Usually when we think about educational innovation we think about transformation of instructional and pedagogical practices in the classroom.  We rightfully ask ourselves how we can create more student centered classrooms, how we can increase academic discourse amongst students, and how we can genuinely engage all students in meaningful learning.  Indeed, in education, any innovation that doesn’t ultimately lead to the transformation of instructional practices and student engagement in the classroom will fall short.

But innovation in education must extend beyond the classroom if it has any hope of being sustained.  Frankly, our work to launch and sustain a superschool has required us to dig deep into innovations across multiple support divisions.  Providing next-level facilities, ensuring safety (and liability coverage) for students constantly on the move, or managing labor relations when schedules and work hours might shift on a monthly if not daily basis, all require vision, genuine collaboration, and creativity.   

For example, a driving force behind our school design is the belief that in order for students to break out of the cycle of inter-generational poverty, they need access to social capital beyond what the school can offer.  Students need to build relationships with community partners, business leaders, and other potential advocates who can help our kids map future possibilities and navigate the post-secondary worlds of college and career.  They need a support network.  They need people who can open doors and write letters of recommendation and share meaningful advice and insight.  That is why one of core innovations of Círculos is place-based learning.  The idea is to provide a school experience that is not confined to a physical school space.   Our Circulos students are pursuing projects in partnership with community organizations and businesses, which takes them off campus with regularity.

That all sounds great in theory, but imagine the logistical demands of planning what equates to multiple field trips every week. At some point, you have to develop new systems to accommodate the logistical needs of such an endeavor.  Just this week, we brought together our Circulos team with Risk Management & Transportation to talk through the limitations of the current system and continue planning how our small program might pilot improvements that can benefit all of our students and schools.  Together, the team is designing new processes for securing permissions and ensuring better safety.

The same can be said of flexible learning environments.  One of the historical hallmarks of the high school experience over the past century has been the primacy of the traditional bell schedule.  Students rotate from class to class in predictable time increments, usually a different class each hour.  The idea of more flexible schedules, where students can spend more time in areas of greater interest or greater need, is often at the top of the school reformers agenda.  But the logistical task of designing systems that are robust and responsive enough to identify those needs, match them to teachers and classrooms, and communicate promptly to all stakeholders has been daunting.  Technology is definitely helping.  But technology alone cannot account for the tremendous testing and learning that must happen at the student, staff, and school levels to ensure that all of the moving parts come together seamlessly.  Just imagine the planning demands on teachers who work in such flexible environments – where different time blocks for learning, shifting student cohorts, and multiple physical spaces might all be in flux simultaneously.

Another area of logistical innovation has to do with personnel. We’re talking about how we recruit teachers, how we interview and onboard teachers, and how we define our ongoing working conditions and labor relationships with staff members who work in non-traditional educational spaces.  Our team has thought deeply about our process for recruiting, interviewing, and hiring our staff for the school. We wanted the hiring experience and practices to reflect the values and practices that we hope to see at the school and in our classrooms.  With a school name like Circulos, we want to ensure that our students are regularly engaged in academic discourse and reflection with each other.  We therefore designed an interview process that would integrate and model this type of practice with our candidates. In essence, we want to socialize potential employees from the very beginning in the organizational values and practices that we hope to see and expect to see. We perhaps did not realize how much of an innovation this would be in comparison to current practices.

In all of this, one of the most essential ingredients is not innovation or technology at all.  It has been the essential need for humility and perseverance.  Each week our team uncovers new challenges and obstacles.  Each week the depth of the messiness of student-centered learning and the logistical systems around it, reveals itself.  It has been deeply rewarding to witness our team of students and staff who persist in their pursuit of a high school worthy of the title “superschool.”