Building a Vision

In 1997, a year before construction started on Southridge, Sarah Boly was given a development budget and responsibility for designing and implementing plans for the new high school. Plans were to draw on the most advanced knowledge about how students learn. She formed a cross-disciplinary planning team of 18 teachers and counselors from across the district, based on their experience and vision of the "ideal high school." Planning team members spent a year exploring their values and beliefs about schooling and researching design concepts addressing organization, curriculum, instruction, and school culture. The team chose four core principles to inform its planning and design:

• Personalized student learning, emphasizing the real-world application of knowledge
• Democratic decisionmaking
• Community engagement
• Professional learning communities

Three years after the first classes began, these four principles have become the fabric that informs and guides the Southridge High School community.

To ensure a strong community voice and a feeling of "ownership" in the new school, the planning team brought community people together in focus groups and informal gatherings. It surveyed every family and talked to business and social agencies, and a consensus emerged. They agreed that academic and real-life applications were essential to their children's success, as were choices and opportunities to pursue their passions.