District + School Design

We have a long history of rethinking education systems and advocating for in-district schools that have maximum autonomy over their resources, including the Building for Equity Guide, our pioneering work with the Boston Public Schools (BPS) and Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) on the Pilot School model, and with the Massachusetts Executive Office of Education on the Innovation Schools model. We partner with educators and leaders nationwide to create a new generation of districts and schools: largely autonomous, high-functioning community assets dedicated to the values of equity, rigor, and continuous improvement.

Addressing achievement gaps and promoting equity in education.

Ensuring access to high-quality learning experiences that are personalized to learners' needs and interests is a cornerstone to achieving equity for all students. We envision public schools that are tailored for each student.

Placing students at the center of their own learning.

Student empowerment is the key to increasing student engagement. Students participate as decision makers in their learning, engaging with divergent projects, investigations, and evidence of learning as they develop a sense of self-efficacy.

Supporting educators and promoting collaboration.

Collaboration is a critical component of school culture. In personalized learning schools, teachers collaborate with teachers, teachers collaborate with students, and students collaborate with one another.

How We Can Support You

We build the capacity of school and district teams to create collaborative cultures that value inquiry, leading to improvement of instructional practice and strategies to better support students. We offer a range of services that can be customized to your needs (including workshops, institutes, coaching sessions, leadership training, and online learning modules) and encourage sustained relationships with our partners to ensure the greatest impact.

Personalized Learning

We coach educators in transforming their classrooms into culturally responsive learning environments. Through Personalized Learning, students find their voice and can embrace their individual strengths, needs, interests, and culture. We've developed the Five Principles of Personalized Learning to guide educators along the path to building truly equitable learning opportunities for every student.

School Design and Redesign

We assist new and existing schools to envision, design, and implement schools where learning is personalized for the benefit of each student. We facilitate processes and protocols, such as Data Based Inquiry, to support schools to investigate teaching, learning, and assessment, examine data, explore professional dilemma, and engage in dialogue around school focus areas.

Autonomous Zone and School Planning and Development

We guide districts in planning for and implementing autonomous schools and zones. We work with leaders to grant schools autonomy over most resources and decisions, redesign central office policies to support them, create a process to select new school designs and conversions to join the zone, and establish a district accountability system to assess and support their progress.

Professional Learning Community Design and Facilitation

We build the foundations for collaborative learning groups by exploring how to establish norms for collaboration, how to use protocols and tools, and how to value the inquiry process. We provide facilitation training for educators, which is a key pathway to developing teacher leaders.

Core Offerings
Personalized Learning	School Design and Redesign
Autonomous Zone and School Planning and Development	Professional Learning Community Design and Facilitation

Featured

Partnership

Los Angeles Urban Teacher Residency (LAUTR)

LAUTR is an 18 to 24 month intensive credential and Master’s degree program founded in the principles of social justice and designed to equip future teachers to help close the achievement gap in high-need schools. The program, in collaboration with the Charter College of Education, California State University, Los Angeles, offers teachers an apprenticeship model of co-teaching alongside outstanding mentor teachers in classrooms within our partner districts; Los Angeles Unified School District, Montebello Unified School District, Alhambra Unified School District and Green Dot Public Schools.

Visit the LAUTR website

Partnership

Los Angeles New Administrator Leadership Program (LANALP)

A two-year, competency-based leadership development program designed to train and support administrators to lead and empower colleagues to significantly impact instructional quality and student achievement. Leads to a Professional Clear Administrative Services Credential (Tier II) for administrators who have a Preliminary Administrative Services Credential (Tier I) in the Los Angeles Unified School District autonomous schools.

Visit the LANALP website

Of Interest

Leadership Development

Research, Evaluation + Policy

A Vision for Personalized Learning in Massachusetts

Read the white paper

As a movement, personalized learning holds great promise. Dan French and Diana Lebeaux examine the educational context of Massachusetts and opportunities for transformation. The paper investigates the commonwealth's strong reputation for educational achievement to reveal entrenched achievement gaps and to suggest that the very measures we use to evaluate schools and students do not align with important indicators of preparation for college, career, and civic life in the 21st century.