What’s Beyond the Institute?: Living Our Mission with Our Partnership Schools

When the Summer Institute wraps each July, we dive into the work with our Partnerships Schools, or the roughly 20 districts, schools, dioceses, and classrooms, engaged in sustained learning transformation alongside our organization.

Together, we collaborate and design learning experiences that use authentic strategies like service‑learning, project‑based learning, STEAM/STEM design thinking, and practical “authentic learning tomorrow” hacks that teachers can use right away, and we support administrators with authentic leadership strategies, consulting, and transformation designs.

Here are a few long‑term projects for 2025-2026 that show how we live our mission:

Strategic Expansion & Sustainability

Our most established Partnership Schools focus on strategic expansion and sustainability of their directional systems rooted in authentic learning. We will continue to partner with Upper Arlington City Schools, St. Christopher Catholic School (formerly Trinity School) (Franklin County), and Tallmadge City Schools (Summit County) to enhance opportunities for authenticity and agency for both students and teachers. 

Secondary Mathematics

At United Local Schools (Columbiana County), year three of their new directional system is underway and the ribbon cutting for new buildings, designed for authentic learning, happens August 16, 2025!  We will also reimagine middle and high school math through authentic learning and collaboration with nearby Tallmadge City Schools’ Math Department.

A Portrait of a Graduate Defines a New Building

Monroe Local Schools (Butler County) recently passed a bond issue for a new high school, so in partnership with the Fanning Howey architecture and design firm, we’ll use visioning strategies anchored in Monroe’s Portrait of a Graduate to create a facility where reimagined design supports reimagined learning!

New Authentic Learning Cohorts

At Fairbanks Local (Union County) and Galion City (Morrow County), we’re launching our first cohorts in August 2025! Our cohort model is framed with teacher-agency and organized for systems change. Small, interest-based teacher teams meet four to five times a year to upskill, connect with the joy of teaching, and change learning with us!

Mission Aligned Initiatives

We will continue to collaborate with our mission-aligned partners, such as The Columbus Foundation, Magnified Giving, Ohio ESC Association, and student groups on our varied projects, all of which inspire new ways of learning, leadership, and real‑world purpose.

Design Incubators

Our design incubators, such as the one at Delaware Area Career Center in 2025 that was centered on imagining a new kind of career readiness across the disciplines, are also on tap for 2025-2026! We can’t wait to meet teachers in these very productive, collaborative sessions.

Designing the Future

And, finally, we will continue to promote a new career awareness curriculum for middle schoolers, Designing the Future, to support the current state and national interests in work-based learning and redefining what it means to be future-ready. What’s unique about this curriculum?  Unit plans, with decades of fine tuning, help kids discover their talents, interests, and passions that will take us to a better world — and ensure career awareness in the process!

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In every district and on each project, our work takes a unique shape, but it always serves one mission: making learning irresistible, purposeful beyond academics, and powerful in shaping confident, creative, curious students ready to design the future.

We’re grateful for every opportunity we have to do this important work!