CEI 2021-2023 Goal 1
Colorado school districts equitably, predictably, and reliably produce Running Kid outcomes
Why This Matters
CEI’s vision is that every student in Colorado is prepared and unafraid to succeed in school, work, and life and ready to take on the challenges of today, tomorrow, and beyond. Also referred to as “Essential Skills” by Colorado statute, Running Kid outcomes include the development of academic, professional, personal, entrepreneurial, and civic outcomes for all students at scale, and by design. Because Colorado’s current education systems were not designed for this purpose, CEI’s mission is to support the district transformation needed to achieve this vision.
Our work since 2018 has honed our district level theory of change in ways that are proving powerful and right. CEI’s six design commitments, embedded within all of our projects, define what we believe are critical levers for system transformation, including Change Management and Continuous Improvement; Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion; Youth Activation; Family & Community Partnership; Social Emotional Development; and Leadership. We integrate these design commitments into our expertise, philosophy, and impact strategies and embed them within all projects.
CEI believes the conditions of the next two years – including unprecedented levels of resources, heightened urgency for change, and windows of policy flexibility – are uniquely positioned to enable district transformation. We are committed to partnering with district and school leaders who similarly seek to leverage this time to drive breakthrough change in their local communities.
Clear Creek Superintendent Karen Quanbeck shares about the work of district transformation, partnering with community, and learning from others to reimagine student outcomes and the experiences that develop them.
CEI’s District Transformation Work
- CEI has worked in partnership with educators on the ground in more than 150 of Colorado’s urban, suburban, and rural school districts. Drawing on our deep expertise, extensive network, and established design commitments, the CEI team provides a range of services, including professional development, strategic planning, leadership coaching, and school improvement partnership. We are currently seeing an uptick in requests for school and system visioning and planning that have a different flare post-COVID – including increased centering of whole-child design and of equity.
- Increasingly, Colorado communities are partnering to co- create and produce “graduate profiles” that define their vision for student outcomes as a result of K12 education. CEI supports the design and implementation of this work through robust data and trend analyses, youth leadership, and partnership with community, industry, and higher education. Hear from Colorado students about how this work is transforming both the relevant and rigorous outcomes they are leaving high school with, as well as the learning experiences they are engaging in in order to develop them.
- A new study of CEI & Colorado Succeeds’ Homegrown Talent Initiative documents success in grounding visioning and strategic planning work in locally co-created graduate profiles. The study reports that this community creation of a new definition of student success deepened districts’ commitment to redesigning the school experience and produced legitimacy and momentum to move forward with ambitious implementation plans despite the pandemic.
Throughout 2021-22, we will continue to deepen design commitment work through implementation projects in districts and schools; expand work focused on racial equity within systems, prioritize district school board work around governing for sustained innovation; and expand the Rural Superintendent Academy to accelerate progress toward this goal.