Stories from the Field

“Our stakeholder data said we needed to make changes, and here is what we did.” Rebecca illustrated each step carefully that she and her principal had taken to build the teacher professional development system in their elementary school. The design she was sharing was based on the model I had...

Carroll County Public Schools (CCPS) has been, historically, one of the best performing school systems in the state of Maryland. In most of the academic state reported categories, CCPS has ranked in the top one or two spots for many years. CCPS generally has been a very traditional school system...

Educators nationwide are building student buy-in for STEM education by challenging learners to solve real-world challenges. By simultaneously showing students how STEM skills can help to solve complex community problems while demonstrating STEM’s power to improve their personal futures—including these examples where schools use STEM-based lessons to explore issues such...

Empowering students to serve others through acts of kindness is something we at Regional School District No. 7 in Connecticut strive to do through a program called Kindness in Motion. The inspiration for this program came four years ago when our superintendent, Judy Palmer, saw a program on CBS Sunday...

Richardson Independent School District integrates STEM learning opportunities at every grade level to ensure more students, particularly females and minorities, will be prepared for the high-growth STEM fields Richardson Independent School District (RISD), one of Texas’ leading school systems since its establishment in 1854, is located north of Dallas, Texas...

Dr. Candace Singh, Superintendent of California’s Fallbrook Union Elementary School District (FUESD) is passionate about STEM and is dedicated to providing each of her students an engaging STEM learning experience. But Dr. Singh, known as Candy to her team, quickly recognized the district needed a strong plan to bring this...

When the academy model was implemented in Metro Nashville Public Schools’ (MNPS) high schools about 10 years ago, the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce was actively involved in designing the academies and leading efforts to connect schools with businesses in a variety of career pathways. In the academy approach—with themes...

When Dr. Sonia Stewart, principal at Pearl-Cohn Entertainment Magnet High School, came to Nashville from Chicago, she brought with her both the background knowledge and experience of working with community schools. So in addition to furthering the community schools strategy at Pearl-Cohn, she has helped Community Achieves (CA), the Metro...

Alice Ott Middle School built a reading program intended to bring struggling students to grade level and enrich the skills of those already on grade level. Gone was the large amount of time spent on sustained silent reading that had no purpose other than having students read material of their...

After students in the Water Investigations Academy program at Pendergast Elementary School District learn about different aspects of water in the classroom, they analyze it on a field trip to the Salt River and then take part in discussions with an expert on the subject. This magnet program for fourth-...