—and redefine what success meant along the way. Growing up, she’d always loved the humanities, but her family—who immigrated from West Africa when she was in fifth grade—valued more conventional, financially secure paths. “These roles didn’t fit the traditional idea my family had of a successful career.” 

That perspective began to shift during Maiga’s time at Purdue Polytechnic. Through hands-on learning and exposure to a variety of industries, she began to see that success had many definitions, opening her eyes to the range of possibilities after graduation. “It was really important because it showed me there are different career paths where you can have a lot of impact.”

The experience didn’t just change Maiga’s mindset — it also helped bridge a gap between her and her family. “That was the one thing standing between us,” she said. By seeing the kinds of professional paths Maiga could pursue, her parents began to understand that her interests in the humanities could lead to real, fulfilling work. “My experience at PPHS helped us get closer.”

Maiga’s story is a testament to what’s possible when schools give students room to explore, fail, and redefine success for themselves. For her, work-based learning wasn’t just an academic exercise—it was an invitation to connect her passions to real-world change. 

Today, Maiga continues to lead the charge at as the company evolves and grows while also supporting Mayor Hogsett as an intern. And, of course, she is beginning her next chapter at Cornell.

As she looks ahead at her future and future generations, Maiga hopes more students get the same chance to learn on their own terms. She believes that when young people are empowered to explore their passions, they not only transform their own lives but also shape the communities around them. For Maiga, the journey is only beginning—and she’s determined to make sure others can start theirs, too.

Disclosure: is a financial supporter of The 74.

Their public school, in Oakland, California, prioritizes project-based learning to equip its students with tangible skills and real-world experience that can help them succeed in college and beyond. Extended learning opportunities, ranging from site visits to internships, aren’t extracurriculars — they are a cornerstone of the curriculum.

Students, parents, and academic leaders place tremendous value on such opportunities. Nearly nationwide express interest in participation in work-based learning. In fact, a found that teens consider “skills for future employment” the most important priority in their education.

High-quality work-based learning opens doors for students to discover a wide variety of careers, gain meaningful, career-connected experience, and graduate not just with a diploma but with a clear sense of direction and the concrete skills to match. And yet offer formal work-based learning programs. 

Founded in 2019, Latitude is quickly proving what’s possible when students step outside the classroom and into real-world learning. It accelerates students’ paths to success, outperforming state and national trends. About 70% of Latitude’s seniors feel ready for life after graduation — nearly double the national share of students who remain unclear about their career expectations, a figure that has doubled in the past decade.

Jesus’ and Alexis’ journeys are a prime example of how work-based learning can shape a student’s future. During their first year at Latitude, a worksite visit sparked an unexpected passion for aviation in the two teens. “I really just fell in love as soon as I walked into the hangar,” Jesus recalls. When the time came to decide on senior-year internships, both students chose Wingler’s Aviation at Hayward Executive Airport, where they became immersed in everything from airplane mechanics to aerodynamics. Now Jesus attends the College of Alameda, where he is pursuing a license to become an aviation mechanic. Alexis, for his part, is pursuing a bachelor’s in aviation from San Jose State University. By graduation, he plans to be a fully licensed pilot.

I sat down with both students to hear firsthand about their experience and understand the impact of work-based learning on high school students.

Before you started your internship with Latitude, what were you thinking about the future?

Jesus: I was torn between going to college, which I wasn’t really interested in, or pursuing a trade, which I wanted to do. I always knew I wanted to be someone in the trades: welding, plumbing, something like that. But I wasn’t 100% sure.

Alexis: I had decided I wasn’t going to go to college. I was committed to going to trade school, joining a union, and going from there.

What was it about Latitude that attracted you?

Jesus: I was never really big on classrooms. I didn’t love learning from books. I really liked that Latitude took a hands-on approach. It opened my eyes. I really valued working on projects, so that’s why I chose it. I knew “This is the school for me.”

At Latitude, you were exposed to a range of professions before your teachers worked with you to define your path and select your internship with Wingler’s Aviation. Tell me about those first few days as interns.

Jesus: At first, we didn’t know anything — it’s an airplane!

Alexis: There was definitely a “wow” factor. I had wanted to stick to something so general, like plumbing, but now I was going to work on airplanes. It opened my mind. It’s a whole different world that not many high schoolers get to explore.

How did the journey unfold from those early days?

Jesus: The first month or two, it was just us taking it all in and learning from our mentor, Mr. Sunil. We started with basics: changing brakes and tires, doing inspections, working on panels. We observed and followed instructions, doing the work alongside them as they showed us all the tips and tricks. Eventually, we started to take on bigger projects ourselves and mentors would just check in on us. By the third or fourth month, we got the hang of it. We learned how to read tail numbers, how to start and control a plane. We’ve learned a lot. By the end, we knew the lingo and could do inspections and repairs on our own. 

On site, you learned how to fix a plane, but also how to work with others, communicate in the workplace, and problem-solve. What are some of those professional skills you’ve developed?

Jesus: Troubleshooting, for sure. Knowing when something’s not right and trying a different tool or method. That applies to a lot in life. We’ve also met certified flight Instructors and private pilots at the flight school across from our shop. They’re very professional, and I’ve learned a lot about professionalism just watching and interacting with them.

Alexis: Yeah, business people come by to sell products or deliver a plane, and being around them, seeing how they act, it teaches you the level of professionalism needed in business.

Do you feel more prepared for life after school now?

Alexis: Yeah, I have a good understanding of what I want to do. I’ve learned a lot. I’ve grown as a person.

Jesus: Definitely. I wasn’t very serious in ninth grade, and my grades reflected that. Coming from middle school, I was still adjusting. But I’ve made a huge change. I’ve matured. I’ve seen the importance of putting in time and effort—it shows in everything. 

Looking back, what would you say is the biggest takeaway your work-based learning experience has given you?

Jesus: A straight path in life. I have clarity. I know like what’s next, you know? I have my goals set.

Alexis: It opened a lot of doors. I didn’t really have my mind set on what I wanted to do. But through the internship, I figured out what I wanted to do with life.

So what is next? What happens after graduation?

Jesus: I’m studying aviation at the College of Alameda, then pursuing a license to become an aviation mechanic. My internship changed how I viewed college. I realized there’s a lot you need to know, and it’s good to get hands-on learning because then, when you study the book, you can make the comparison. You get the theory in school and the practice at work.

Alexis: I’m also pursuing a career in aviation, but I chose the pilot path. I’m going to San Jose to earn my bachelor’s in aviation and then I’ll get my license before graduating. I got a full ride. Eventually, I want to leave the state to do a course in avionics and open an electrical shop.

Your time at Latitude clearly played an important role. Based on your journey, what do you think the purpose of high school is?

Jesus: That’s a big question. I like it! High school is a place where you learn who you are and figure out what you want to do. It goes fast. I’ve changed a lot since freshman year. It’s about preparing to become an adult.

Alexis: I agree. High school is about getting a better understanding of yourself and who you are as a person. It’s about getting out of your comfort zone and meeting new people. It’s important to get out of your bubble to grow. That’s the whole point of high school. 

Disclosure: supports The 74’s focus on the ‘Future of High School.’

Too often, high schools separate so-called academic students from those perceived unlikely to attend college, a process commonly known as tracking. Two high schools in Cranston, Rhode Island are showing that career and technical education programs can prepare students for both college and the workforce.

In fact, seniors who completed CTE paths in the past school year included those with the highest academic rankings at both Cranston High School West and Cranston High School East. Across Rhode Island, students who have completed at least two CTE-specific courses perform higher on national assessments and have a higher four-year graduation rate than other students.

“There used to be a division between postsecondary education and vocational education. At Cranston, we’ve been able to make these two things the same thing,” said Zachary Farrell, executive director of secondary programs for Cranston Public School District. 

High school students in Rhode Island’s second largest district can choose among coursework in Medical Pathways, Pre-Engineering/Robotics, Information Technology, Culinary Arts, Computer Science, Criminal Justice and more. Those who complete a CTE track graduate with real-world work experience and either industry credentials, college credits or both, in paths that the state has approved as aligned to a high-wage, high-demand career. Students do this alongside their existing general education coursework, so they can take AP classes or participate in extracurriculars with the rest of their classmates.

When Santomassimo, the valedictorian, entered the Medical Pathways program her freshman year of high school, she thought she wanted to do direct patient care. But the program’s work-based learning, including a placement at a nursing home, helped to change her mind: “I realized direct patient medicine isn’t for me because I don’t like blood…[Then] [s]chool helped me get set up with an internship at an engineering site…[so I’m] back on the science and research end, not direct patient care.” 

Santomassimo credits Medical Pathways with helping her carve out a specific vision for her future. “I really want to do research…to help inform public policy,” she said. At Brown, she plans to double major in physics and political science.

Students who complete that pathway, which is available at both high schools, leave with healthcare workplace safety training and a CPR and First Aid certification. They have the option of completing a certified nursing assistant or emergency medical technician certification. Even though she isn’t planning to become a healthcare practitioner, Santomassimo has no regrets about the hands-on classes she took. She completed 40 patient hours as a certified nursing assistant (CNA) in training and successfully passed her licensing test this summer after graduation: “It’s a really good certification to have and will never not be a needed job. I will have that certification as a backup if I ever need it.”

Cranston Superintendent Jeannine Nota-Masse has seen the benefits of exposing students to passions and careers: “At both our high schools, we have an educator training program. You’d be surprised at how many students [say] ‘I love little kids, little kids are so funny,’ and then go into it and don’t love it. They have that hands-on experience before their parents pay for college and they realize ‘Oh I really don’t want to be a teacher.’”

Graduating high school with college credits in hand is another way that the CTE tracks across Cranston help save students time and money. Mark Lizarda, part of East’s second-ever Medical Pathways cohort, graduated with college credits from three different institutions under his belt, not to mention a high score on the AP Calculus test, which converts into college credit.

In 2024, Lizarda won first place in the Medical Terminology exam at the SkillsUSA championship, a national CTE organization for students, and is attending University of Rhode Island this fall. “Those three years [were the] hardest classes I’ve ever taken, but that’s the reason I stayed. It was so captivating and rigorous. I wanted to prepare myself for college.”

The programs also benefit CTE participants who choose to go directly to the workforce. For example, culinary students graduate with food handling and food safety certifications, Information Technology students graduate with CompTIA certifications and all CTE programs include a financial literacy class. “If your child wants to get a job after high school and they have no skills whatsoever, it’s going to be difficult,” Nota-Masse said. “But if they even have entry-level skills, they are still more competitive in the job market than their peers who don’t.” 

Farrell sees the inherent value in a program that connects to student interests. “Forget credentials,” he said. “If students really enjoy the program that they’re in and are learning and having fun and it’s part of their identity, I think you can’t really put a price tag on that.” 

The aquaculture path at West, the only one of its kind in the state, is a model for making learning fun and practical. Rhode Island is known as the Ocean State, and its over 400 miles of coastline are crucial to the economy. Launched by longtime science educator Leonard Baker in 2000, the aquaculture path prepares students for careers in the state’s fish hatcheries and shellfish farms or for further study in the biological sciences. 

With access to an on-campus aquarium, laboratory, pond and greenhouse, students learn about water chemistry, aquatic plant science and how to breed fish. Baker sets every student up with their own aquarium to practice keeping plants and animals alive: “They say ‘I can’t stand chemistry,’ but they’re measuring water temperature and pH balance…They say ‘I can’t stand insects,’ but they’re feeding frogs. We’re making science meaningful, relevant and important to students.”

Every single senior who has completed Baker’s program has been accepted to a four-year institution. On top of that, many of the people running the state’s fisheries are graduates of his program, and one even started a fishery in another state. Some go on to careers in nursing or other healthcare professions because they’ve had exposure to complex refrigeration and filtration systems and extensive practice working in teams.

Stephen Osborn, who leads statewide opportunities for students at the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE), credits the program for getting young people excited and ready for their future: “They can“get a job after graduation if they want, but [the program is] also preparing many of them to go onto college. Kids are doing incredibly complex things in their classrooms and they don’t realize it because they’re having fun.”

A between RIDE and, launched in 2018, helped unlock changes that enabled Cranston to give students more options. Cranston high schoolers previously had rotating daily schedules, like most high schools, but switched to a college-style schedule where students only take four classes a semester and are in them for almost 90 minutes instead of 50. This way, students get longer blocks of time for hands-on and work-based learning.

“It took a lot of professional development and a lot of community communication,” said Nota-Masse, reflecting on the process. “People kept saying ‘kids won’t be able to sit in a class for 84 minutes, they’ll go crazy.’ We’re not saying we do that perfectly, but if you’re in construction and you’re working on a project, 84 [minutes] is certainly better than 50 [minutes] to start and clean up.” These technical changes allowed Cranston to expand CTE programs, while keeping room in the schedule for AP courses, electives, special education services or services for English language learners. 

Cranston Public School District is a powerful leader in the state, but it’s not alone. is the new statewide initiative, with the goal that all of Rhode Island’s kids take at least one CTE course before they graduate. Coursework that’s rigorous and relevant is helping to unlock students’ freedom of choice. Says Osborn: “We don’t tell [students] whether to go to college or work. They have the skills and an open door to choose what they want to do after high school.”

Disclosure: is a financial supporter of The 74.

Struggling with debilitating anxiety, only heightened by the realities of a chronically under-resourced public education system, I didn’t even think I’d reach age 18. By 10th grade, in a large public high school in Nashville, Tennessee, I understood one thing: School made me miserable. Why would any student, regardless of capability or potential, want to continue down a path that agonized her?

I needed a fundamental reset. When I was 16, my mom decided it would be best to move back to her hometown of Elizabethton, Tennessee, nearly 300 miles across the state. At the height of the pandemic, we packed up our car, rented a house online, and settled into a small, weathered, and historic town nestled in a valley of the Appalachian Mountains.

Even after moving across the state and starting at Elizabethton High School (EHS) — an XQ School that was less than half the size of my last school — I begged my mom to let me enroll in an online high school instead. This was my chance for a fresh start. Why would I want to go back to a system, albeit in a new town, that I suffered so greatly from?

“Let’s just go talk to the school counselor,” my mom would say.

“We can always do the online school thing, you know, if you hate it here so much,” my aunt would reassure me.

Every muscle in my body fought against walking through the doors of EHS — where many of my family members had graduated. I didn’t want to be a Cyclone. I was convinced that only misery awaited me on the other side. The debilitating, school-induced anxiety began knocking at my door.

Reluctantly, I agreed to a meeting with the school counselor, and two days before the start of the school year, I was enrolled as an 11th grader, expected to report to first-period Spanish on Monday.

What I didn’t expect, however, was the school principal, Jon Minton, walking me to class that fateful Monday, after receiving word of an anxious transfer student from Nashville. This was the first act of kindness of many at EHS, and these acts of kindness have extended far beyond my graduation.

At my old, 2,200-student high school, I never had a sense of community. Isolation, loneliness, and a lack of purpose were the defining characteristics of my first high school experience. Teachers and staff members were overworked and overwhelmed, busy trying to navigate the challenges of our large and diverse high school to form one-on-one connections. Looking back, I can see how important the connections I made at Elizabethton were in helping me find my path. Since then, I’ve learned that my experience is backed by science. that relationships between students and educators, built on mutual respect, are essential to student success.

As , EHS embraces XQ design principles—among them, the importance of caring, trusting relationships between students and the adults around them. For me, those relationships began to take shape the moment I stepped through the door.

Dr. Minton walked me to my Spanish class, taught by Maggie Booher, a recent college graduate and a brand-new educator about to teach her first class ever. I didn’t see the principal much after that, but knowing that he knew me and had my best interests in mind eased my anxieties in a way I had never experienced.

Like me, Ms. Booher was completely new to the school community. Her energy was infectious, spreading kindness in her classroom and in every part of our school. Throughout my time at EHS, she remained someone I knew I could go to if I needed anything at all.

Within my first five minutes at EHS, I’d made two invaluable connections.

Later that day, my counselor, examining my transcript, placed me in a class dedicated to creating our annual yearbook,a class I got credit for. This one decision was responsible for a chain of events that eventually led me to the path I’m on today.

The yearbook class met in the back of the library. I ate my lunch surrounded by books, often making my way through those doors. There’s sometimes a stigma around students eating lunch in the library, but being able to eat in a comfortable environment where I felt safe, understood, and free from judgment influenced my success as a student. The library was a safe place, and it’s where I met Dustin Hensley. 

Calling Mr. Hensley a librarian doesn’t do him justice; he embodies the ideals of a true educator and mentor. He’s an adjunct professor at East Tennessee State University (ETSU), the school I now call home, and the school he encouraged me to apply to. An advocate for student voice and innovative learning, Mr. Hensley created a safe environment for all students within the walls of the library. He has continued to look out for me and send opportunities my way, even years after my graduation. Mr. Hensley’s influence — his “keeping tabs” on me — is why I’m an intern at the XQ Institute today.

Being in the yearbook class made me realize a few things: I love getting to know people through interviews, I enjoy writing for something other than an English class, and I’m passionate about creating tangible, impactful content. These revelations led me to study media and communication at ETSU, and in December, I’ll become the first member of my family to graduate from college.

