Building Community

NGLC invites New England teams to apply for the Innovative Schools Virtual Learning Excursion

Is your community thinking about making high school more relevant and engaging for students?

Are you curious to see how other school districts have approached innovation?

Would you like to bring uplifting connections, inspiring practices, and experienced advice to help your community—educators, parents, students, and community leaders alike—consider how high school could better prepare all students for success?

Next Generation Learning Challenges and the Barr Foundation invite New England-based, high school-focused, public school teams to apply for the upcoming Innovative Schools Virtual Learning Excursion. This excursion features Mission Vista High School and Vista Unified School District, a district that is redesigning the learning experience for students and has deeply involved its community in the effort.

The application is due September 8. Now is the time to assemble a team, prepare your application, and begin looking forward to new possibilities for learning in your high schools.

Learn more about the application process.

The virtual learning excursion takes place September–December 2022, with a learning showcase on April 5, 2023. Independent team-based activities, guided by NGLC, connect the learning experience to your team’s goals, and interactive virtual sessions provide for deeper engagement with NGLC & Vista representatives.

• Learn how Mission Vista High School focuses on learners’ strengths, interests, and values as well as academic rigor to support student-centered learning.
• Discover the strategies they use to personalize for both students and teachers while advancing their school and district goals.
• Find out how district leaders create the conditions—such as distributed leadership and a culture of innovation—in which innovative teaching and learning can flourish.
• See how the district’s initiatives all work together to transform learning for equity, wellbeing, and postsecondary success.

We invite teams that represent multiple roles—educators, parents, students, and key community members, such as business leaders, leaders of community organizations, school board members, local government officials, and others. Each team member has a unique and important contribution to make to improve the learning experience for students, and the program is specifically designed for the mix of perspectives each team member brings.

Teams will be able to apply what they learn from Vista to spark and support transforming teaching and learning within their own schools and districts. Teams will develop a plan that will help them use one or two key ideas they learn from the excursion in their own efforts to redesign an aspect of their learning model.

To find out if this virtual learning excursion is a good fit for your team, discover more about Mission Vista’s learning model and Vista Unified’s district system with the podcasts and multimedia stories we prepared with their educators and partners.

Applications are due by 5:00 p.m. ET on Thursday, September 8, 2022 and mini-grants are provided. Are you ready to explore district and high school strategies in support of personalized, next gen learning? Visit the Virtual Learning Excursions site to learn more and get started on your application today!

Photo at top of Vista Unified students courtesy of NGLC.