Good morning IA families,

It was nice to be back in the building this Friday. Several teachers and I took a trip out to California to see some of the most successful schools that look at unique programming similar to ours. The school board and cabinet went to visit many of these same schools before IA opened, and we wanted to have a chance to see these schools in action. We had a great time visiting High Tech High, Design Tech or d.tech as well as several others. The schools were great, and we have a lot of great information to share with our staff and students, but our most overwhelming response to the visits is that we are absolutely on the right track. The programming that our teachers have developed at IA stands up well to these more experienced schools. I am both more confident in our mission and execution than ever before.

We will share out more information about these trips in next week’s Beacon.

I also wanted to share a great article I read on the flight back. Dr. Heidi Gardner, a professor at Harvard Law School, shares some thoughts on the impact of collaboration for the workforce.

If you don’t have time to tackle the whole article, the main gist is that learning the important skills that help us collaborate well, including empathy, intellectual humility, openness, appreciation for your teammates, and others will help people become more effective in the modern workforce. Our focus on collaborative projects goes a long way to help our students develop these intangible skills.

I hope you all have a fantastic weekend.

Scott Kent

Related Posts