The yearbook class was taught by Daniel Proffitt. He recognized my interest in journalism, and by my senior year, through his connections, I was already writing for our local newspaper, the Elizabethton Star.

I also managed a team of underclassmen in the class, a leadership opportunity that reflects XQ’s principle of youth voice and choice and one I couldn’t have dreamed of at my previous high school. Mr. Proffitt assisted me with multiple projects in college, another tribute to the impactful relationships I gained at EHS.

In the afternoon, I had one of my final classes: an advanced creative writing course. Sara Hardin became both my advanced creative writing and English teacher. She always pushed me to write in varying styles — poetry, playwriting, prose — nothing was off limits. She taught me about the Transcendentalists, Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson, and how their thinking revolutionized an age. On one occasion, I recall taking a self-quiz in her class: “Are You a Transcendentalist?” The results were in, and I belonged in the woods with Emerson.

Mrs. Hardin’s classes participated in a competition each fall, in collaboration with a local theater, where students write a play and have the chance for actors to perform their script on stage. During my first semester at EHS, my play placed in the top five—a first for Mrs. Hardin in 20 years. The pandemic kept us from attending the event, but Mrs. Hardin made sure to save me a seat the next year, even though I was no longer in her class.

In my senior year, I was awarded a scholarship to attend ETSU. It was a full-circle moment for me, accepting an award in my favorite place, the library, for a school that I wanted to go to — especially when, a couple of years earlier, I didn’t want to go to college at all. 

At that moment, I understood my journey was far from over.

I’d walked into the doors of EHS as a student who felt disconnected and disengaged from school, feeling anxious and alone in my journey, but I walked across the stage as a completely new person—a confident, supported, lifelong learner on my path to higher education.

I used to sit in the back of the classroom, trying my best to avoid eye contact with my teacher, but now I sit in the front row of each class, raising my hand at every opportunity.

The two years I spent at EHS changed my life. My mom and I occasionally wonder: Where would I be if I had never had the opportunity to attend EHS and develop the support system that I still have to this day?

I’ll never know. But here is something I know for sure: I’m proud to have graduated from EHS—and even prouder to be a third-generation Cyclone. 

On the day of my graduation, Mrs. Hardin handed me a note. “Don’t stop writing!” 

I’m happy to report, I took her advice. 

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Disclosure: is a financial supporter of The 74.

Their colleagues and they had an ambitious goal: improve overall in-seat attendance rates by at least two percentage points. Like schools across the country, Woodson has struggled with high rates of chronic absenteeism. According to the D.C.’s Office of the State Superintendent of Education, missed school regularly during the 2023-2024 school year. Rates have improved since the worst days of the pandemic, but they hovering around 40 percent across the nation’s capital. 

Nationwide, , as ,student mental health, , and compound on one another to create a perfect storm of worsening attendance. These absences aren’t just about missing class. They’re of whether students will graduate, pursue higher education, or find stable employment. 

To address the problem, Curry-Neal, Woodson’s redesign director, and Judon, the school’s student experience coach, looked beyond conventional solutions — disciplinary threats and mandatory parent calls — and took a novel approach: letting students lead. 

Woodson is part of , a partnership between XQ Institute and DC Public Schools (DCPS) to improve the high school experience through the implementation of XQ’s six, science-backed that together lay the foundation for effective high school learning. One of these principles is youth voice and choice: creating authentic, regular opportunities for students to build agency and develop their identities. DCPS Chancellor Lewis D. Ferebee in linking attendance to students’ feelings of engagement and sense of belonging. 

We know chronic absenteeism is anything but simple,” said Dr. Ferebee. “As part of DC+XQ, Woodson is enlisting the entire school community to help tackle this and other important challenges—and they’re leading with student voice. Our partnership with XQ is showing what’s possible when our young people have a seat at the table.”

In addressing chronic absenteeism, leaders at Woodson seized on the opportunity to bring students into the fold. Curry-Neal and Judon met with about 70 students eager to improve their high school experience and presented them with attendance metrics and , which provides valuable insight for schools to monitor their students’ learning experiences. From those students, the school selected 10 mentors and charged them with leading a pilot program to boost attendance numbers.  

Known as the Attendance Pep Squad, these 10 students gather every Tuesday at lunch to strategize. Their goal is twofold: first, identify students who might benefit from peer mentorship. And second, come up with creative ways to change the culture around attendance. During the fall semester, they developed an innovative outreach event — a playful, low-stakes peer networking gathering during which students exchanged stories and identified common experiences. Potential mentees also shared their schedules, academic interests, and any obstacles they were encountering, enabling mentors (along with Curry-Neal and Judon) to determine how best to pair students. About 22 students opted in to receive a peer mentor, and the program began in December of last year. 

The Pep Squad also took steps to strengthen their fellow students’ sense of belonging. They organized a “Winter Spirit Week,” strategically timed for the week before winter break when attendance rates typically dip. They set up scavenger hunts, social activities and games, and a school-wide assembly to celebrate and close out the week.

The results exceeded expectations. In the 2023–24 school year, the Thursday before winter break had an attendance rate of just 42.6 percent. After the Pep Squad’s initiative, that number soared to 76 percent. Even the Friday before the break — one of the toughest days for any school to manage — recorded just under 60 percent. 

“Students understand the barriers to attendance better than anyone,” said William Massey, Woodson’s principal. “We knew we’d be able to go further and faster with them in the driver’s seat.”

Not surprisingly, the students’ efforts also appear to be having a positive impact on achievement. After just one term, nearly half of mentees have improved their GPA, recovered credits required for graduation, or both. Several mentees also saw a decrease in the number of failed courses.

While Woodson isn’t declaring victory by any stretch, its early success suggests an alternative to conventional approaches, which often focus on imposing stiffer penalties on students who miss too much school. But these approaches don’t address root problems — and they if they erode positive relationships, , and put counterproductive burdens on school staff. In contrast, when students are afforded leadership opportunities that give them agency and voice, they feel like they belong and are eager to step up. 

“It all coalesces into this magic alchemy,” Curry-Neal said. 

That alchemy is backed by a growing body of data. Research shows that students who feel a strong sense of belonging not only have better attendance but also than their disconnected peers. They also graduate at higher rates and are more likely to enroll in college. In their recent book , authors Jenny Anderson and Rebecca Winthrop note that when students see school as boring, stressful, or pointless, their desire to show up evaporates.

Attendance alone doesn’t guarantee learning, but consistent presence is a crucial first step. “There’s a limit to how much we can learn if we’re not in the building,” Judon says. 

Woodson has been intentional about building a community that students want to be part of. Panorama data show that the student experience has improved every year since Woodson began their redesign journey in the 2022-2023 school year. Today, Woodson ranks in the 90th percentile among urban districts for student sense of belonging. Curry-Neal traces this back to XQ’s Design Principles and its network of schools across the country, which enabled them to learn from earlier redesign efforts at , , and . 

Woodson isn’t the only school whose redesign efforts are paying off. At PSI High in Florida, just 1 percent of students were chronically absent in 2023-24, compared to 25 percent for the broader district. At Design Works High School in New York, 10 percent of students were chronically absent in 2023-24, compared to 47 percent for NYC high schools on average.

There are no silver bullets when it comes to the very complex problem of chronic absenteeism, but it’s increasingly clear that making students feel like they are part of the solution is a step in the right direction. 

“It’s complicated,” Curry-Neal admits. “A pep squad, text messages, walking kids to school—that only works if the rest of the school environment supports it. But right now, we’re seeing that when students feel they belong here, they want to come back. And that’s half the battle.”

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Fortunately, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Educational Technology (OET) released new guidelines for EdTech companies earlier this year called “.” The report underscores the need for “responsible innovation,” adding, “educator and student feedback should be incorporated into all aspects of product development, testing, and refinement to ensure student needs are fully addressed.” As , “The era of tech-first solutions is over. Developers must collaborate meaningfully with educators from day one. Understanding pedagogy is as crucial as coding skills.”

The shares this mindset as part of our mission to reimagine the high school learning experience so it’s more relevant and engaging for today’s learners, while better preparing them for the future. We see AI as a tool with transformative potential for educators and makers to leverage — but only if it’s developed and implemented with ethics, transparency and equity at the forefront. That’s why we’re building partnerships between educators and AI developers to ensure that products are shaped by the real needs and challenges of students, teachers and schools. Here’s how we believe all stakeholders can embrace the Department’s recommendations through ongoing collaborations with tech leaders, educators and students alike.

Keeping Tech and Learning Student-Centric

XQ’s approach to high school redesign is always student-centric. In that spirit, we must shift from the mindset that AI and other tech tools are solely for educators; they also exist to improve students’ learning. Rather than focusing exclusively on improving output (such as lesson plans and assessment materials), makers should also emphasize improving outcomes, such as student proficiency and engagement. Ann-Katherine Kimble, XQ’s Director of School Success, said that’s why it’s wrong to focus only on how AI can save teachers time and make their jobs easier. “Our young people, teachers and classrooms don’t deserve that,” she explained. “They deserve a point of view that believes that AI can enhance your practice and knowledge, deepen your creative and responsive approaches and help educators capitalize on the sweet spot where the art of teaching and the science of learning meet.”

At , an XQ school in Memphis, Tennessee, computer science teacher Mohammed Al harthy sees AI as a partner in the classroom — something students engage with during the learning process but never rely on for the finished product.

For instance, in one project his students explored how to build AI applications to track hand movements for American Sign Language, highlighting the value of learning how AI works, writing code in Python and experimenting with tools like Google’s MediaPipe. Al harthy isn’t so worried that his students will simply copy and paste as they learn. “Artificial intelligence never sounds like a high school student, so the concerns about cheating are kind of silly,” he explained. “If you’re concerned about that, you should step back and reassess what your students are doing from the start.” This approach aligns with a national shift toward focusing on and collaboration rather than rote answers, allowing students to use AI as a tool to enhance their problem-solving and critical-thinking skills.

AI is just one of many topics covered by the, a newsletter that comes out twice a month for high school teachers. Check it out and subscribe now.

Ensuring Equitable Learning Opportunities

At XQ, we believe that ensuring equitable access means creating AI-driven learning experiences that are flexible, adaptive and tailored to the unique needs of diverse student populations, especially neurodivergent students and multi-language learners. AI can help by creating tools designed to serve all learners fairly and effectively without stripping away our students’ individuality.

One of the technology’s most promising capabilities is its ability to provide real-time, actionable feedback to students and educators. Tim Brodsky, a thought leader on AI who taught social studies at the XQ high school in Santa Ana, California, was recently for his innovative use of generative AI to support multilingual learners in his AP courses. With automated feedback occurring in real-time, Brodsky said systems can analyze data and provide immediate insights about student engagement, attendance and other factors to predict risk factors. “This takes the load off teachers, who often have to sift through spreadsheets to find trends and nuances,” he said. “AI provides a better method for holistic data collection and a more effective way of measuring it.” 

However, student data always comes with caveats. Too often, algorithms mirror the on which they’re trained. found this can result in mischaracterizing the writing of non-native English speakers as AI-generated, and experts found language models that classified certain jobs, like secretary or flight attendant, as feminine. XQ addresses this problem by working closely with developers to ensure their products are more culturally responsive to the needs and outcomes educators are looking to provide for their students.

For example, teachers at Crosstown worked with the EdTech company to develop (PBL) experiences. The company’s CEO and co-founder Aatash Parikh said this collaboration was helpful for both sides and influenced the evolution of the company’s AI products. “Having educators at Crosstown High School walk us through their workflow designing project-based learning experiences helped us realize what would make Inkwire a more complete solution for schools,” he said. 

A former PBL teacher himself, Parikh wanted to ensure that Inkwire’s generative AI tools don’t just stop at creating PBL plans, but also incorporate deeper pedagogical layers to be more responsive for educators and schools. At Crosstown High, educators, including science teacher and Head of Innovation and Research Nikki Wallace, showed the Inkwire team what they were learning from each other, and how to integrate that professional feedback into their platform. “We’re helping these makers understand how equity is created in the classroom, helping them make more responsive products,” Wallace said. “Teachers learn best from other teachers.”

Fostering Ethical Collaboration Between Educators and Developers

The days of tech-first solutions are over; what’s needed now is a deep partnership where developers and educators work hand-in-hand to ensure AI tools are technologically sound and pedagogically effective. The DOE’s new guidelines for EdTech refer to this as a “dual stack” approach—a framework that combines the “development stack” applied to product creation alongside a “responsibility stack” to ensure these products are built with ethics, transparency and public trust for classroom use.

While many AI tools help create engaging projects and lessons, Wallace wanted a tool to better support personalized learning. While working alongside Inkwire, she said XQ connected her with other AI makers, such as , to build an AI Chatbot that would support an interdisciplinary, community-centered project for her students. 

“We frontloaded the bot with all the information I need to build a successful learning experience in my classroom,” Wallace explained. Her students looked at statistics for infectious diseases that impact Memphis. Their chatbot then served as what Wallace called a “cognitive partner.” It helped them progress through the science project by unpacking and generating complex questions such as “What community partners in Memphis can I reach out to?” and “What information in the research might I have overlooked?” and “What governmental systems are in place?” From there, Wallace said, students figured out which were associated with the project.

“We wanted the students to be able to identify, build and then reflect on the project benchmarks, learning outcomes and pathways they would need in order to progress at their own pace.”

Wallace said this experience was grounded in two of the : and . The chatbot helped make learning more personalized and rigorous.

Betsey Schmidt, founder and CEO of MeshEd and a veteran curriculum designer, said customizable large language models (LLMs) like PlayLab and Inkwire can transform lesson planning. “By understanding what excites and motivates students, educators can more easily adapt core curricula to resonate on a deeper level with learners, incorporating their passions, hobbies, strengths and growth areas — and making real-world connections to learners’ profiles,” she explained. Schmidt has been collaborating with XQ to bring teachers and high school leaders into the AI-for-learning product design cycle 

Looking Ahead

By this time next year, generative AI will likely , whether we’re ready or not. However, education systems and policies are incredibly resilient to change. The recent pandemic made that painfully clear as schools often went back to business as usual rather than embracing new learning models, such as awarding credit for content mastery instead of seat time (Carnegie units), a rigid system that’s been used for more than a century and . (XQ and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching have to address this problem.)

AI is already showing us how to make education more individualized and equitable. By encouraging tech leaders and makers to continue collaborating with educators, at events like in New York City next month, we can work toward a future in which all students can reach their potential — and where teachers can make the most of their talent.

Want to learn more about how to create innovative teaching and learning in high schools? Subscribe to the , a newsletter that comes out twice a month for high school teachers.

Disclosure: is a financial supporter of The 74.

Solving chronic absenteeism involves tackling big structural problems like transportation and infrastructure. But we also have to make our schools places where young people want to learn. Too many teens, in particular, had negative feelings about school even before the pandemic. Yale researchers conducting found most teens spent their days “tired,” “stressed,” and “bored.” Fewer than 3 in 100 reported feeling interested while in school.

Decades of research prove that students learn more when they experience high levels of academic engagement and social belonging in school. That’s why XQ developed grounded in the science of teaching and the importance of cultivating caring, trusting relationships within schools. These principles are being used to rethink the traditional high school experience in across the country to make learning more relevant and engaging for the needs of this generation.

Our partnerships are still new. But so far, we’re finding graduates from our first 17 schools have more interest in their classes and a stronger sense of belonging at school than their national counterparts. More than three-quarters of the XQ class of 2023 — which includes 17 high schools — said they were at least somewhat interested in their classes. And 52% of the XQ class of 2023 felt like they belonged “completely” or “quite a bit” at their school, versus only 40% nationally.

I spoke with four students from XQ schools across the country to hear what makes a difference in creating high schools young people want to attend. They are: Evan Bowie, Class of 2024 from Ron Brown College Preparatory High School in Washington, D.C.; Karisse Dickison, Class of 2024 from Elizabethton High School in Elizabethton, Tennessee; Henry Montalvo, Class of 2025 from ��í�����ܱ��Dz� in Santa Ana, California; and Lillian Roberts, Class of 2024 from Brooklyn STEAM Center. 

Create Bonding Activities

has fewer than 200 students, but Henry Montalvo didn’t know most of them when he started there as a ninth grader. That small size helped him adjust to the Santa Ana high school, but he also credited bonding activities. One called Community Week provides an opportunity for students to celebrate, pause and reflect. Students create their own schedules based on available sessions. Montalvo said they may lead the sessions alone or partner with teachers for non-academic, fun classes on topics like putting on a thrift shop and even Pokémon card-collecting.

“It’s just basically a time to come together as a community,” he said of the most recent event this past spring. “Sometimes you write a letter to yourself, and then they give it to you at the end of the year so you can reflect on it.” 

Evan Bowie said teachers at , an all-male district school in Washington, D.C. that’s part of the partnership, also look for creative ways to help students bond. Students might be asked, for example, to stand or move their desks into circles and answer a question like, “What’s your affirmation today?” Or, “How was your weekend?” He said sometimes it can feel like you’re being put on the spot, but it works.

