Public, Private Schools Collaborate To 'Reimagine Education'

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Six Atlanta private schools and five Fulton County public schools will come together March 27-28 on the Georgia Tech campus to show that educating students not about competition; it’s about change.

The challenge? Breaking out of the traditional mold and “finding ways to reimagine education so that attitudes are changed about teaching and learning, with the end result being that students and schools can move forward and transform,” the Fulton County School System said in a press release.

How to innovate in an educational environment is a challenge faced by private and public schools alike. This led to creation of the Atlanta K12 Design Challenge, a public-private partnership between 11 public and independent schools and the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford University.

Participating schools include six private schools — Atlanta International School, Mount Vernon Presbyterian School, The Lovett School, The Westminster Schools, Trinity School and Woodward Academy — and five public schools from the Fulton County School System: Abbotts Hill Elementary School, Mountain Park Elementary School, Summit Hill Elementary School, Milton High School and Westlake High School.

“We have a great opportunity to help shape how public and independent schools work together to leverage design thinking for change,” said Laura Deisley, director of Strategic Innovation at Lovett and co-founder of Reimagine:Ed. “One of AK12DC’s primary goals is to provide an alternative process for schools to innovate solutions to some pressing issues they face in meeting the needs of all students.”

Since January 2014, teams of educators from the schools have been building capacity for “design thinking” as a process for school innovation. Design thinking is a creative problem­-solving process that businesses and nonprofit organizations, and increasing schools, have found to be hugely successful for innovation because the process requires focusing on the needs of those being served – students, parents or teachers – and ensures that the right problems are being solved.

Phase I of the project, the pilot year, was launched in September of 2013 and funded by the Dobbs Foundation. With a second round of funding and some tweaks in the structure and process, Phase II was launched in September 2014.

“Phase II of the project has built significant energy within its member schools, and if sustained and we successfully meet our outcomes, we are committed to expanding the opportunity for other Atlanta-­area schools, as well as supporting other collaborations around the country,” said Robert Ryshke, executive director of the Center for Teaching at Westminster.

Developing a strong partnership between public and private schools was another primary goal of the Atlanta K12 Design Challenge.

“AK12DC and design thinking has been a natural fit for Fulton County Schools given our push for creative and innovative solutions through the charter system model,” said Korynn Schooley, the district’s director of School Governance and Flexibility. “This is an amazing opportunity for our schools.”

Led by Scott Sanchez, a renowned innovation leader from Stanford University’s Design School, teams of educators from each of the 11 schools have been working together over the past year to use the design thinking process to share, support and reflect with one another.

They will come back together March 27-28 at the Bill Moore Student Success Center at Georgia Tech for an intensive design summit and to update others on the progress and begin thinking about new challenges to explore. The Success Center is at 190 North Ave. NW in Atlanta.

Both days of the Summit run 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Each school has chosen a challenge they wish to explore through the design thinking process:

• Abbotts Hill Elementary School: Design teacher work environments in a way that allows autonomy to be efficient
• Atlanta International School: Create a trans-disciplinary, project-based learning experience for students that nurtures collaboration, creativity, and a shift in perspective to meaningful action
• The Lovett School: Invite new discourse with parents around embracing curiosity as an integral part of Lovett’s Vision for Learning
• Milton High School: Create an environment for teachers and staff to have greater interaction, teambuilding, and collegiality
• Mount Vernon Presbyterian School: Redesign the classroom space in the middle school for student-driven learning
• Mountain Park Elementary School: Give staff the clarity, confidence, and buy-in of the Schoolwide Enrichment Initiative and students’ mastery of standards
• Summit Hill Elementary School: Create an environment where teachers feel comfortable and confident incorporating technology into planning/instruction to build on student skill
• Trinity School: Create a way to build technology skills in students
• Westlake High School: Find a way to help teachers motivate their students, so that students own and drive planning for post-secondary education with the help of teachers
• The Westminster Schools: Develop a support system to empower and support a community of teacher innovators in the Middle School
• Woodward Academy: Provide teachers a way to learn and apply student-centered teaching strategies to meet the evolving needs of students

Ultimately, all of the schools in the challenge will share the answers to their questions, allowing the schools to learn from and support each other.

A special focus of Day 2 — Saturday, March 28 — is the “Storytell Roundtable” that begins at 1 p.m. During this 2.5 hour session, each school’s team will share stories about what they’ve learned at the Design Summit and the progress made on their challenge. The roundtable brings life to the team’s challenge and how they are using design thinking to accomplish goals and objectives.

The Atlanta K12 Design Challenge is made possible by the generous support, leadership and encouragement of the R. Howard Dobbs, Jr. Foundation, The Westminster Schools, The Lovett School and Fulton County Schools.

For more information, visit www.atlantak12designchallenge.org or follow the schools’ progress on Twitter at @ak12dc and #ak12dc.