Cross States
High School Redesign Collaborative
Established in 2017 a joint effort of participating states supported by the Everyone Graduates Center at Johns Hopkins University School of Education, the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), and Civic Enterprises, participating states and partners co-developed an evidence-based high school redesign process with supportive tools and practices.
Our experiences show that as our world continues to change many high schools have not had the opportunity to redesign effectively.
We offer an evidence-based approach:
- Evidence-based and locally customized, orientated—driven by local needs and insights.
- Participatory—driven by school teams including teachers, students, counselors, school leaders, and district staff informed by students, all teachers, parents, and the community.
- Placed at the center of community economic development and social integration efforts.
DESIGN YOUR OWN REDESIGN
“The best system is the one you create.”
Dr. Robert Balfanz, Everyone Graduates Center at Johns Hopkins University
Are you wondering how to start your school redesign? In this section you will find sessions with activities, resources, and tools you can work through as a team or full school community to embark on your redesign journey.
SESSION 1: GETTING STARTED
This session is focused on gathering multiple perspectives about how individuals currently experience your school. It also outlines methods to gain input from students, staff, families, and community at large.
Resources for this session include the high school redesign guidebook to walk your team through many of the ideas of high school redesign. Bootcamp Bootleg from the Stanford d.school provides many design thinking methods. The Liberatory Design Mindset Deck, assists with developing mindsets and modes to design for equity. The Empathy Interview Guide. is a useful tool to gain a deeper understanding of a user’s experience of the issue(s) you are working to improve.
Reconvene your team once interviews, shadowing, and staff design session are under way. Use this guide to walk you through Empathy Mapping and Back Casting to begin orienting toward a new future.
SESSION 2: STUDENT SUCCESS SYSTEMS & STUDENTS AT THE CENTER
This session will explore how schools and communities design Student Success Systems that allow data to help provide predictive indicators of grade promotion, high school graduation, and postsecondary success to progress monitor all students and flag when additional supports may be needed.
After exploring mindsets, practices, and structures in the resource guide and the website, bring your team together to work through this activity. Walk through creating a student success system to serve as the framework that keeps students at the center.
Explore how those indicators help affirm where an ecosystem is promoting student agency, belonging, and connectedness. The indicators also reveal where capacities need to be developed through the insights of teachers, student support staff, students, and parents to gain deep understanding of what is driving students’ need for additional support and which actions are most likely to succeed.
A space to see and sense the larger system interdependence and interconnectedness and where unintended consequences of human behavior – may require redesign. Then, with your team work through each of the areas in the Team Reflection Tool.
SESSION 3: ORGANIZING ADULTS
PRE-SESSION ACTIVITY
Create a visible space either virtual (Google Form, X, Instagram, etc.) or information board, wall, chalkboard, etc. or both that invites the broader school community to respond to the following questions adjusted for your environment:
- How might our schedule allow time and space for the development and sustaining of strong relationships within and between students, teachers, administrators and community?
- How might we create a school master schedule that supports our redesign and enables the creation of student and adult experiences that honor the agency, belonging and connectedness of each one?
- How might we ensure teachers and others have time to work collaboratively while supporting student success?
- How might our schedule enable a culture of data informed decision making and make the data needed for sound decisions widely available so that all decisions are made closest to the students and teachers impacted? Who might need time together, when and how frequently?
SESSION ACTIVITY
Review the responses from the Pre-Session Activity and the potential within.
As a team examine the time strategies found on the Unlocking Time Strategies Website.
Select three strategies your team might explore more fully.
Review the schedules resource to see if any resonate or align with your intended direction.
SESSION 4: REDESIGN PATHWAYS TO ADULT SUCCESS
In this session your team will look at examples of student designed Portrait of a Graduate and Milestones to College and Career Success to explore how you might use these and/or other practices and structures to ensure high schools inspire each young person to identify a pathway to adult success.
After viewing these examples, your team can then decide which of the following areas would be a good place to begin a dialog with the whole school community.
- How might we provide rich universal school experiences (electives, extra-curricular activities, etc.) for all students?
- How might we move away from seat time toward competency while taking advantage of learning that happens beyond the school walls?
- How might we incorporate student/family voice and choice in postsecondary planning?
- How might we create opportunities for work-based learning, job shadowing, internships, and college explorations at the scale needed?
- How might we rethink career pathways and personalized postsecondary journeys for students?
- How might we support ongoing college and career planning programming that starts in freshman year, including family awareness/communication, and college admissions counseling?
- How might we connect students to social networks that support trust building and align to adult success?
- How might high school be more like postsecondary experiences?
THE ABCs OF REDESIGN
In addition to the traditional ABCs of Attendance, Behavior, and Course Performance, the evidence base shows redesign also benfits greatly by developing capacities for agency, belonging, and connectedness that nurtures a culture of equity in our school communities.
Agency
The ability to take action and/or choose what action to take.
Belonging
Being accepted as you truly are and as an equal participant in how things are created.
Connectedness
Engaging in meaningful activities with supportive adults and peers where you are seen, heard, and valued.
building relationships
Humans are relational beings, and we are in relationship with ourselves, other humans, and events. Schools are spaces where the energy those connections generate can establish an environment that allows each member to experience agency, belonging and connectedness.
To create school communities that allow each individual to flourish we must first understand the significance of relationships. In this video, three High School Redesign Principals discuss how they have developed trust-filled relationships as the foundation of their redesign process.
Building and fostering postivie relationships inside and outside school are vital to implementing a sustainable redesign.
Shifting Mindsets
Putting relationships at the heart of redesign often means shifting existing mindsets.
What the Evidence Says
Using evidence-based research and approaches to build positive relationships.
REDESIGN FRAMEWORK
The High School Redesign Collaborative is built around a positive, hopeful, future-orientated framework to redesign schools for the 21st Century. We organize the evidence base into four key drivers of student outcomes that schools can directly influence and impact.
Organizing Adults
Organizing teachers, administrators, partners, parents and students daily interactions to leave them more satisfied, productive, supported, connected, and engaged.
Students at the Center
Focusing high school redesign efforts on always keeping students at the center of their educational experiences.
Teaching & Learning
Focusing on how to best stage and sequence teach and learning to build the necessary teacher, leader, and student capacities in supportive and achievable manners.
Postsecondary Pathways
Redesigning all students’ postsecondary pathways to focus on high school as a beginning not an ending.
About Us
The Cross State High School Redesign Collaborative (CSHSC) was established in 2017 and is a joint effort of participating states supported by the Everyone Graduates Center at Johns Hopkins University School of Education, the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), and Civic Enterprises. The participating states and partners are co-developing an evidence-based high school redesign process with supportive tools and practices.
Designing Education
A podcast hosted by Robert Balfanz, director of the Everyone Graduates Center
Now in its third season, Designing Education features conversations with leaders in education from around the country on bold new ideas and research-based strategies for redesigning American education to engage all students more effectively and equip them for the challenges of today’s workplace and world.