Bowie said if he answered with, “‘It was boring.’ They’d be, like, ‘You got to give a real answer.’” The upshot: “It just pushes the student to think a little bit better.”

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Seek Student Feedback

Check-ins like this can also happen more formally, as they do at the The program takes students from several local high schools for mornings or afternoons, five days a week, offering them concentrations in career pathways including cybersecurity, design and engineering, filmmaking and more. Brooklyn STEAM Center is in the Imagine NYC

Lillian Roberts chose culinary arts as her concentration. She enjoys how teachers meet with students quarterly. She said they ask how students feel about their classes, which includes “the way they’re teaching, if you have any input.” There are also student-led town hall meetings where students can give feedback anonymously on “things that you might not feel comfortable with.”

Bowie said his teachers at Ron Brown College Preparatory High School also solicit feedback on a weekly or monthly basis, depending on the instructor. They’ll ask questions like, “What went well this week? What can I improve on? What ways can you improve your grade?” Bowie said students are also asked to rate the classes on a scale of one to five stars and provide suggestions for how to make a class better, such as including more hands-on activities or more Socratic seminars instead of written assignments.

Make Personal Connections

is located in northeast Tennessee, an area that has struggled for years with the loss of manufacturing and the opioid epidemic. It was selected as an XQ Super School largely because of its teens’ proposal for more student-centered learning to benefit the community.

Karisse Dickison, who graduated this year and is heading to college, described a close relationship with school librarian Dustin Hensley — who regularly talks to students about what they’re reading and their extracurricular activities. When Dickison helped start a group dedicated to ending gun violence, she said Hensley would ask her about related events in the news.

“It was just nice to have him reach out and make sure that I knew what was happening in the world,” she said.

Bowie also valued a personal connection with English teacher Teresa Lasley, who encouraged him to apply to Georgetown University, where he’s attending this fall. He recalled her showing the class a video about how Black students didn’t feel welcome at the prestigious school. When he spoke with Lasley, he said she told him he doesn’t have to work extra hard to prove he belongs. “Going to Georgetown means you’re adding more to Georgetown,” he remembered her saying. “It’s better for them than it is for you. You belong. You already have it in you.”

He said that exchange allowed him to “be seen,” and that he’s witnessed similar exchanges between other students and teachers.

At Brooklyn STEAM Center, Roberts recalled one guidance counselor who reached out after he saw her crying. “And then we set up weekly meetings just to have someplace to talk about what’s happening,” she said. But at her other high school, she thought guidance counselors seem to focus more on “purely more academic things.”

Leave the Building

Students at all four schools experience internships, work-based learning and partnerships with community organizations, which they said make classwork feel more relevant. 

Montalvo said teachers at ��í�����ܱ��Dz� helped him land internships at a congressional campaign and with a law firm. He said these outside experiences lead to presentations in class. At Brooklyn STEAM Center, Roberts earned an OSHA 10 as well as a New York Food Protection Certificate, and joined a class trip to Italy to study cuisine. 

Dickison worked on social media and advertising at a local nonprofit. Some classes at Elizabethton High include project-based learning, such as one in which students helped solve a cold case involving a serial killer (their work became the subject of the hit podcast this year). ��í�����ܱ��Dz� also offers , which Montalvo said makes classes feel more interesting. In his first year, he recalled how he and another student in his English class interviewed local environmental justice experts about lead contamination and the lack of green space, then made a presentation to their school and invited the greater community.

All three students who graduated this year are going to college in the fall, and Montalvo plans to go to college after graduating next year; he wants to be a lawyer. In our senior survey, 72% of XQ students in the class of 2023 planned to attend college, illustrating a great example of students remaining engaged in school beyond their high school years. 

But a sense of belonging and engagement can only happen with student input. “School is about ‘�ɾ��ٳ�’ not ‘�ڴǰ�,’” Roberts said. “Everything is with the students. It’s not for the students. You have to do everything with the students in mind.”

Disclosure: is a financial supporter of The 74.

Yet, 41 years after “” caused widespread panic about our public schools, fewer than half of American students are graduating high school ready for college or career. U.S. teens than students in many other countries, including the United Kingdom, Germany, South Korea and Estonia. 

When young people are discouraged from pursuing a STEM-related career, they get locked out of , all of which come with salaries. And that means we all lose out — because the jobs needed to keep our country running go unfilled, and the inventions, treatments and technologies for our rapidly changing society go undiscovered. 

Our two organizations, and , are deeply committed to ensuring all students have access to joyful and rigorous schools where they know they belong and can succeed. Research shows those three qualities — joy, rigor, and a sense of belonging — will prepare them for the future, whether that’s STEM or any other pursuit. 

XQ partners with schools and districts to rethink the high school experience by making learning more meaningful and engaging through tools such as our Design Principles and Learner Outcomes. Beyond100K unites leading STEM organizations to co-develop and implement solutions to end the STEM teacher shortage by 2043, especially for those most excluded from STEM opportunities.

Sparking Joy in STEM

Guided by and insight from young people across the country, Beyond100K heard that to help spark the brilliance of millions more young minds, schools need to prioritize a focus on equity, representation, and especially belonging in STEM education. But that’s an increasingly difficult job.

Based on a recent conducted by Beyond100K, it’s clear that schools and educators are facing dueling pressures. They’re tasked with reshaping classrooms to foster inclusivity and joy while developing career- and culturally-relevant curricula. Simultaneously, they’re under heightened scrutiny due to residual pandemic learning loss, ongoing declines , and and teen mental health. 

Beyond100K interviewed educators who expressed concerns about the fear of repercussions for teaching about bias and inequity and the difficulty of creating classrooms of belonging amid pressure to focus solely on raising test scores. Identities of teachers were kept anonymous. 

One teacher noted that they are“scared to talk about the right thing, doing their own self-work to be able to talk about culture relative to their work….Regulations in states prevent teachers from having these conversations.”

Yet a positive correlation between a sense of belonging in STEM classrooms and academic performance, retention, and persistence — particularly for Black, Latino, and Native American students. Similarly, students engaged in SEL programs improve and social well-being. 

Given that nearly 60% of girls and young women who were interested in STEM careers when they entered high school by the time they entered college, there is no question that developing a sense of belonging in the STEM fields is an essential element in nurturing learning environments that lead to STEM persistence. The rigidity of high school STEM education is preventing too many students from pursuing their dreams. 

We see an emerging trend: many teachers and other education leaders view joy, belonging and relevance not in conflict with academic rigor, but as the pathway by which academic success can be achieved. Evidence supports the idea that , particularly for students of color. 

The Beyond100K Foundational Math CoLaboratory, composed of partners from across the STEM learning ecosystem, has developed a of joyful mathematical resources and activities for educators and families to use in making math joyful for their students.

One Beyond100Kpartner, employs a student-belonging-centered science teaching approach in their Bay Area Scientists Inspiring Students program, where scientist and engineer role models bring real-world connections, diversity, and inquiry-based learning into school environments. Teachers observed that students who engaged with these career scientists demonstrated skills above their typical classroom level.

Eliminating Systemic Barriers in High School

Creating a greater sense of belonging is one way to encourage teens to enter STEM. But our young people — and our creativity — are also trapped by a structural problem. The American education system, as we know it today, was built around the Carnegie Unit, or “credit hour,” a concept developed in 1906 that defines the amount of time a student needs to devote to learning a subject and earning a degree. 

The Carnegie Unit made sense in its day, bringing order and even a degree of equity to a disconnected system. But that day has passed. There’s no need to limit math, science, English and other required subjects to 50-minute classes with no relationship to one another or to how learning relates to the world beyond the classroom. The Carnegie Unit as we know it today kills student curiosity, inhibits exploration and keeps educators from looking beyond the walls of their school to their communities and our world. Not to mention that clinging to a system that prioritizes time in the classroom over mastery of a subject is actually contributing to the inequity it was designed to prevent.

We are long overdue for It is time to redefine and re-credentialize what it means to be a high school graduate. It’s time to develop new ways to teach, learn, measure and recognize student achievement, knowledge and growth. We can and must offer young people more immersive, relevant, hands-on experiences that prepare them for a rapidly changing world. 

That’s our mission at XQ. When we launched in 2015 with an open call to design a transformational high school, 50,000 people signed up. Today, we’re working in about 60 schools. We have teamed up with school districts in , and the state of to transform high schools at the system level. Partnership is the common ingredient for these high schools and others like them. They’re forging ahead with new designs based on feedback from their local communities. They take the best ideas and visions — from educators, students, parents and other stakeholders — and turn them into life-changing progress for young people. 

Consider the , which is partnering with the computer engineering firm to offer students in the engineering and multimedia pathways an opportunity to take on industry-based projects and earn stipends for their work. Or the Purdue Polytechnic High Schools in Indiana, which resulted from a partnership between Purdue University, business leaders, the state and Indianapolis city leaders to increase the number of students from underrepresented backgrounds attending Purdue and going into STEM careers. PPHS students work on projects that combine math, science and other topics to solve local problems. PPHS has sent more than twice as many students to Purdue University as the entire Indianapolis Public Schools district, most of whom are students of color.  

These examples are only a small sampling of the national movement to transform high schools. XQ and Beyond100K are just two of many organizations engaged in this essential work. Let’s do everything in our power to give our high school students the tools, resources and inspiration to make that possible. Ensuring that STEM education in high school is inclusive, relevant, engaging and rigorous will help every learner achieve their dreams — and ours — in a changing world that will depend on their ideas.

Want to learn more about how to create innovative high school experiences in STEM and subjects? Check out The XQ Xtra, a newsletter for educators that comes out twice a month. Sign up .

Interested in how you can commit to ending the STEM teacher shortage? Learn more .

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In a recent robotics shop class the teacher was hard to spot among a sea of students working in small teams designing, coding and tinkering with their mechanical creations. Every student had a role, from shop foreman to time manager to cleanup crew. Allyson Ordonez, an 11th-grader, was a class ambassador, welcoming guests and showing them around the classroom.

“Your normal classes — English, math, science — you learn fundamentals, but this class takes those subjects and combines them,” Ordonez said. “Math and science make up robotics and we use everything we learn from these normal academic classes and apply them to what we learn here.” 

Ordonez sounded more like a seasoned engineer than a high school student as she showed off a small drone she was building and described the equipment. 

Edison attracts teens from all over the city thanks to its 13 career tracks — the most of any New York City public school. Students can earn college credits through a partnership with the City University of New York, take part in internships and work-based learning with companies like Apple and Google, and receive industry certifications. If students pass those industry-recognized exams, they can start working in technical jobs right out of high school — while also pursuing associate’s and bachelor’s degrees.  

In some ways, Edison’s offerings are similar to other innovative CTE models across the country that are applying the excitement and engagement of career classes to rigorous academics. But Edison is taking that a step further by giving students tremendous power in its redesign. 

Shifting to Career- and College-Readiness

Edison opened in the 1950s as an all-boys trade school. Today, it serves a diverse population of nearly 2,335 students. Principal Moses Ojeda is about as close to an Edison lifer as it gets: he graduated in 1993, later returning as a teacher before becoming an assistant principal and then principal in 2012. He transformed the school from the days of typewriter and copier repair programs to state-of-the-art offerings including robotics, automotive technology, graphic arts and cybersecurity. 

All of this stemmed from Ojeda’s early days as principal when a student asked him a question that would change the trajectory of Edison’s teaching.  

“We know we’re here for CTE,” Ojeda remembered the student saying. “But why do we need the academics?”

Ojeda asked the student, who was in the automotive track, if he had learned about Pascal’s law in his physics class. “And the kid was like, ‘Yeah, I remember that.’ I said, ‘OK, well, that’s your brake system.’ And I went across the room and made a connection to each academic area.”  

Ojeda then turned to social studies teachers Phil Baker and Danielle Ragavanis to help students see the relevance of academic classes to their careers. 

“For them, CTE felt useful while academics too often left them wondering, ‘Why are we learning this?’” Baker said.

Ojeda supported Baker and Ragavannis in creating a Research and Development department to engage students in design thinking, including articulating what makes learning meaningful for them. The R&D department has grown to include teachers from every department working with students to figure out how to integrate essential skills into core academic classes. In this way, they’re applying one of the ’s crucial for innovative high schools: .

“In order to take on a project, teachers have to partner with one of the kids,” Ragavanis said. “Students are fully at the table, and they have to be our equals, and in some cases, our bosses.”

Edison was later selected for Imagine NYC — a dynamic partnership between New York City Public Schools and XQto design innovative, high-quality schools with equity and excellence at their core. Faculty members said brought additional support and resources to scale their ideas for making the academic courses feel as relevant to students as the CTE classes.

Mastering Essential Skills 

Driven by employer demand for “soft skills,” Baker and Ragavanis worked with student designers and teachers in the R&D department to establish “five essential skills”: communication, collaboration, giving and receiving feedback, design thinking and professionalism. These skills reflect XQ’s and now guide the learning objectives in many of Edison’s academic classes. Research shows these outcomes, or goals, can help students succeed in college, career and life. 

English Language Arts teacher Jason Fischedick, for example, created a student-run community theater, which he called “the most ambitious thing I’ve ever tried to do in the classroom.” Apart from selecting the four student directors, Fischedick ceded almost complete control of the process. Students were responsible for hiring a crew, casting actors and organizing and running rehearsals.  

“We’re on a time crunch and we need to figure out how to manage that time effectively to ultimately get a good product to show off,” said 12th grader Colin Zaug, one of the student directors.“It’s all about teaching independence and preparing students for the real world. I don’t know how many of these kids will ultimately be actors, but it teaches time management and how to stay on task.” 

Baker said this is how the R&D department is modernizing Edison. 

“We’re trying to make a link between academic classes and CTE classes, and bridge the gap that existed between the two, and make sure that academic classes have a career-centered application to them,” he said.

Baker said ninth graders in the R&D department designed the essential skills rubric for their grade so that regardless of what content classes students take, they all get the same immersion into critical career skills. Student voice is now so integrated into Edison’s core that teachers work with student designers to plan their units. And he said teachers are becoming comfortable with the language of career-centered learning and essential skills while students appreciate the engagement and develop a new level of confidence. 

Yordani Rodriguez, a 12th-grader, employed the essential skills in a number of leadership positions, from his work on Model UN to serving as editor-in-chief of the school’s literary magazine. And those are abilities that will serve him long after he leaves Edison. 

“When you lead somebody and they look to you, you have to be sharp,” Rodriguez said, noting these skills are always in the back of his mind now. “I have to communicate, I have to take feedback and most importantly, I have to be professional.”  

Rodriguez will be a first-generation college student when he enters Columbia University in the fall. Baker emphasized, however, that the essential skills will serve students wherever they go next. 

“This is the kind of thing that all of our students should be able to use no matter what they do in college or in a career,” he said. 

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Making Time for Innovation

The R&D Department’s work touches students in every grade. Nearly 40% of 9th graders are involved in classes taught by R&D members, with plans to expand. In addition to essential skills, students also participated in using a . Thanks to word of mouth, as well as student showcases to exhibit their work, Baker and Ragavanis have grown their R&D department to include 18 faculty in ELA, math, and science, including new recruit  Fischedick.

“They’ve been letting me innovate every year and that’s why I joined this team because I’m someone who likes to try new things,” he said. If something doesn’t work, he added, “That’s OK. I’ve become more open with my classroom and what I can do in the classroom because I feel supported to do so.” 

Edison’s lessons are now influencing broader change in New York City high schools. It is an anchor school among the 100-plus city high schools participating in , a bold new vision for career-connected learning. 

Edison students are also applying their essential skills off campus. Once a week, a group of them visit PS 175 in Queens. They lead 10-week cycles for students in kindergarten through 5th grade in more than 25 different courses, from cooking to robotics and Model UN. 

As with the other opportunities at Edison, Baker said students are getting a much deeper understanding of learning and careers by applying the essential skills outside of the classroom.  

“It’s been an incredible experience for our students,” Baker said of the teaching opportunity. “They gain so much in terms of professionalism, confidence, and the ability to explain complicated processes to people, which is a really difficult skill.”

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That kind of itinerary would be nearly impossible for Gestel at any traditional high school, which is why she chose to attend A School Without Walls, a first-of-its-kind hybrid program in New York City that blends in-person and remote learning. 

“I do a lot of other stuff, so I thought it was easier than going to another school and being extremely exhausted and late with work,” Gestel said. 

While hybrid learning might still hold negative connotations for many students and families after years of COVID-19-disrupted schooling, leaders at SWoW say their model reimagines the hybrid structure for a truly student-centered program — allowing students like Gestel to follow their passions while still mastering rigorous academics. It’s the first public school to win approval from New York State for a hybrid learning model.

“The hybrid schedule is really not meant for students who just don’t want to be in a building every day,” SWoW principal Veronica Coleman said. “The goal of the hybrid schedule is for students to have flexibility so that they do real-world learning.” 

Learning Inside and Outside the Classroom 

SWoW launched in 2022 in partnership with , a nonprofit that supports a network of public schools that incorporate an expeditionary learning model through project-based curricula. It’s also part of Imagine NYC Schools, a dynamic partnership between New York City Public Schools and the to design innovative, high-quality schools with equity and excellence at their core.   

