Last week, Elina joined Ryan McHale on the Pondering Education podcast to talk about innovation and school design. Listen to the episode here.

The discussion centered on intentionally designing school models to meet students’ needs and leverage their assets. Elina talked about how this approach is a path toward equity and strong student outcomes, both personally and academically. She also shared some of the robust insights Springpoint has gathered in our deep work with partners over the years, including how we help school designers authentically include students and stakeholders in the school design process and ground all of our work in positive youth development.

“We as a field spend so much time talking about expertise in education and talking to experts, but actually the real experts are the students, especially those that have been failed by traditional school models. They know better than all of us what works for them and what doesn’t.”

Elina also touched on the importance of high-level systems and structures that can facilitate innovation at the school level. On community-driven design Elina noted that “schools should be designed for the students and communities they serve.” She went on to say: “Traditionally, students and communities haven’t really been considered in the conception of school design so what happens is a misalignment between the school models and the communities they purport to serve.”

Listen to the full episode here and follow Pondering Education podcast for more enlightening and thought provoking episodes on fascinating topics in education.