Last week, members of our team joined hundreds of innovative, passionate educators at the annual NewSchools Venture Fund Summit. Amid the meetings, sessions, and riveting conversations, we were energized and excited about the work being done and particularly interested in the ideas we heard on community involvement and data-gathering.
Our new school design guide, broken into three broad phases, focuses on the deep need for school designers to understand the students and communities their new schools will serve. This crucial first phase—aptly called Understand—relies on thoughtful data gathering. It pushes school designers to not only familiarize themselves with the needs and assets of their prospective students but to challenge their key assumptions about both students and the purpose of school itself.
As we heard throughout the Summit, data-gathering isn’t just a box to tick. Nor is it something school leaders can do without input from students, parents, and community members. A commitment to challenging assumptions and understanding students allows school designers to craft stronger school models, grounded in the needs of their specific students.
We heard several examples of how practitioners can apply the student and community data that they collect. At one session on expanding the definition of student success, Orly Friedman from Khan Lab School discussed how she made it a point to speak with parents to better understand what students need. Recently, school leaders there posed a specific question to parents, asking them what habits and skills they use at their jobs to be successful. School leaders adapted what they heard from parents, weaving it into the curriculum, and calibrating skills to students’ different levels. Courtney Smith from Boston Collegiate Charter School talked about how she shared student data with teachers and community members to show them that, in order to serve students better, the school model needed a deeper focus on social-emotional learning.
There was also a panel called Parent Power: Building Movements to Win, which touched on the need to share data with parents and involve them—beyond just giving them a voice but, rather, giving them a seat at the table. And the Summit itself lived up to the call to involve students—10th grader Jahari Shelton was the very first voice featured in the opening plenary. Jahari noted that talking to students was a key way for adults to learn about their students’ needs, hopes, dreams, and assets.
Didn’t make it to the Summit? Find exciting recaps here, or follow along on Twitter.