Through support and funding from New York City Public Schools, XQ and the , SWoW designed its program to emphasize — one of six research-based XQ . 

Students were deeply involved in shaping the school from the start. SWoW recruited 50 students from other schools across the city during its pilot year to serve as interns and test program ideas, provide feedback on what worked and what didn’t and help think through the school’s grading policy (an approach that’s been gaining momentum nationally, and which is also ). 

In place of traditional letter grades, teachers use narrative reports to guide students in developing seven competencies: collaboration, investigation, interdisciplinary connection, analysis, design, communication and reflection. Students receive quarterly progress reports and reflect on their learning through student-led conferences that occur twice yearly.   

“We’ve really tried to amplify student voice and choice,” Coleman said. “That’s the piece for us that feels like the focus and all of the other pieces fit into that being the center of what we’re really trying to do.” 

Students learn in person at the Lower Manhattan campus two to three days a week. The rest of the time is a mix of synchronous and asynchronous online learning and real-world learning, including internships, fieldwork and early college coursework through the City University of New York. 

Every Friday, students and staff also meet in an auditorium to discuss what’s going well and share their wants and needs, from designing new clubs to giving input on school-wide policies and procedures. 

“What I like about this school is that you can really communicate with them,” Gestel said. “If I’m feeling really stressed or overworked, they help me balance it out and help me organize.” 

SWoW borrowed many of its principles from NYC Outward Bound Schools and expanded them within its model. These include “Crew,” an advisory and community-building time with teams made up of a dozen or so students and an adult. At SWoW, however, Crew is more than an advisory period. It’s also where students earn their humanities credits by working on their passion projects — student-led and student-designed research projects that are the core of the SWoW curriculum.  

Passion-Driven Projects 

Students select a passion project based on a topic that is meaningful to them and their communities. is another . Working with their advisor, each pupil creates an individualized learning plan, setting project goals that align with New York State curriculum standards.  

In 9th grade, students research a service learning project that can address a broad range of issues, from youth homelessness to the environmental impact of illegal fireworks in New York City. In 10th grade, each student starts a passion project in earnest, formulating a research question through reading materials and interviews with experts in the field, culminating with an internship in the spring to put their learning to the test in the real world. All students will take on full-fledged independent projects by 12th grade and find an internship. 

“The goal is to build that agency and independence while the students are exploring something they are passionate about,” Coleman explained.

For her passion project, 10th grader Gestel is exploring the lack of representation of different body types and skin tones in ballet and how to create a more inclusive dance community. Another 10th grader, Lily Paraponiaris, is researching film restoration and preservation. 

SWoW uses a case study framework to model for students what good research looks like. For example, in January they explored a unit on the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the country’s history of cobalt mining. In addition to earning their humanities credits, students also figure out the ingredients of high-quality research to apply to their own passion projects. 

Some students will devote much of their time at SWoW to their passion projects, diving deeply into a topic while exploring it from different angles and applying that knowledge through real-world learning in an internship. But some teens may take longer to land on a subject that is truly meaningful for them, and Coleman said SWoW makes sure that flexibility is built into the curriculum. 

 “The idea is that you go through that cycle of making and doing and reflecting, and that reflection can lead you to say, ‘I’m done with this topic,’ which is totally normal for a teenager,” she explained. “Or you can continue, but you continue in a way that requires a new avenue of research.” 

Throughout their projects, students get regular opportunities to present their work to an audience, including an end-of-year presentation of learning, a resource fair where students have the chance to network with potential internship mentors and summer employers, and a mid-year presentation called roundtables where students share their passion projects with outside guests, sharpening not only their research questions but also their public speaking skills. At a roundtable in early 2024, one student gave a presentation exploring the rising cost of public transit fares while another investigated the fashion industry’s environmental impact. 

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Hybrid Learning Post-Pandemic

SWoW’s launch hasn’t been without bumps along the way — in part because another completely virtual program opened at the same time, causing confusion for students and parents. That program has since been renamed, but figuring out whether hybrid or fully virtual is best for individual students is still a question for families.   

Ava Smith, who is in her first year at SWoW, said she likes learning online, but ultimately, the school is not for her. 

“I just think I like traditional school more,” she said. “I like the schedule. I feel like here it’s very mishmashed, and here every day is different.” 

The school has its own saying: SWoW is for anyone but not for everyone. 

“I think it’s been a struggle for us to find the right matches,” Coleman said. “And I think it’s going to take a few more years for that to really settle, for people to really know what they are getting when they come to A School Without Walls and a sense that this is right for me and for my child.” 

While some students like Smith might end up missing the traditional school environment, overall, SW0W students seem happy with the experience. Out of the 60 original 9th graders who started in 2022, 50 returned for year two, with 35 new students joining in 10th grade. 

Coleman said those numbers, and what she hears from the students, prove this new kind of high school is needed — not only because of its small community, flexibility and the safe space it offers. 

“Their families are saying their student was at a big high school and experiencing anxiety,” she noted. “And they like this model because of the individualization.” 

Disclosure: is a financial supporter of The 74.

But they can’t succeed if they aren’t treated like part of a greater community. This is why believes high schools deserve more attention and support to fully prepare every student for college, career or whatever comes next. Since 2017, we’ve been working with dozens of schools and systems around the country to help high schools and their communities design learning experiences more suited to the 21st century — for example, by encouraging partnerships with local organizations so young people can see how their academics show up in real life. 

That’s how classes work at , the subject of a new documentary. “,” directed by Lee Hirsch (of “Bully”), follows students from ninth grade to graduation at this innovative Memphis public high school as they figure out how to sustain life on Mars and interview refugees for an interdisciplinary project combining history and English. 

Community partnerships are among six research-backed XQ developed for high schools to create engaging and rigorous learning opportunities. Like the , which we also introduced, these design principles were originally created for educators and communities involved in building or redesigning a school. But they are also very useful for parents and students who want to better understand whether their local high school is serving students as well as it can. Below are some questions to ask when visiting a school.

Educators interested in a detailed approach to the Design Principles can download c, a tool designed to gather and assess evidence about where they are on their journey to becoming the best high school they can be.

1. Are there high expectations and equal opportunities for all students, regardless of income level, race, ethnic group and special needs? Do the AP and honors classes resemble a cross-section of the community? 

These are signs of a , a set of unifying values and principles that give a school a sense of common purpose and a fundamental belief in the potential of every student to achieve great things. in Tennessee, for example, is committed to making students feel invested in their community. That investment shone through when one sociology class solved a murder, now the subject of a podcast series. When visiting a high school, it’s also worth checking whether there are opportunities for dual enrollment in postsecondary courses, which can benefit all students.

2. Does the school use an interdisciplinary curriculum — do teachers combine subjects like math, science, English and electives? Can students and teachers dive deep into topics with project-based learning?

These are examples of Research tells us that young people learn through the combination of what they encounter as learners, through curriculum, relationships, challenges and supports; what they do as learners, through their active commitment in producing and persevering; and how they make meaning of those experiences. Our schools can offer much more powerful ways of learning. For example, students built a hydroponic system through a science project at Purdue Polytechnic High School in Indiana. They conducted extensive research as they designed and constructed a method for growing produce sustainably and cost-effectively. 

3. Does the school ensure all students have at least one adult who knows them well enough to provide academic and social support? Is there a system in place that helps students connect and check in with the adults so they feel safe, valued and seen?

Those are hallmarks of . The science of adolescent learning shows that learning is a social process, particularly during the high school years, and this aspect — when intentionally addressed — can result in a transformative high school experience. Schools that emphasize getting to know students, inside and beyond the school walls, set a foundation for trust that carries over into academic work. At in Oakland, California, co-founder Christian Martinez takes pride in building a place where the goal is to never let a teen slip through the cracks like he did at their age. During the college process, for example, staff guide and support students at every step, from having highly personal conversations about their choices to ensuring that they submit their applications on time. 

Want to learn how to create innovative high school experiences like those at Crosstown High? Check out The XQ Xtra, a newsletter for educators that comes out twice a month. .

4. Does the high school support students to build their sense of agency and autonomy, and explore postsecondary goals?

Schools need to provide A student-centered school gives students a say in their learning. They can choose projects and topics and decide whether to present their knowledge as a research paper, slide show or even a documentary or podcast. Staff members should foster this environment, not feel threatened. The D.C. Public Schools recently published a booklet . It argues that student engagement is crucial when communities come together to redesign local high schools, as in thepartnership, because students have higher attendance and learning outcomes when they’re treated as partners in their own education.

5. Is the school partnering with local entities such as cultural institutions, businesses, nonprofit organizations, colleges and universities and health and service providers? 

These can take many forms. But at their heart, these powerful relationships create opportunities for learners to explore and envision their future and set goals toward making it real. At Florida’s in Seminole County Public Schools, students have numerous opportunities to work with outside organizations and leave the campus. Some of that activity slowed down during the pandemic — especially for those who are now seniors. 

Members of the class of 2024 wanted more outside experiences before graduating. They devised a plan: a trip later this spring to New Smyrna Beach, more than an hour away. But it’s not just a day at the beach, said one of the organizers, Daniella Muñoz. The students researched local nonprofits and got excited about . They’re planning a visit that includes a talk with an expert because it’s important “to hear from someone who isn’t a teacher” about “a real-world problem,” Muñoz said. They also plan to clean the beach, using gloves and other supplies provided by the environmental group.

6. Does the school review, reflect on and make decisions based on data that ensure inclusion and access to advanced courses? Does it use data to eliminate disproportionate remediation, disciplinary practices and other inequities?

Data is just one aspect of a high school that makes . Another example is breaking away from the traditional schedule of six or seven single-subject periods, each about 50 minutes long. 

The has an agreement with its district so students and teachers can easily visit local nonprofit groups and businesses and take classes at other schools and colleges. Junior Kate Ruel says she’s getting science credit this year for taking culinary courses at Kent Career and Tech Center. She also enjoyed visiting Dwelling Place, which provides support services and affordable housing, during a ninth-grade project on English, history, social studies, and science. 

“I found it really interesting and cool,” she said. “I was able to go out and talk to people.” 

Surveys show students at GRPMS feel connected to their learning, and they’re doing better than their counterparts in the state and city on many measures.

This flexibility is why we argue high schools need a new “architecture” for learning without the Carnegie Unit, a century-old system that equates time with learning. When students and teachers are freed from earning credits based on seat time in single-subject classes, they can see how academic content is connected to the world around them and gain a fuller appreciation of what they’re learning. These experiences are important for teens in so many ways beyond school. Today’s high school students are the leaders, workers, doctors, inventors and teachers of tomorrow.

Disclosure: is a financial supporter of The 74.

Rachel isn’t the only one challenged by this and other projects at Crosstown High. In the film, we see a teacher stumped by a student’s idea for making a hologram as well as candid conversations about the relevance of an interdisciplinary math and science project exploring how to sustain life on Mars.

This student-led, creative approach to teaching and learning is the goal at Crosstown High — a public high school built by parents, educators, teens and community members in Memphis as part of the Super School Challenge in 2015. This challenge spurred communities to create innovative high schools, by building new ones and redesigning existing models, that depart from the rigid, century-old model that’s no longer suited to today’s learners. 

As part of the challenge, dozens of community members came together and gathered input from more than 200 students to design and open Crosstown High. They wanted to create a school that would engage students in real-world, motivating projects that would make a difference and reflect the diversity of their historically-segregated city with equitable learning opportunities for all.

Years in the making, “The First Class” follows the founding cohort of students and educators from ninth grade to the triumph of their graduation — and all the challenges in between. Directed by award-winning documentary maker Lee Hirsch (of “Bully”), we see learning in a way that’s rarely captured on film. No single principal or teacher is the sole superhero who “saves” the students. Instead, we see learning as it really happens: through ideas, collaboration, committed educators who genuinely care about students and “aha” moments.

As we watch the students and teachers at Crosstown High work through the school’s growing pains in the film, we see them taking obvious delight in their progress and personal growth.  “The First Class” shows what’s possible when we put our heads together to create a new type of high school. Crosstown High’s journey will inspire educators and communities everywhere to look at the challenges facing students in their own high schools and start the conversation about how they, too, can rethink learning for teachers and students. 

XQ Institute is proud of Crosstown High’s story, and the incredible progress this community made since responding to our challenge almost a decade ago. We’re thrilled to provide this exciting documentary and related materials free of charge for educators, families, students, policymakers and other community members. Find everything you need to be among the first to , , and get inspired to rethink high school at .  

Want to learn how to create innovative high school experiences like those at Crosstown High? Check out The XQ Xtra, a newsletter for educators that comes out twice a month. .

Disclosure: is a financial supporter of The 74.

High schools are essential to preparing young people for these challenges, regardless of whether their future includes college, career or a combination of postsecondary plans. But how can families and students understand how any individual high school approaches learning?

While districts and states provide a variety of data points, many agree these metrics don’t paint a complete picture and don’t necessarily mean students are well-prepared for postsecondary life. Helping all students reach their full potential requires passionate and inspired teaching and meaningful learning experiences that encourage them to think critically. Schools should also empower teachers as professionals. 

When those ingredients are combined, the sky’s the limit. As just one example, Alex Campbell’s sociology students at in Tennessee solved a cold case with (and became the subject of the true-crime podcast series “”). All high school teachers can tap into students’ natural curiosities in exciting ways that connect with the world around them — and prepare them for their lives beyond graduation. 

identified research-backed or goals, that recognize the full range of knowledge, skills, habits and mindsets students need to be successful in life. The framework guides educators to transform teaching and learning. They’re also helpful for families looking for ways to determine if a particular high school fully prepares all students for the future. 

Here are five things parents should look for in their kids’ classrooms to ensure they’re ready for the world.

1. Are students learning to be literate in the fullest sense? Do they know how to read information, understand it and apply meaning to it — with language, numbers, digital content and other subjects?

This is where the XQ goal, “” comes in. In addition to required subjects, such as English and math, students should learn how to interpret and use data, which is increasingly essential in many fields beyond the sciences. For example, at , one student ​​made a documentary about “food deserts” — neighborhoods where residents have limited access to nutritious foods.

2. Can students think in ways that apply art, literacy, science, history, economics, math and STEM — and connect these disciplines?

This relates to “.” The goal is to foster curious young people who are knowledgeable about the world: its history, culture, sciences and underlying mathematics, biology and cultural currency. They’re engaged participants vital to creating a more just and functional democracy.

3. Are students given opportunities to think creatively about subjects they’re passionate about? Can they also explore their interests in the “real world” through internships or partnerships with local businesses and community organizations, so they can think about future professions? 

Students must be taught to be “” In our information age, students must learn to become sense-makers who can deal with conflicting knowledge and abundant data points. How do they know if something was generated by artificial intelligence? They also need to adapt to changing situations. For example, with XQ’s help, are redesigning existing schools with new approaches, like having students build their own businesses and applying the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals. 

4. Does the school foster collaborators who value the expertise of others? Are there group projects where students learn to be co-creators in what they bring and how they show up?

Successful high schools cultivate “,” self-aware team members who bring their strengths to support others. At , students responded to a devastating storm that hit the Cedar Rapids region and destroyed up to 70% of the local tree canopy. Students contracted with local chainsaw artists to turn fallen wood into sculptures and used the funds to “re-leaf” the damaged tree canopy. 

5. Do students understand their own strengths and areas for growth? Is there an opportunity for them to reflect on their learning?

We want to ensure that schools are nurturing “.” Any high school’s role is to foster a love for learning and the ability to keep learning. Students must become self-driven, self-directed, curious learners — about themselves and the world. Many great high schools have capstone projects where students present what they’ve learned and then celebrate their growth and achievements. At student presentations showcase the projects and issues they’re passionate about, including climate change, immigration and gun violence.

Preparing students for the future is no easy feat when so many industries, from STEM to manufacturing and media, are in a constant state of flux. But with a nimble approach to learning and foundational knowledge, high schools can help their students feel equipped to succeed on whatever paths they choose. Next month, we’ll give more tips for looking at what a high school’s design says about how students learn.

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Disclosure: is a financial supporter of The 74.

Elizabethton is a small city in northeast Tennessee bordering the Appalachian Mountains. In the 1980s, a police task force was called to investigate the killings of several redheaded women whose bodies were found in Tennessee and neighboring states. But the crimes were never solved. Campbell thought revisiting them would make his sociology class more interesting for his students while also putting them on a mission. Elizabethton High School students had been asking for more engaging classes and from to reimagine teaching and learning. 

Over the course of the semester, the student spoke with professional investigators, gathered evidence, and pieced together a nearly 40-year-old mystery to identify the killer responsible for at least six murders of redheaded white women. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigations has agreed with the students’ theory, but no charges have yet been filed against the suspect.

Now, their dogged classwork is the subject of the iHeartRadio true crime podcast series — and a master class in project-based learning and rethinking high school.

We spoke with Campbell about the assignment and how this type of project-based learning is key to his teaching style at . Below are excerpts from our conversation, which has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

XQ: What gave you the idea to ask a class of high school students to solve a cold case?

