Stories from the Field

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-...

William Penn High School in New Castle, Delaware provides its students numerous choices of academic and technical programs within the school, including a STEM college, business college, and humanities college. Students select a course of study when they enter, then over the next four years gain the needed skills to...

The single most important factor for student learning is a great teacher, but recruiting and retaining great teachers has been a major challenge, especially for high-needs schools where teacher burnout and turnover is rampant. The Clark County Education Association (CCEA), however, seems to have discovered a solution to the problem...

First posted July 2013. We know a great deal about the high school dropout problem. From the research of Robert Balfanz and others, we know where dropouts are likely to come from – the majority attends a small subset of high schools where the graduation rate is 60% or lower....