Alex Campbell: I had noticed that in my past couple of years teaching sociology, any time we talked about profiling or things like that, the students were just mesmerized. And when I found out that true crime is [one of the top podcast genres] in the world, I thought, “Hey, people are interested in it. The students are interested in it.” The No. 1 thing about being a good teacher is you’ve got to have the students interested in your subject. So I said, “Hey, let’s use it and see what happens.” And I guess they were really interested because they did a great job with it.

How did you pick the ?

The only cold case murder that we knew of in our county was the . But when I was researching, I found out there were lots of young redheaded white women killed and dumped beside the road in Tennessee in the 1980s. And I thought, “Wow, I’ve never heard of this.” So we should work on it and see what we can do since it didn’t seem like anybody else was really doing anything with it.

You’re a teacher, not a detective. But you’ve done a lot of at your school. How did you fold this cold case into your class?

What I usually think about is, what are the skills and the [standards] that the students would need to do a good job with this? I kind of write those up and then you see if those fit with your standards or your goals as a teacher. 

So, knowing how to research and understand people’s backgrounds, how their upbringing, the five agents of socialization impact them, the person they become. I felt like those were things that we could cover in the [sociology] curriculum while helping the students figure out how to go about this project.

And I think that’s where teachers have to start. Once you say, “Where do they use this, and what are some [real-world] problems?” then you just turn your kids loose trying to apply their knowledge and help with some of these problems. 

What other tips do you have for teachers who want to try partnering with folks in their community?

When it comes to teaching, l choose to do most of my work before the class. People say, “Mr. Campbell just sits around all day while different people teach class for him all week, and he did nothing.” I really think that teachers need to be really busy outside of the classroom and then do a lot less inside the classroom. Let those experts make great connections for the kids, and let the kids do the work—because whoever’s doing the most work gets the most benefit.

You put the work into the structure and create opportunities for students and then you let them or somebody else help them do the work. And then teachers find the resources they need, support the kids where they need the support, figure out where their gaps are in their learning, and fill those in. 

Community partnerships, student voice, and meaningful, engaged learning are key ingredients in XQ schools and partnerships. Read more about these research-backed

The community partnerships in this class were so striking. You asked professional investigators to talk to your students. You also partnered with a true crime podcaster. How did you bring these experts into the class?

The first chapter is to admit that you don’t know anything. A lot of teachers want to pretend like we know everything, but we don’t. I think teachers do that because they think students won’t see them as the experts or they’ll lose some type of respect. But I don’t think that happens at all.

I saw somebody had a podcast about the Redhead Murders. One of the students found it. It was brand new. And I thought, “He’s got a Facebook page. I’ll just send him a Facebook message.”

And I remember he got back with me and said, “Hey, let’s talk.” I knew one FBI agent. And he just happened to be really good friends with a profiler. I just email people. I look online. I look on social media, I call local people.

Your administration was supportive of this project, what did you tell them? 

I talked it over with our principal, and I just said, “These murders are over 30 years old. They’re not really close to us. One was about an hour away but a lot of them were like eight hours away. If the person is still alive, they’re going to be, like, geriatric. I don’t think they’re going to come chase the kids down.” But also, we would be talking about some things that parents may not [think would] be the normal thing their students talk about. Sex work, prostitution, murder. But I sent something home to tell the parents what we were doing. If they had any questions, they could always contact me.

What advice would you have for schools that want to do what you’re talking about?

A couple of things. We did this with some of our grant money from XQ because we felt it was important. We have a community partnership director [a new position to help all teachers at Elizabethton High School]. And so when I need five law enforcement agents, I can send them an email and say, “I need five law enforcement agents any time this week or anytime next week between one and three, would you reach out for me?” And then they do that for you because that does take some of that burden off the teacher. 

Number two, I think that schools should build a network of community partners and invite people to come in, put your name on this list and tell me what your experiences or your expertise is. And then just build a master list.

In the podcast, the students talked about the victims as their “sisters” — the fact that the teens thought about the women that way was so striking. How did they settle on that language?

I think part of that was because they started seeing [the six victims] that way. The students really internalized it and started saying it back to me and calling them “our six sisters” and writing about them that way.

I think sometimes people see young people as not great communicators; that they don’t care about others. You know, they’re isolated on their social devices. But that’s not really true. If you give them a chance and a reason to care about people, it really does seem that they’re really open to doing that. 

Do you think the podcast will interest more teachers in project-based learning?

Something I really like about the podcast is that KT Studios [the production team] was interested in how [I] did this in the classroom. And I think that’s important. I want people to hear that. I want teachers to say, “Maybe that’s what it looks like, or that’s how it works.”

So I hope we can help people. I wish it would start some fire that would burn down the whole establishment of, “Let’s just let kids read textbooks and memorize things.” Maybe it will. 

Hear more about how Campbell’s students helped crack the case. New episodes of “Murder 101” drop on Wednesdays wherever podcasts are found. You can also access them directly through these links on , , , , and .

Want to learn more about innovative ways of reaching high school students? Subscribe to the , a newsletter that comes out twice a month for high school teachers.

Disclosure: is a financial supporter of The 74.

Since making its public debut last year, ChatGPT has profoundly impacted my perspective on generative AI in education. As a writer and former high school English teacher, I experienced an existential crisis watching the chatbot effortlessly generate lesson plans and rubrics — tasks that would have taken me hours to accomplish. 

Generative AI allows educators to move beyond traditional learning systems and provide a more responsive, personalized learning experience in which students demonstrate mastery, not just passing grades. 

“The future of AI in education is not just about adopting new technologies; it’s about reshaping our approach to teaching and learning in a way that is as dynamic and diverse as the students we serve,” XQ Institute Senior Advisor Laurence Holt said. He also formerly worked in the education, business and technology sectors. Through AI, we can also transcend the limitations of the Carnegie Unit — a century-old system in which a high school diploma is based on how much time students spend in specific subject classes. 

Changing that rigid system is our mission at . We to transform high school learning so it’s more relevant and engaging while also preparing students to succeed in college, career and real life. We recently co-convened a two-day summit with the Emerson Collective, in partnership with MeshEd and Betaworks, to bring educators and innovators together in a collaborative space — envisioning ways to use AI technology for transforming high school redesign. Those ideas and insights are available to explore .

After a year’s worth of conversations and observations with educators, our AI convening and , there is much to share with educators to help them make the most of the rapidly evolving ecosystem of artificial intelligence. Here are seven AI in education trends to be aware of next year.

1. Professional Development 

Throughout 2023, for educators remained high. In 2024, we should see an avalanche of districts and schools providing their educators with AI professional development materials to integrate these tools into their teaching practices.

At , an XQ school in Sanford, Florida, ’s Sarah Wharton visited to present interesting ways to think about AI in the context of the school. 

“We looked at ChatGPT as a possible tutor, personal assistant, creative tool and research assistant,” said PSI High School Coordinator Angela Daniel. “In our PD session, we considered how these cool applications could be used in classrooms as learning tools that accelerate learning and teach the tool simultaneously.”

Daniel explained that teaching students how to use AI is a first step that will change things for students going forward.“But to really get at the heart of that question, we need to understand how generative AI can change our processes and resources right now,” she added. For the team at PSI, that means learning how to use generative AI effectively with ongoing support as the application continues to evolve.

Workshops, online courses and collaborative learning communities are also increasingly popular for providing educators with hands-on experience in AI.

Want to stay on top of trends to help you rethink high school? Check out the XQ Xtra, a newsletter for educators that comes out twice a month. .

2. Formal AI Policy 

Integrating AI in classrooms is no longer a matter of “if” but “how,” making it imperative for educators and policymakers to navigate this terrain with informed and responsible strategies. However, the landscape of AI policy development — especially regarding education — has been dynamic, if not lagging.

The Council of Europe has continued for equitable policy and practice, an area where . New York City Public Schools, after initially banning ChatGPT, is now , focusing on issues such as privacy and cybersecurity. Recently, the Biden administration issued an executive order to guide the U.S. in leveraging artificial intelligence. This directive emphasized AI safety, privacy, equity and responsible use, signaling a shift in how AI is integrated into sectors like education. However, it is likely that AI policy in education will develop on a location-by-location basis first.

3. Open-Source Tool Development

Concerns about AI’s ethical implications and biases are sure to shape policy goals. One way to alleviate those pressures is the expansion and increased use of open-sourced tools — programs where the code is accessible and can be modified. , however, expect the conversation to focus less on the output of AI tools and more on .

Ensuring AI tools are equitable and inclusive goes beyond technical challenges — it requires continuous dialogue among educators, technologists and policymakers. This conversation is essential for addressing data privacy, surveillance and ethical use of student data. With a democratized, open-source marketplace, we could see the market promote as they grow in popularity.

4. Frameworks for Teaching AI

Before the start of the 2023-24 academic year, educators and schools were waiting for a . As policy moves forward in 2024 and more institutions develop professional development materials to train and support educators, expect to finally emerge. Frameworks like are being developed to guide the integration of AI in education. These frameworks focus on and promoting equitable access to technology, ensuring that AI complements and enhances student learning experiences.

5. AI Literacy, Competencies and Standards

With AI becoming more prevalent in various sectors, including education, there’s a growing need to integrate AI literacy goals and specific learning outcomes into school curricula. This involves teaching students how to use AI tools and understand the basics of AI technology, its applications and its implications.

At the network, an XQ partner with three campuses in Indiana, CEO Keeanna Warren explained how equipping staff and students with the knowledge and skills to harness AI’s potential promotes effective and responsible use of AI to enhance learning experiences.

“We firmly believe that our students’ innate curiosity drives their desire to learn, and we trust their integrity,” she said. “If AI can be used for cheating, it reflects a flaw in the assessment, not in our students’ character.”

The challenge lies in integrating AI literacy into an already packed curriculum. However, the opportunity to foster critical thinking, problem-solving and ethical reasoning skills through AI education is entirely possible.

6. AI-Powered Adaptive Learning Systems 

One of the more exciting pathways with AI is that student learning experiences will become more uniquely adaptive and personalized with a quicker turnaround. But creating effective programs requires training these systems on some level of student data -– a delicate balance.

As policy formalizes how student data gets implemented into these programs, AI-driven adaptive learning systems will emerge to shift instructional practice. Expect these programs to appear prominently in assessments and curriculum packages before evolving into real-time feedback systems that can inform teachers even during a lesson.

7. Custom GPTs Built By Educators

While all these advancements are promising and exciting, the marketplace for AI-driven ed tech tools will become incredibly crowded quickly. Recently, OpenAI’s maker space for building and using custom GPTs, which both use and are built by ChatGPT, is guaranteed to be a massive disruptor.

Ty Boyland, school-based enterprise coordinator and music production teacher at Crosstown High, designed a custom GPT. (Crosstown High is another XQ school in Memphis, Tennessee.) Boyland’s students use Dall-E, an AI system for generating images, with GPT-4 to create designs and prints for student-driven projects. 

“But how do you create a project combining culinary and music production?” Boyland wondered. His customized GPT pairs with Tennessee State Standards to build a new project.

It will be interesting to see what educators create in this space to resolve pain points teachers and schools are intimately familiar with and what gets made to help schools achieve their vision and mission.  

The Bottom Line for Educators

From policy shifts emphasizing equity and privacy to the emergence of AI-driven curricula, the transformation is palpable. We’ve seen how AI can revolutionize and disrupt classroom practices, empower educators through professional development, and create inclusive, personalized student learning experiences. But the burgeoning AI ed tech market demands discernment. , choosing tools that genuinely enhance learning and align with ethical standards.

As we enter 2024, educators and stakeholders face a challenge: keeping pace with AI and engaging with it thoughtfully to catalyze educational excellence instead of just putting a new face on old practices. It’s the primary reason we at XQ convened so many educators and innovators into one space— to rethink high school by harnessing the potential of our AI-powered future. We look forward to sharing more with you in the coming year. 

Do you want to learn more about how to rethink high school? The XQ Xtra is a newsletter for educators that comes out twice a month. .

Disclosure: is a financial supporter of The 74.

It was 2018, and 17-year-old Daniella was one of our students at Da Vinci RISE High School. She was an artist interested in graphic design and braiding hair. 

But as a young person in Los Angeles’s foster care system, she spent less time thinking about her passions and more time worrying about her day-to-day survival because her 18th birthday was approaching. On that date, she’d age out of the foster care system overnight, lose access to youth housing resources and be on her own financially. On top of that, Daniella, whose name has been changed in this piece to protect her privacy, was pregnant. 

She was increasingly focused on questions like, “How do I find housing?” “How do I prepare for motherhood?” “How will I afford to live?”

In Los Angeles County alone, there are . Another 7,000 of the county’s children are in foster care. The vast majority of these young people, like Daniella, face challenges that would disrupt the lives of even the most well-resourced adults. The result is that many attend school intermittently, if at all, and are invisible to the traditional school system, which rarely meets their complex needs.

We created to serve Daniella and many others like her in our community. We’re able to do so because we designed a school that bucks the traditional model, with more flexible, personalized learning and supports tailored for each individual student’s needs. 

For Daniella, we helped tailor her education to address her changing life circumstances: as a part of her project, she created a personalized budget, applied for jobs, explored mothering classes, investigated the process to access housing, and what it means for foster youth, all while still demonstrating her individual subject mastery on nationally recognized growth assessments. We use these assessments to inform our teaching and to help young people who feel beaten down by standardized tests get a more nuanced view of where they are making progress.

Listening to students is just one way to rethink high school. For more, check out The XQ Xtra, a newsletter for educators that comes out twice a month. .

We, as principal and executive director of RISE, both know this student population well. We are born and raised Angelenos, and while we started our teaching journeys on opposite sides of the country — Naomi at an independent study charter school in L.A. and Erin as a Teach For America instructor in Miami — we’ve both spent our careers witnessing firsthand the stabilizing and healing power of flexible, personalized education for students whose lives are complicated and unstable outside of the classroom. Our shared belief that each student’s unique journey is worth embracing is what drives Da Vinci RISE, which opened in 2017 with support from the nonprofit XQ Institute.

No two RISE students are exactly alike, but almost all of the 200 young people we serve each year have been failed by the traditional school system. Of the 108 RISE alumni to date, 15% were in foster care, 7% were homeless, 8% were on probation, and 10% were involved in more than one system. These are students who may be older than the typical high school student, they might be on probation, they might be young parents and/or they may have full-time jobs, all of which can get in the way of school being their number one priority. Compared with other students across the L.A. school district, RISE students are twice as likely to have diagnosed disabilities, three times as likely to be experiencing homelessness, and 20 times as likely to be in the foster care system. 

Just like any other young person, our students want to be successful. They have passions, big dreams and goals; they just haven’t had access to the resources to achieve them. At RISE, we know our students are resilient and have had to be more strategic and agile than even many of the most successful adults. We work to access their hearts and minds, learn each student’s individual needs and circumstances and then build the education around them. 

In the traditional, one-size-fits-all school system, the challenges outside the classroom for a student like Daniella are beyond any school’s scope of responsibilities and resources. But at RISE, Daniella knew a team of people were there to help meet her needs. She trusted us enough to ask for that help. And we responded by asking ourselves: how can we design an educational track to help her build the skill sets she needs for survival while also building the academic mastery she needs to graduate?

Watch this video to learn more about Da Vinci RISE:

When we first partnered with XQ, we moved through a design process that put the needs of these diverse young people front and center. We realized that for our students, everything starts with a physical environment where they feel secure and supported. RISE’s classrooms are essentially one- or two-room schools, integrated on-site at three community-based social service providers in high-need areas across Los Angeles. These clean, high-quality sites provide a sense of physical safety to our students and allow mental health professionals, case managers, behavior interventionists, psychologists and counselors to collaborate directly with teachers and students about each individual young person’s needs so students can access critical services and resources as a part of their everyday academic experience. 

We recruit staff and volunteers with a keen eye for folks who have shared experiences with our youth and RISE centers our students in the hiring process to provide them with a voice into who comes into the community. We build a strong, small, tight-knit, nurturing community, and our educators receive special training in trauma-informed care, nonviolent crisis intervention, and restorative practices. are among the six research-backed for creating high schools that prepare all students for the future. On XQ’s latest Social Emotional Learning Survey of the class of 2023, 98% of RISE students said they had at least one teacher or other adult in the school they could talk to if they had a problem. 

Every conversation our staff has with our students, whether it’s about their circumstances outside of school, the schedules of their daily lives, or their different learning pathways, is always based around the question, “How can we make school most relevant to you?” We use the , research-based skills describing what all students should know and be able to do to succeed in the future — whether that’s college, career or another path. All students need to be critical thinkers who can master content while collaborating and problem-solving. And because tests alone aren’t sufficient, we use the to track our students’ individual progress toward these goals and toward California’s requirements for getting into four-year state colleges and universities.

We also provide RISE students with personalized, project-based learning tailored to their individual needs, passions, and goals, working closely with each student to meet them where they’re at. Each student’s schedule is flexible, combining in-person learning on two to four days a week at one of our three locations with online learning year-round. We bring in partners from arts, medicine, media, engineering, business and beyond. We just bought a van to pick up students who aren’t able to come to school. Our students are not well served by the traditional testing models, so we engage with students head-on about testing in order to shift their mindset and show how testing can be an opportunity to demonstrate their growth and mastery of academic subjects and recover credits toward graduation.

Ultimately, Daniella graduated from RISE. She had a beautiful, healthy child. She developed the life and parenting skills she needed to navigate into the next chapter of her life as an independent adult and mother. Daniella graduated from cosmetology school and continued her passion for styling hair. She is a RISE success story. 

But there are a lot of Daniellas in Los Angeles, and the reality is that after the pandemic, the stakes for these students are the highest they’ve ever been. The foster population is . In traditional schools, there’s an uptick in unfair disciplinary practices, and more students than ever are entering the school-to-prison pipeline. Even before COVID, California students who experienced homelessness were twice as likely to be chronically absent, . What we’re learning at RISE is relevant for schools throughout the country struggling with since the pandemic. 

Our model is expensive, no doubt. In California’s funding system, we can’t get money for keeping students enrolled and working if they’re not coming to campus or completing school work on a traditional schedule, which is why we rely on outside fundraising. But RISE is more than a national model for other schools that want to serve these students. It’s a movement built around completely reimagining how we treat and respect young people in this country. And it starts by seeing and engaging with the individual needs of every single student so they have the agency, power and joy of determining their own future.

Do you want to learn more about how to rethink high school? The XQ Xtra is a newsletter for educators that comes out twice a month. .

Disclosure: is a financial supporter of The 74.

My dad hates that I wear sneakers to work. 

A high school teacher for 38 years, my dad, Darrell Blake, wears a shirt and tie to school every day. To him, it’s a matter of professionalism and respect: teachers teach, and students learn. That’s how it’s always been. In order for students to respect your authority as the teacher, you need to set yourself apart from them — that’s the power of a shirt and tie, and it’s why he’s always telling me, over and over again, “I just wish you’d wear some hard bottom shoes to school!” 

I used to agree with him. 

My dad was my first role model of a Black male educator. Growing up, I spent night after night at the dinner table, listening to him tell stories from the classroom. He spoke passionately about his hopes and dreams for his students and the kids he connected with and mentored, some of whom became lifelong friends and part of our family. Seeing those relationships inspired me to become an educator, connect with students and work to shift their life trajectories. My father’s legacy became my life’s work, too.

I started my career as a high school teacher 17 years ago. Like my dad, I wore a suit and tie every day. I quickly found a disconnect in the classroom — between teachers and students, between schools and communities, and between what we teach our kids and what skills and knowledge they need to succeed in this world. We were still trying to teach students the same ways we did 38 years ago when my dad started teaching, which was the same way we did things 100 years ago: teachers in suits and ties standing in front of a board talking at students who sit at their desks and work quietly on rote memory assignments. 

We were having a one-way conversation with our students. I realized that in order for kids to learn, grow and be successful, they need to do more than just respect their teachers — they need to relate and connect with us, and we need to communicate with and respond to them. They need learning experiences and structures that are . Those experiences and structures form the foundation of that have a real, lasting impact on their education.

I was thinking about these interactions at around the same time I took a job as redesign director at Cardozo Education Campus in Washington, D.C. The position was supported by , a new partnership between the D.C. Public Schools and the XQ Institute. In my role, I collaborate with school and district staff, families and community partners to help bring our reimagined vision for Cardozo to life. Out of all these stakeholders I engage with, . That’s why a fundamental part of my job is asking myself every day, “How can I break down barriers and build authentic connections with our kids?”

I read about the importance of sneakers to Black boys, that “sneakers are statements that define their personality and character and speak to their self-worth and self-respect.” It pointed out how educators can use that recognition to build relationships with their Black students, so I decided to give it a shot and started wearing sneakers to school. 

Listening to students is just one way to rethink high school. For more, check out The XQ Xtra, a newsletter for educators that comes out twice a month. .

As redesign director, I focus on rethinking systems. I have the opportunity to work with my school community and district to disrupt what traditional schools have looked and sounded like over the past 100 years, and what has been invaluable about this partnership is that it’s entirely community-driven. 

I don’t sit in my office every day and think up all these grand ideas. We directly partner with our students and their families, asking them, “How can we create a productive learning experience for you?” “What support do you need to be successful as a student?” At the same time, we ask our teachers, “How do we imagine a new teaching environment?” “What support do you need to be successful as a teacher?” Redesign is the process of facilitating and systematizing these conversations, engaging closely with our stakeholders, and breaking down barriers between schools and communities.

As the nation’s first all-Black business high school, dating to the early 1940s, Cardozo’s student population is now more than 50% Multilingual learners. We knew the immense learning potential in our student body, so we jumped at the chance to move through the DC+XQ design journey, an opportunity to boldly reimagine what life at Cardozo could look like. As a part of the process, we deeply engaged students, families, educators and community members to redesign education from the ground up. 

We heard a common theme: students were hungry to take control of their economic futures and wanted to learn more about financial literacy. That’s why we redesigned our high school as the “Cardozo School of Business.” We are centering the student experience on entrepreneurship in ways that build on Cardozo’s strong history while being responsive to the needs and interests of our current community.

From enrollment to graduation, all Cardozo students will become inventors of their own learning paths, careers and lives, as they develop and implement small business plans that build year-over-year through their high school journeys. At the same time, we are infusing rigorous high school academics with real-world business and financial skills. By integrating a list of , or “E-Skills,” as we call them, into every classroom, we are ensuring that every one of our students gains fluency in financial literacy, gains skills and experience in entrepreneurship, and, ultimately, will graduate with the ability to approach any opportunity or challenge with an entrepreneurial mindset. 

Cardozo’s old educational model could not have enabled us to provide these resources and opportunities to our students and educators. A more traditional or typical reform process may have treated financial literacy as a garnish on top of an existing school. 

But through DC+XQ, the XQ have become an integral part of everything we do at Cardozo. One of those outcomes is . We are working to ensure our students can take their entrepreneurial mindset beyond Cardozo and continue learning through the evolving process of opening and sustaining a business. This mindset will help our students succeed after graduation, whether in college, the workforce, the military or at a trade school. Ultimately, Cardozo’s redesigned structure will allow us to fundamentally shift the trajectory of our marginalized families and ensure they have equal exposure and access to becoming financially stable. 

And that’s where my own redesign fits in. Changing from hard-soled shoes to sneakers helped me build better connections with our kids. Students started saying things like, “Oh, Dr. Blake got the newest J’s that just came out,” or, “Oh, I see you out here, Dr Blake!” These are things that the students all say to one another in jest or due to familiarity.

Once I have that connection and shared interest with them, I can use that to invite students into their educational journey and let them know they have agency and power at Cardozo. When we break out of these century-old ideas of what relationships between teachers and students should look like and what teachers’ shoes should look like, when we invite students to be decision-makers and stakeholders in their own education, and when we systematize relevant, rigorous and engaging learning, that’s how we build authentic connections and institutions that impact and shape the lives of our students.

What gives me the greatest satisfaction as redesign director is witnessing the same joy in our students that my dad described at the dinner table growing up: The students are exhilarated to learn in the classroom, connecting with their teachers and developing skills they relate to and value. At Cardozo, the DC+XQ design process gave us a playbook and resources to boldly rethink what high school can be — and not just here in the nation’s capital. These tools and resources are available for any community with big dreams for its students.

The truth is that any school can walk the walk of creating innovative, community-based education models for our kids. We can do it boldly and proudly. And we can do it in sneakers.

William Blake is a longtime educator and redesign director of Cardozo Education Campus in Washington, D.C., a public high school that’s part of the DC+XQ partnership.

To learn more about the DC+XQ partnership, please visit .

Disclosure: is a financial supporter of The 74.

Just before the start of the new school year for D.C. Public Schools, dozens of people gathered under a bright August sun in the northeast neighborhood of Deanwood. They were there to celebrate the 50th anniversary of a local institution: H.D. Woodson High School. A prominent new street sign, reading “Woodson Way,” was unveiled directly in front of the campus, forever enshrining a legacy. 

But this joyful event did more than just reflect on the high school’s storied history: it also set the stage for a bold new vision that’s reshaping the whole learning experience for both students and faculty.

The energy was infectious. A teacher’s choir performed and five decades of alumni, each displaying their graduation year on T-shirts, chanted school slogans. Speakers included a city council member, a founding teacher and a current Woodson student. 

“What is the Woodson Way? We need to recommit to it,” said alumni council member John Cotten, Woodson High School Class of 1981.

This past summer, Woodson was among four DCPS high schools selected for a multiyear partnership between DCPS and the that aims to make high school more meaningful and engaging for all learners so they’re better prepared for college and career. Woodson’s community united around a new theme for the school: cultivating and activating students’ passions so every graduate earns a career certification or an associate degree aligned with their interests. 

Launching a redesign effort in a school with generations of tradition like Woodson is not simple. Neighborhood high schools carry memories for residents and alumni, who recall athletic teams and veteran teachers. The tangible camaraderie at Woodson’s anniversary event reflects a commitment to meeting a changing world with new educational experiences while still holding on to the fabric that makes a school what it is. Woodson’s journey also carries four major lessons for other high schools and their communities.

A new video series from XQ follows the journey of the DC+XQ schools and features the stories of the educators and leaders rethinking high school across D.C. Learn about the goals of the partnership and follow along as new videos are released each month. 

1. Ground Your Goals in the Data

The DC+XQ partnership started in 2022. Participating schools create design teams and receive financial and professional support as they rethink learning from the ground up — hand-in-hand with their students and communities. Along the way, school teams meet with experts and visit other already deep in the transformation process.

The DC+XQ partnership also included a chance for schools to complete XQ’s , a tool that examines student transcripts to shine a spotlight on long-standing inequities. The EOA helps design teams figure out which students in their high school are more prepared than others for college and career, often due to inequitable practices, to avoid replicating the same patterns. A previous audit in Rhode Island led the state to enact higher graduation standards. 

In D.C., the EOA found that even schools with high graduation rates were not preparing all students for postsecondary success. To overcome these inequities, DCPS Chancellor Lewis Ferebee encouraged the city’s high schools to think big, without restraints. 

“My responsibility is [to ensure] that the schools know they can go as bold as they need to give students the schools and learning experiences they deserve,” he explained. This could include changing traditional schedules and course offerings. 

2. Build a Coalition

Woodson was founded by Howard Dilworth Woodson, one of the first Black licensed architectural engineers in D.C. and a powerful advocate for extending city services to this far, northeast corner of the city. Before the school opened in 1971, high schoolers in the Deanwood neighborhood had to travel three to five miles to the nearest campus. Woodson formed a broad coalition that pushed the city to pave and widen roads, build a new seven-story building and launch a public school lovingly nicknamed the “Tower of Power.” 

But the Tower of Power suffered neglect and eventual demolition (a new Woodson building opened in 2011). The neighborhood also experienced gentrification and displacement. Meanwhile, the world was changing. Today’s students need different things from high school than they did 50 years ago.

Current Woodson Principal William Massey knew all this when he raised his hand in March of 2022 to join the DC+XQ design journey. He assembled a core team of a dozen diverse stakeholders, including students, teachers and community members, to respond to data from the EOA about student satisfaction and success and to define a new shared vision. But Massey acknowledged he was “very protective of the process.” He was concerned about how people in his school and neighborhood would respond to the phrase “high school redesign” after DCPS had undergone previous waves of reform.

“People often think it means something wrong is happening,” he said. “So someone is going to come in and shake things up via a mandate.”

Amber Owens, a longtime teacher now in her fifth year at Woodson, was initially skeptical. “Great opportunities often come to the schools, and they die or fizzle out, and we’re left holding the bag to keep it going,” she said. 

Though Massey convened the core design team and began engaging others through school visits and focus groups, Woodson was not selected for the first cohort of DC+XQ last fall. (That initial cohort consists of and .) Nonetheless, Woodson was among three other schools — Columbia Heights Education Campus, Coolidge High School and Ron Brown College Preparatory Academy — given a “cultivation year” to continue developing their proposals and visions. 

In Woodson’s case, the review panel encouraged Massey to reach beyond his original redesign team and seek broader community engagement. Massey took that feedback to heart. With funding and support from DC+XQ, the school was able to hire Rachel Curry-Neal, a former educator, counselor and youth organizer, as a full-time in-house redesign director. Students, teachers, school counselors and union representatives all served on the hiring and interviewing panel that selected Curry-Neal.

3. Stick to Mission and Vision

Curry-Neal was able to focus 100% of her time on the school’s redesign effort, leading to increased participation in the process: the design team went from just one active student to two from each grade level. Curry-Neal also reached more adults. “People came to sit with her and talk with her,” Massey explained. “She was able to have more prolonged conversations and walk different school community members through the full journey.”

Meanwhile, Woodson’s Parent Teacher Organization, which had been inactive since 2016, started meeting again in 2022 with 45 participating families. Curry-Neal attended their meetings to update families about the school’s redesign efforts and get input. The school continued collecting feedback through surveys, weekly meetings of the student government association and conversations with families and alums.

It paid off. In June of this year, Woodson was , along with the three other schools that had been given more cultivation time. Woodson’s new model is inspired directly by feedback from students, who shared that high school didn’t always feel relevant to their interests and hopes for life after graduation. 

The redesign centers on activating students’ passions and ensuring each student has a head start on their interests, which is why all graduates will earn career certifications or associate degrees. Students will also chart individualized paths early in their high school career, enabling them to take advantage of relevant internships, travel opportunities and apprenticeships. is one of XQ’s six research-backed for successful high schools where learning is more . 

The Woodson team’s experience showed the importance of another XQ design principle: . Having a clear shared mission gave diverse team members and stakeholders something to unite around. After joining the design team in 2022, Owens found the common purpose helpful when balancing competing ideas. “As long as we understand the mission, getting input from others is not a scary thing,” she said.

Ferebee said he saw a similar pattern in the other school teams that applied for DC+XQ. 

“Once we opened the door to the conversation around a community-driven process, I think people really welcomed that idea and understood that this wasn’t like previous efforts around high school that felt top-down,” he said. “Redesign is about each school’s unique design and context and history.”

We have more ideas for how to rethink high school. Check out The XQ Xtra, a newsletter for educators that comes out twice a month. .

4. Get Creative with Class Time

One of the most tangible new offerings at Woodson is the new Legacy, Leadership and Learning (or “L3”) class. The Woodson design team developed this course, which is currently being piloted with all ninth graders. The school received approval from the district for it to count as an elective toward graduation. In the first week, students studied the poem “Where I’m From” by Reneé Watson and used it as a prompt to write about their own communities of origin.

The goal is to introduce all new students to the history of Woodson, D.C. at large and the Deanwood neighborhood. They’ll leave the building to meet community members who already work in their area of interest. The design team believes this class will help students explore their interests and future ambitions, whether college, career, military or otherwise. 

At a symposium for the end of the course, ninth graders will present a passion project to an audience comprising members of the Woodson school community and beyond. Students will select from one of Woodson’s three career academies — IT, engineering, and finance — that will shape the rest of their time in high school. 

“[L3 is] a very innovative idea of bringing together students who are currently on campus with alumni to get pride and purpose while also pursuing career passions,” Ferebee said.

Owens, who was hired as the inaugural L3 teacher, plans for alums to come in and help first-year students learn Woodson traditions. “These people will actually make this course so much better,” she said. “Many hands make light work … I make sure I let the village come in and help raise these kids.”

In an example of youth voice and choice at work, Wynnter Price, an 11th grader at Woodson, helped design the class and hopes to join as a guest speaker. Even though she’s too far along in school to take the class, she is proud to have built something to help future Woodson students succeed. 

“My ninth grade year, I wish I had a class that navigated the ways of high school,” Price explained. 

As Woodson celebrates half a century of tradition, its faculty and students are collaborating with community members past and present to better serve the young leaders of today. Cotten, who came up with the idea of renaming the street “Woodson Way,” addressed the crowd at the August anniversary event. 

“We always have to evolve and reinvent ourselves but stick with traditions that got us through the first 50 years,” he said. The high school’s redesign journey is a meaningful start to the next 50.

We have more ideas for how to rethink high school. Check out The XQ Xtra, a newsletter for educators that comes out twice a month. .

You can follow Woodson’s journey on and or learn more about . 

Disclosure: is a financial supporter of The 74.

In 1906, the Carnegie Unit, or credit hour, was introduced to standardize U.S. public education. It defined the precise number of minutes students needed to learn a particular subject and the number of “credit hours” required to earn a high school or college degree. To be sure, at the dawn of the 20^th century, this served an important purpose — standardizing an entirely unstandardized education system. 

Today, the Carnegie Unit has infiltrated almost every aspect of American schooling. It defines how many minutes one must sit at a desk in a classroom or in front of a digital platform to learn. It shapes how schools and teaching are organized. It determines what is and is not assessed. It defines graduation requirements and dictates how schools are accredited. And it prescribes what goes on a transcript and influences who receives financial aid. In essence, the Carnegie Unit isn’t just hard-wired into the system; it is the system. And .

For students, this model of schooling exacts a heavy toll. Young people consistently report feeling they are in an intellectual straitjacket: given schedules, told what classes to take, stuck in rows of desks, handed textbooks that lack relevance to study subjects that are disconnected from the skills they need to succeed. For many students, school isn’t engaging or inspiring — it is something to endure.

Students Deserve Better

The overwhelming majority of American high schools are organized in lock step around the Carnegie Unit. Yet are ready for college or a career. Thus most young people start their adult lives behind and will have to spend some, if not all, of their time trying to catch up. 

The consequences of this reality — precipitous decline of economic mobility — are unambiguous. For Americans born in 1980, just 50% earned more than their parents, compared to 90% for those born in 1940, . The “American Dream” .

Compounding these challenges is the unprecedented, painful disruption of COVID. The most recent report from the — the long-term trend analysis for 13-year-olds — gave us a window into just how much our students fell behind: Reading scores dropped below pre-pandemic levels, and math scores plummeted to where they were three decades ago.

This cohort of students is now entering high school. If there was ever a moment to press for meaningful, lasting transformation, it is now.

High School Is the Fulcrum for Change

When high school learning improves, K-8 is pressed to raise standards to prepare students for more engaging, relevant, rigorous curricula. And post-secondary completion improves as well. Over time, these benefits compound, leading to better learning outcomes for students K-16, stronger communities, increased economic productivity and greater civic engagement.

That’s why the and the have embarked on a partnership to catalyze high schools that develop the rich tapestry of skills students need to succeed in school and life and enable learning to happen anywhere. Put differently, we are intent on building a new educational architecture that shifts the sector to a truly competency-based system and away from time-bound conceptions of what knowledge is and how it is acquired.

A growing number of states and local communities are embarking on this work — establishing competency-based education models, offering flexibility for what counts as “credit” and reimagining how credit is awarded. New Hampshire’s “” law empowers students to earn credit wherever the learning occurs. Texas, Missouri and several other states allow schools and systems to request waivers from seat-time mandates. And states like Rhode Island and school systems like Phoenix, Washington, D.C. and Tulsa are designing more rigorous, engaging and relevant models for high school learning.

Learn more about what educators nationwide are doing to rethink high school by subscribing to The XQ Xtra, a newsletter for educators that comes out twice a month. .

A New Architecture for High Schools and Communities

What will it take for all students to receive the high school education they need? We are convinced it requires a new set of building blocks, which together form the foundation of a new educational architecture: 

• Clear and persuasive learner outcomes; 
• Well-articulated and specific competencies to guide teaching and learning; 
• Powerful learning experiences inside and outside of the classroom aligned with those outcomes and competencies; 
• Much richer models of assessment — rooted around a competency-based student performance framework — that students, parents and educators can use to accelerate learning; 
• New kinds of transcripts that codify and make legible (to post-secondary schools and employers) what young people know and can do; 
• Support for aspiring and incumbent teachers to help them enact new roles; and 
• Designs for schools that are not tethered to minutes spent at a desk but focus on developing the knowledge and skills young people need for success in the 21^st century. 

State leaders, in particular, have essential roles to play. Here are three major ways they can reshape the high school landscape:

1. States should incentivize communities to redesign their high schools and invite key stakeholders to be directly engaged. 

In Memphis, a parent named Ginger Spickler saw an XQ billboard inviting communities to enter a high school redesign competition. She called a meeting with dozens of parents, educators, business owners and civic leaders. Together with hundreds of students, they created a blueprint for the school that their community needed. 

The result was , which opened in 2018 and takes a project-based learning approach in all of its classes. The result? More than 95% of its inaugural cohort graduated on time, compared to 80% in the surrounding school system. And its class of 2022 outperformed their peers across Tennessee and the nation in meeting college readiness benchmarks on the ACT in English, reading, math and science. 

To be clear, high school redesign cannot be limited to doing this work one school at a time — nor require creating schools from the ground up. That’s why XQ is to redesign 64 schools and is working with to expand the high school transformation work system-wide. And it is why Carnegie launched the to engage school systems across the nation.

2. States must catalyze high school learning that is engaging, rigorous, relevant and experiential. 

Young people need learning experiences that are multi-dimensional, project-based, high-interest and relevant to their lives and aspirations. Learning experiences need to be authentic, not made-up school tasks. They should build students’ academic content knowledge as well as other essential skills and competencies, like critical thinking and collaboration, at the same time. And they need to be rigorous, challenging every student both inside and outside the classroom and the traditional school day. 

One method to catalyze these kinds of learning experiences is for states to create innovation grants (what we call “challenges”) for teachers, schools and community organizations. This enables them to plan together and deliver transformative learning experiences that build explicit competencies necessary for success in post-secondary school and the workforce. To provide guidance, XQ and Carnegie are creating a toolkit for educators and curriculum makers that articulates what these should look like. Our goal is to spur both the supply of new curriculum products and demand from students, teachers and families for high school learning that is different and better.

3. States must help change how we assess and credential student learning. 

Traditional math classes today, such as Algebra 1 and geometry, are often taught in monolithic ways. Students who fail a course typically have to repeat it entirely, even if they only struggled on a few topics. That’s a tremendous burden on teachers — and heartbreaking and discouraging for students. 

With badging, courses are broken down into smaller components and designed to align with each student’s personal learning journey. Students have more agency over how their learning is organized and the path they take through content toward mastery. That makes math much more manageable, helps young people grow confidence, and will lead to greater achievement in the long run. 

XQ is with and a network of math pedagogy, assessment, policy and instruction experts. Three states are piloting this effort: Idaho, Illinois and Kentucky, and they’re each doing it differently. 

In Kentucky, badges will align with a traditional Algebra 1 curriculum, allowing students to demonstrate mastery of these concepts at an individualized pace.

In Idaho, badging will help provide an alternative to Algebra 2, giving students the option to take badge courses associated with different programs of study, allowing them to graduate with the particular math skills most important for their college or career of choice.

We are also tackling the urgent need for better, more useful forms of educational assessment. In March, to design, pilot and introduce new tools that reliably measure the essential affective, behavioral and cognitive skills necessary for success in school and the 21st century economy. In essence, the initiative aims to replace many of the assessments that have been in use for decades with a much better and different set of tools. 

With leaders across the nation, we aim to build a blueprint for what it will take to shift away from the Carnegie Unit, engage key stakeholders in school redesign, focus high school learning on essential learner outcomes, prioritize rigorous, project-based learning experiences, and assess performance with smarter, better tools. 

We have more ideas for how to rethink high school. Check out The XQ Xtra, a newsletter for educators that comes out twice a month. .

This article is adapted from “ State Education Standard (May 2023), published by the .

Disclosure: is a financial supporter of The 74.

This is not an imaginary scenario — these lessons and activities are happening at real schools around the world. And the lessons their students are learning, both formal and informal, as they follow their own curiosity, are invaluable as they grow as stewards of our future. We can see it in how two schools, in particular, approach climate change.

set out to build the most sustainable school on the planet. Indonesia is an archipelago with 180 million people living in coastal regions. It faces the imminent threat of rising sea levels and is no stranger to weather-related disasters. Green School Bali is a much-needed inspiration for environmental education far beyond its borders. Students at this international school actively learn about sustainable agriculture, renewable energy systems and ecological conservation, applying fundamental literacies such as critical thinking and writing. They demonstrate what it means to be .

A continent away in Hungary, addresses similar concerns in a different way by focusing on alternatives to dangerous, unsustainable agricultural practices. The school opened a vegan cafeteria that supplies delicious, locally-sourced food for school lunches and the public. Students have a voice in the menus, are involved in the food planning and learn valuable lessons about supply, demand and food sources. By providing families and community members with tasty vegan food, the school encourages the community to lower its meat intake, thus decreasing the need for unsustainable farming practices. 

I saw this all first hand last year, during a 12-month transformational journey exploring innovative educational practices in 34 countries on six continents. I approached this exploration as a life-long educator and co-founder of , a diverse-by-design high school in the heart of Memphis, Tennessee. Here, students use in all of their classes to make education more meaningful, often in collaboration with nonprofits and researchers.

For my tour, I wanted to see what commonalities exist among innovative schools worldwide. I also wanted to see how world events like political shifts, war, youth movements, human migration and climate change affect teaching and learning.

As an educator committed to preparing students for an uncertain future in a swiftly evolving world, my main focus was learning how schools across the globe approach similar goals: namely, how they’re helping students become generous collaborators and original thinkers — all while mastering foundational knowledge and fundamental literacies. These guide teaching and learning at Crosstown High and in other innovative, student-centered . 

For more ideas on rethinking the high school experience, read The XQ Xtra — a newsletter for educators that comes out twice a month. .

Student-Led Innovation Creates Sustainable Schools 

Around the world, schools embody the same learner outcomes we use at Crosstown and other XQ schools to prepare students for these immense challenges. 

“Change starts with an idea, an intention or a problem to be solved,” said Green School Bali Principal Sal Gordon. School educators tasked their students with researching the greatest environmental impacts on their local school community. Through an extensive study of numerous factors, students identified automobile traffic on campus as a leading contributor. With the help of engineers, chemists and automotive experts, students developed a process to convert school buses from diesel to cooking oil for fuel, which they collected from local restaurants. 

Each week, students in the “Grease Police” procure the oil from a 15-mile radius of the school for refinement and use as fuel, providing a greener alternative to school transportation. Through this kind of project-based learning and hands-on experiences, they gain a profound understanding of the interconnectedness between their actions and the environment. 

The school’s entire facility encourages this type of learning. Each open-air classroom is constructed of bamboo and thatch, with tables and chairs made locally from sustainable products. Students also manage their own lush gardens at each grade level that provide food for school lunches. They eat fish grown in the student-managed aquaponic system and eggs harvested from the fifth-grade chicken coop. 

In Hungary, REAL School Budapest Founder Barna Barath intentionally designed the vegan cafeteria to serve as a living example of the school’s purpose. In a traditional school system, a common purpose is to prepare students for postsecondary opportunities that provide individual prosperity. At REAL, the purpose is to live a purposeful and fulfilling life for collective prosperity. Students and parents invest in that vision for the betterment of the community. REAL’s educators are creating a community space and showing what it means to be learners for life and generous collaborators.

Connect Student-Directed Learning to Academic Standards

Educators at schools anywhere can prepare students for an uncertain future, specifically where that uncertainty relates to environmental change. A key takeaway from the two schools in Indonesia and Hungary is letting students take the lead in their learning. In each case, students investigated problems and found solutions, resulting in deep learning. There are many examples of schools doing similar work in the U.S. At Crosstown High, science teacher Nikki Wallace lets students take the lead by connecting them with local researchers through powerful community partnerships. 

We need to think big. Assigning simple projects around collecting plastic bottles or bags isn’t enough to move the needle on the environment and won’t truly engage kids. Even though Indonesia has specific concerns about rising sea levels, schools anywhere can — and should — engage students in learning about and studying the effects of droughts, heatwaves, floods and storms that result in crop failure and food scarcity. Here are a few steps to get started:

• Get students to think audaciously about solving local problems. What’s the big issue facing their neighborhood, town, county or state? How can they learn about it? Who can help them uncover solutions? For example: What is the condition of the local water source? What in the community is impacting local water? Who in the community can share expertise around this issue? 
• As they problem-solve, consider all connections to academic standards. How do research and problem-solving by students connect to the learning standards in your state? This is the crucial jumping-off point for connecting “academic” knowledge to “real world” solutions. At Crosstown High, we’ve done an in-depth study of human migration involving people who immigrated to Memphis. This project closely relates to the standards covered in our history, geography, sociology and psychology courses. 
• Get outside the box. Keep asking, “Why?” and push your students to think bigger and broader before zeroing in on the small tasks. At Crosstown, our students conducted an in-depth project on how life could exist on Mars. This encompassed everything from food sources, water, breathable air, transportation and architecture. They used persuasive writing and research — touching practically every subject area.

Unlock Students’ Passion and Curiosity

Helping students find the urgency and passion in learning, and the joy of finding a solution, are key components to solving increasingly urgent local and global issues. But they’re also the ingredients we need to make learning, in general, more engaging and relevant to high school students. Our high schools can and should do a better job cultivating students’ natural passions and curiosities, helping them discover how their unique gifts, talents and interests help them meet the challenges of an uncertain future. Understanding their place in that future builds the confidence needed to be a change-maker.

Luckily, students are naturally forward-focused. They constantly think about what life will be like when they grow up. We can improve the high school experience by activating their natural curiosity and augmenting it with essential skills such as critical thinking, creative problem solving, information gathering and collaboration.

All of these skills are necessary for college, career and the real world. By combining passion, urgency, curiosity and essential knowledge and skills, our students can grow into the superheroes our planet needs to lead urgent and necessary change on the local, national and global stages. Schools around the world are setting examples, and we can, too. 

Want more ideas for making your high school more student-centered? The XQ Xtra is a newsletter for educators that comes out twice a month. .

Disclosure: is a financial supporter of The 74.

Lydia Nichols recalls being “incredibly shy” when she started taking classes at during her junior year in the fall of 2021. The Cedar Rapids program takes students from different regional high schools and requires them to develop community-based projects for credit. By working in small teams and learning how to research topics at Iowa BIG, Nichols said her confidence grew. 

“They showed me that I did know what I was doing, and that my anxieties were just that: anxieties and that I needed to overcome them,” she said.

Lots of students struggle with shyness, anxiety and more. Even before COVID, most high school students were feeling bored and stressed, . During the pandemic, reported feeling sad or hopeless.

But there’s a bright spot. The CDC analysis also found youth who felt connected to adults and peers at school — like Nichols — were significantly less likely to report persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness than those who felt less connected. These kinships are also key ingredients in great high schools, like , that put a premium on and (two of XQ’s research-backed for high school transformation).

Nichols is a member of XQ’s Student Advisory Council, which provides a space for students to work alongside XQ and other students to help improve the high school experience. With a new school year on the horizon, I spoke with Nichols and two other SAC members. Each of the three attends or recently graduated from XQ schools that also emphasize . Below are excerpts from my conversations with Ella Correia, class of 2024 in South Bend, Indiana; Najid Smith, class of 2025 in Oakland, California; and Nichols, Iowa BIG class of 2023. Here are their six tips for how educators can improve relationships and learning.

1. Try Bonding Games

At the start of the 2022-23 school year, Smith said Latitude High’s educators divided the sophomores into two groups of more than 20 students each. The teens went on overnight camping trips to a Bay Area beach with a few of their teachers, where they hiked and made tie-dye shirts. More bonding exercises continued a day later when they played games and interviewed each other at the school. Students then made custom greeting cards for their peers, to thank them for the opportunity to get to know each other, Smith said. 

Educators have written about in an academic environment. At Iowa BIG, Nichols said teachers build in time for bonding activities with games like Jenga. 

“They know our mental health is very important to us,” she said. “And it’s very important for our projects that our mental health is good and we are able to work as a team, and we like our team members and we know the strengths and the weaknesses of our team members.”

At Purdue Polytechnic High School, which also emphasizes projects, Correia said bonding activities take place during advisory classes by students and teachers. Every Wednesday, students would play a game — like Uno — and recount a positive or negative about their day, she recalled. While some students were initially reluctant, Correia said everyone got to know each other better.

2. Show Your Students You Enjoy Helping Them

“As students, we feel what our teachers are feeling,” Nichols said. “We see when they’re having fun, we see when they’re enjoying themselves. And if we see that they’re disappointed in us, if we see that they’re not having fun, then it really does ruin the whole atmosphere.”

Nichols recalled feeling anxious about a fundraising project during her junior year because the marketing campaign needed a lot of work. But one teacher made time to help her overcome those anxieties by breaking down tasks and asking her simply to name three things she wanted to complete that week. 

“They really helped me understand that I can do more than I think I can,” she said.

Correia described herself as initially “hesitant” about asking questions in her high school classes because it’s easy to get discouraged when a question isn’t answered. But that changed after forging a connection with one teacher who made her feel like questions are welcome.

“She tells me all the time she’s always asking questions in [school] meetings,” Correia explained. “She wants clarification, and I think just her relating to me made me feel that it was OK — that if I am confused, I can ask questions and there are people out there who understand … and they’re willing to answer my questions and get me to where I need to be academically.”

Smith said teachers at Latitude schedule office hours each week to provide extra help for students, allowing them to meet one-on-one without asking. 

3. Create Educational Opportunities Outside of School

At PPHS, students work for eight weeks at a time on in-depth projects incorporating state standards for academic subjects such as history or science. Correia said this learning style “sticks more” because “we’re applying that knowledge into something fun that we’re physically doing.” She’s worked on projects involving the vertical farm Metropolis Greens, the Potawatomi Zoo and a children’s museum, all in South Bend, Indiana, where they meet professionals working in the industry who talk about what they do. These experiences, she said, gave her ideas about future careers and areas of study for college.

Nichols said working on community projects at Iowa BIG taught her that she enjoyed project management, which she plans to study at the University of Iowa this coming school year. 

For more ideas on rethinking the high school experience, read The XQ Xtra — a newsletter for educators that comes out twice a month.

4. Make Learning Feel Meaningful 

At Latitude, students often during required subjects. For his humanities classes, Smith studied homelessness in Oakland by researching the cost of living, making podcasts and constructing a tiny house for homeless youth. He said many students goof around when they first start high school, but he’s seen their attitudes change through these experiences. “I think it’s because it’s not just learning something on paper, but you’re actually learning about it and deepening your knowledge,” he said.

Nichols especially enjoyed an Iowa BIG project that involved making a docuseries about Native American mascots in local schools. She and her classmates visited schools, interviewed state senators, superintendents and students and researched what it would take to replace the mascots in gyms, signs, uniforms and more. “We just dove headfirst into this,” she said. “We thought it might be a cool topic, and then we just met so many people and it was incredible to learn how to research.” Nichols got English credit for the class because it required writing, researching and presenting. But it left a bigger impression.

“In a traditional classroom, you’re just sitting there with a paper and you’re filling out the same paper as everybody else,” she explained. “You realize you’re just doing busy work. The teacher is going to throw this paper away as soon as you get done grading this year; your work is not going to matter in one year. But my projects within Iowa BIG [like the docuseries] matter. We brought up topics where people are going to think about this for a long time.”

5. Teach Students to Network through Internships

Latitude High gives students multiple opportunities for internships, gradually adding more as they move into the upper grades. Smith, who’s interested in coding, interned at an Oakland nonprofit that mentors Black males in entrepreneurship and technology. He said he learned about AI and practiced coding at different tech companies. “A lot of people say, you know, coding is just sitting at a computer 24/7,” he said. But his experiences showed him there’s teamwork involved, and “it’s a lot more fun than people really think it is.”

He said teachers play a big role in making these connections. “Every person at the school knows somebody in some field that they can get in touch with and be able to do an internship with,” he explained. “And I think that’s important because everyone has different interests.”

Correia had a biomedical engineering internship this summer that she learned about through her school’s relationship with Purdue University. She agreed it’s important for schools to pass on these opportunities to students. “A lot of students have a hard time finding opportunities that match their niche, as they haven’t yet had the experiences that the adults in their life have,” she explained. If administrators or teachers know what students are interested in, she said, they can help make connections and give students a taste of potential careers.

6. Create Opportunities for Student Voice and Collaboration

All three SAC members said they enjoyed how their schools give them choices and opportunities for collaboration. Correia said that’s important for any career. “You’re going to come in contact with people, and you’re always going to need to know how to collaborate with people,” she said. “It’s important to get feedback and different perspectives on your work.”

At Latitude, Smith said his subject teachers create groups of three or four students working together on assignments or projects. Students also take on different roles, such as leaders or facilitators, as they learn to cooperate. “We can disagree with somebody, but it’s more like we would prefer thinking you build on someone’s idea,” he explained. 

Making room for different perspectives is something the SAC members encourage teachers to do as much as they can. For example, because students have different styles of showing what they’ve learned, teachers should allow more options like presentations, written reports or podcasts. That’s important to remember not just at the start of a new school year, but daily. 

“Each kid is drastically different,” Nichols said. “You can’t have the same program for everybody. It’s just not fair to the students to have something that’s built for one type of student.”

Want more ideas for making your high school more student-centered? The XQ Xtra is a newsletter for educators that comes out twice a month. .

Disclosure: is a financial supporter of The 74.

Imagine a high school class where students use 3D modeling software to create blueprints, gather around a mixing board to produce a song or turn their custom artwork into streetwear. These experiences are far from what we see in many traditional high school classes. 

Innovative educators are using to make their classes more engaging and relevant. More than an academic buzzword, PBL involves students in their learning by embracing real-world issues with hands-on solutions. It also gives them a taste of life beyond classroom walls, especially when a school works with community partners in business, academia or the nonprofit sector. 

Educators at XQ high schools engage students in meaningful PBL year-round. They’re among schools nationwide where educators enrich and strengthen their approaches to PBL by embracing , one of the six research-based for successful high schools. Learning becomes more when students take what they’re studying at school into the real world, seeing how academic concepts apply to places and people they know. 

Here are 10 examples of projects to inspire educators and community groups for the upcoming school year. 

1. Nurture Entrepreneurs

in Oakland, California offers students the opportunity to do long-term internships, particularly during their junior and senior years. Students can spend a month working with tech companies, local businesses, the courts and nonprofits in the Bay Area. When the pandemic posed challenges in arranging internships, Dean of Students Christian Martinez organized a two-hour class on Mondays and Tuesdays for seniors to gain financial literacy. He focused the class on the stock market, and encouraged students to develop brands and messages that resonated with their identities, cultures and histories. He ensured the course aligned with the state’s content standards, emphasizing research and evidence-based learning. Martinez said he came up with his idea for the class after seeing how the seniors didn’t seem excited about school when they came back in person during the pandemic. 

His students learned graphic design with software programs. They also had to pitch their ideas to community members, incorporate feedback and articulate the story behind their brand through presentations of learning. 

Martinez said he leveraged a grant from Nike to give each of his 16 students $500-$1,000 to have their hoodies, T-shirts and tote bags printed nearby. They then sold the clothes at Latitude’s big celebration of learning in the spring of 2022. Their brand names included “Cruzando Fronteras” (crossing borders), “Truth and Lies,” and “Humble Beginnings.” 

By the end of the spring semester, Martinez said, “I saw the spark that I needed to see from them for them to end the year in a place where they feel successful — regardless of whether they go to college or work.” 

2. Make Music

The Memphis Artists United Project served as a powerful platform for collaboration in the fall of 2022 between eight talented musicians from Memphis, Tennessee and the students of music production class, led by teacher Ty Boyland. Together, they embarked on a musical journey to create “,” a song addressing gun violence with a bilingual verse by a talented 12th grader, shedding light on the impact of guns within the Latino community. The song got attention from local media and at youth conferences, leading to conversations about how young people experience violence and what solutions they can propose. Also at Crosstown High: science teacher Nikki Wallacemakes some powerful community partnerships by working with local researchers.

Want more ideas for rethinking your high school? The XQ Xtra is a newsletter for educators that comes out twice a month. .

3. Start a Small Farm

At in Endicott, NY, students designed a greenhouse in their math class, building scale models. The winning model is now flourishing in a garden with multiple raised beds, small fruit trees, native berry bushes, a fence and an underground water reservoir that redirects runoff from nearby tennis courts. Principal Annette Varcoe said the students collaborate with a local farmer who encourages their understanding of agriculture, farming and the marketplace. 

In July of 2023, students added a trellis arch for climbing beans. They also harvested zucchini, cucumbers and rhubarb. Some cooked rhubarb pies in their café. Five 12th graders received internships and mentoring from Kathy, Dave and Eric’s Flavored Coffee Company. Students conducted surveys to determine which baked items to make and sell in the café. They are now working on an online ordering system and backend software to track sales and inventory for the 2023-24 school year.

4. Collaborate with Artists

Members of ’s class of 2022 responded to a devastating storm that hit the Cedar Rapids region in August 2020 and destroyed up to 70 percent of the local tree canopy. Students contracted with local chainsaw artists to turn fallen wood into sculptures. They auctioned the work for Trees Forever, a public-private partnership dedicated to “re-leafing” the damaged tree canopy. Over the three-month project, students had to engage and organize artists for the carving effort, obtain permits from the city government, generate publicity through the local media, and execute the sculpture auction. By the end, their “Splinters” project raised $25,000, nearly four times the students’ original goal of $6,000. A majority of the funds went to , with the rest paying the local artists for their time and skill. Student-led projects with community partners are the defining feature of Iowa BIG’s design.

5. Let Students Choose Science Projects

Student voice plays a significant role in projects at in Tennessee. For one project, students selected genetic diseases and conditions to study, then interviewed researchers, teachers, health professionals and those affected by these conditions. They created infographics to share their research, which were printed and displayed in the science wing to inform staff and students about genetic conditions.

6. Build a Community Garden

In partnership with the Houston Parks and Recreation Department, in Houston, Texas created community gardens in the adjacent 900-acre Herman Brown Park and later on the high school’s campus. The gardens now house more than 100 fruit trees throughout the school grounds on more than two and a half acres, providing many spaces for students to learn about the natural environment and contribute to the community. The school’s Career and Technical Education program has an educator in charge of coordinating community partnerships in agriculture, food and natural resources.

7. Build a Hydroponic System

At in Indiana, students built a hydroponic system through a science project. They conducted extensive research as they designed and constructed a method for growing produce sustainably and cost-effectively. The students then identified how to use those vegetables to address real-world community needs, such as providing healthy lunches to community members in food deserts. Students at this network of high schools work on projects with community partners throughout the year.

8. Make a Micro Museum

At in Sanford, Florida, students constructed a series of mobile micro museums to take around their community, educating residents, tourists and younger students about the history of the city of Sanford and Seminole County. Students met with historians and exhibit curators from the Sanford Museum to learn how to conduct primary research, preserve artifacts and build interactive designs. The year-long project started with design thinking for students to find out what elements of their community residents wanted to learn more about. Then, they built their traveling exhibits on topics such as natural history, agriculture, sports and media, and industry and technology. 

“In an age where history is more controlled than ever, it was amazing to see the students really become energized knowing their local history and how it connected with their own studies,” said Sanford Museum Curator Brigitte Stephenson. “It showed not only the power museums have, but also how important it is to have various ages give their input on how history is presented.” Currently showcased at the Sanford Museum in commemoration of its 65th anniversary, these micro museums will travel to elementary and middle schools, downtown businesses, Seminole State College and the Seminole County Administration Center.

9. Explore Local History with Artists

The partnered with , a local arts nonprofit for young people, allowing 10th graders to take a nine-week course led by Diatribe artists, focusing on the history of housing inequality in Grand Rapids. They learned about red-lining — the practice of excluding certain groups, such as Black people, from particular neighborhoods — and its long-term negative impacts. Students toured various neighborhoods, explored the city’s gorgeous, dynamic and learned how discriminatory housing practices have shaped their city’s look and feel. 

But, typical of the school’s approach, the course was more than just lessons and field trips. Students discussed what they learned and grappled with their reactions by creating poetry, story-telling and spoken word pieces. Teachers wanted students to understand how historical events like the Civil Rights Movement were experienced nationally and within the Grand Rapids community.The partnership with The Diatribe fit closely with GRPMS courses, which aimed to blend history with social justice and English language arts in a way that makes the past feel relevant to students’ lives. 

10. Make Green Alleyways Possible

Students at in Santa Ana, California, partnered with the local architectural firm to think about a new green alleyway project for the city, working alongside professional architects to model and learn the ins and outs of drafting tools. ��í�����ܱ��Dz� became so adept with project-based learning that its school board and the approved four PBL courses that will count towards California’s “A-G” subject requirement credit. The four courses are now available as an elective to all high schools across the Santa Ana Unified School District, the sixth largest district in California — showing how community partnerships and projects in one place can inspire more schools to try them.

Share examples of how your high school uses project-based learning with community partnerships with #rethinkhighschool on social.

Community partnerships are just one way to rethink high school. For more, check out The XQ Xtra, a newsletter for educators that comes out twice a month. .

Disclosure: is a financial supporter of The 74.

I never heard the shot, but the impact of the bullet that struck my leg just below the knee has reverberated throughout my life. As I laid on the ground of my East Oakland neighborhood, next to the bike I had been riding to high school, the first thing I heard was the sound of my screams. I was 16, victim to a random drive-by shooting. When I returned to school six weeks later, there were no words of encouragement or comfort, just the silence of a school system that chose not to care or value undocumented teens like me. 

I came to the United States from Uruapan, Michoacán, Mexico in 1999. I dropped out of high school three different times, and in 2009 I finished high school at an adult program in San Leandro. I know firsthand how, whenever the school system loudly slams a door, it drowns out the hopeful inner voice that all young people have. In my case, that voice was muted for a long time until, two years later, I saw an opening at an East Oakland elementary school for an attendance clerk. People around me at the time were either janitors, construction workers, or making illegal sales on the streets. I wanted to change the narrative. I walked in, applied, and got the job.

I went back to a school building — the type of place that had failed me — for a few reasons. First and foremost, I’d always wanted to be an educator. But those dreams were quashed when I found out that I was undocumented, and access to higher education was difficult and expensive for someone like me. It was also in part an act of resistance to challenge the status quo and disrupt a system that didn’t work for me. And, I wanted to make my mom proud. 

At the elementary school, the energetic buzz and laughter of students who looked like me sparked a determination to become the adult I never had at school. I worked as an office manager, yard supervisor, parent liaison, translator, after-school coordinator, and paraeducator. Eventually, in 2017, I co-founded in Oakland and became dean of students. Every day, I choose to hear my students’ voices and ensure that the world does, too. 

Many of the friends I grew up with felt tensions between school and “the real world.” Some of us needed to earn money for our families, many were bored, and most of us couldn’t see how what we did every day in high school would help us when we got out. There is a misconception that students growing up in poverty don’t think about their future. The opposite is true. Unlike young people with more advantages, we can’t just trust that there’s a backup plan to guarantee that everything works out.

Latitude High School is about 14 blocks from the street where I was shot as a child. We are a four-minute bike ride from Fruitvale Station, by the police. Students of color make up 94% of our school, and the majority are growing up in poverty. We’re only a 30-minute drive from the global headquarters of some of the world’s largest tech companies, but for most students in Oakland, those opportunities will remain distant and out of reach unless their schools build intentional pathways.

Read more about how to build trusting relationships with students at your school in The XQ Xtra — a newsletter for educators that comes out twice a month. .

That pathway to student success begins with a sense of belonging. Caring and trusting relationships aren’t, contrary to popular belief, the icing on the cake of academic rigor. They are the main ingredients, which is why Latitude partners with the XQ Institute. is one of six research-backed for successful schools. Our students thrive when they have adults who know them, believe and trust in their ability to learn and create the safety where students can discover their identity. This type of environment results from intentional choices in our school’s structures and curriculum — like our focus on integrating community issues and culture into coursework.

When I was shot, my school offered no support because of decisions adults made long before that moment. They may not have predicted that specific trauma, but I was a young person growing up in a neighborhood wracked by violence, living with my brother and without either of my parents. A school that saw me and cared about my future would have been ready to support me instead of letting me drop out. As students build their paths, we are responsible for looking around the corner, anticipating where the road will get rough for them.

As educators, we can help students overcome challenges by intentionally using our space and time. For example, we know the college application process is tough for many students and families. In response, we at Latitude dedicated the time and people to guide and support students at every step of the way, from having highly personal conversations about their choices to ensuring that they submit their applications on time. 

Our country asks schools to do a lot these days, but the load can be lighter by planning for what our students need and want, not just what the system requires us to do. At Latitude, these conversations and choices led to every one of 2022-2023’s 12th graders being accepted into at least one two-year or four-year college.

At Latitude, we emphasize place-based learning by tapping into the assets of the Bay Area, including our local Oakland community. This approach to learning has a dual impact. Our students recognize the unique value of their cultures and communities while immersed in meaningful learning that will prepare them for their lives after high school. In 2021, I taught a senior course on entrepreneurship. Each student applied core academic skills to develop a concept for a clothing brand they later marketed and sold at a community pop-up event. Experiences like this have taught us that learning must take place in the real world for students to remain motivated to succeed.

Ensuring workplace experiences and internships are student-centered by matching them to students’ passions and aspirations is essential. It is just as crucial that student workplace experiences work hand in hand with what students learn in the classroom. The real magic happens when each lesson, project, and workplace activity builds on each other to develop skills and a sense of self-worth. Our students must constantly evaluate what they can afford to give their time and attention to. That’s why 100% of Latitude’s class of 2023 completed at least one internship. 

Our students can choose between multiple internship opportunities, from university research to aeronautics. We also have partners in construction and the building trades. Sometimes schools, with the best intentions, get so caught up in encouraging students to dream about a good career that it creates too narrow a definition of success. As a result, some students can’t see themselves fitting into that type of success. In every industry, there are good jobs and jobs that trap people in cycles of poverty. Our are vital in providing students with the options and agency to choose their path. We are responsible for building partnerships that provide enough range of experiences so all of our students’ paths bend toward success. 

I went through high school feeling isolated and abandoned. It wasn’t just at a single school. The entire education system made decisions that failed me. Now, I’m on my way to earning my bachelor’s degree, and hope to pursue a Ph.D. in education. Looking back at when I first applied for that role as an attendance clerk, it was the beginning of me redefining “success.” 

I am fortunate every day to be part of a team of adults who make decisions that provide students with a sense of belonging and the learning experiences that will prepare them for success. I know that millions of students throughout the country feel the way I did at their age. I also know that millions of adults in communities across the country want better for their young people. If we can change high school, we can change the entire education system and give our students a path to the lives they deserve. 

Do you want to learn more about how to rethink high school? The XQ Xtra is a newsletter for educators that comes out twice a month. .

Disclosure: is a financial supporter of The 74.