High Tech High Unboxed

Episode Notes Juli Coleman, Chief of Improvement for School Networks at the CORE Districts in California talks to Dr. Brandi Nicole Hinnant-Crawford, an Associate Professor of Educational Leadership, Clemson University, Dr. Louis Gomez, a Distinguished Professor of Education and Information Studies at UCLA, about doing improvement with the goal of advancing equity in education during the current moment. Learn more about continuous improvement Every other week, we publish a newsletter with great resources like this one, sign up for it here!

Episode Notes In this live recording from the 2026 National Summit for Improvement in Education, Partners in School Innovation CEO Derek Mitchell interviews Tenette Smith and Elise Brown about their roles in Mississippi's extraordinary improvement in reading, and how they are bringing the lessons from that into their new work in Maryland. Learn more about continuous improvement Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Episode Notes In this live crossover event for the National Summit on Improvement in Education and the Deeper Learning Conference, Alec Patton interviews Ben Daley, Jim May, and Ash Vasudeva about what deeper learning and continuous improvement have to offer each other. Learn more about deeper learning Learn more about continuous improvement Click here to learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education ****

Alec Patton talks to Patrick Yurick about how High Tech High Chula Vista came together to create a mural as a memorial to one of its students, Sean Fuchs. This episode is about a disturbing subject—we don't recommend listening with kids around. Episode Resources: Photos of the completed mural (both versions) and more "Choosing Sean," an article Patrick Yurick wrote for Unboxed The Imagine Mural in Changing the Subject __Sean Fuchs performing the poem that inspired the Imagine Mural Every other week, we publish a newsletter with great resources like this one, sign up for it here! Click here to learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Episode Notes In this episode, Stacey Caillier talks to Cornelius Minor about what it means to be bold in education right now, and the journey he and his colleagues took from observing a problem to making meaningful change with students. Every other week, we publish a newsletter with great resources like this one, sign up for it here! What are you waiting for? Sign up for National Summit for Improvement in Education or The Deeper Learning Conference (March 30-April 1st)! this Learn all about Cornelius Minor and The Minor Collective here. Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Episode Notes Alec talks to Robyn Snyder, Director of Supplemental Services at Clovis Unified School District, Ray Gamez, the principal of Janet L. Young Elementary School, and JJ Donat, who’s the guidance instructional specialist at Janet L. Young, about how that school cut the suspension rate for African-American students from 8.7%. to 4.2% in a single year. Every other week, we publish a newsletter with great resources like this one, sign up for it here! What are you waiting for, register for the National Summit for Improvement in Education before you miss out! If you're looking for a good introduction to Continuous Improvement in education, start here.

Alec Patton talks to Beverley Jenkins and Kate Hogan of the System Improvement Leads Networked Improvement Community and Nicole Leveille of Cloverdale Unified School District about how Cloverdale dramatically increased the percentage of students with IEPs in the general education population, and cut chronic absenteeism among students with disabilities in half. Every other week, we publish a newsletter with great resources like this one, sign up for it here! What are you waiting for, register for the National Summit for Improvement in Education before you miss out! Episode Notes: Unboxed here ! systemimprovement.org caltan.info linked here Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Episode Notes Alec Patton talks to Liz Chu, Executive Director of the Center for Public Research and Leadership (CPRL) at Columbia University, about the new book she co-authored, The Learning Hive: Leading Collective Innovation to Transform Education Systems. __ Every other week, we publish a newsletter with great resources like this one, sign up for it here! What are you waiting for, register for the National Summit for Improvement in Education before you miss out! Referenced in this episode: The Learning Hive: Leading Collective Innovation to Transform Systems (Teachers College Press 2025) by Elizabeth Chu, Andrea Clay, Ayeola Kinlaw, and Meghan Snyder An Innovative New Vision of Leadership and Governance in Education: Learning Hives Show What's Possible (Teachers College Press blog) The CARPE network Partners in School Innovation Click here to learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Episode Notes In this episode, Alec Patton talks to math teachers Sunny Chan and Sandy Tu, and improvement coach Amanda Meyer, about Fremont High School's remarkable success at improving ninth-grade on track. Every other week, the High Tech High Graduate School of Education publishes a newsletter with great resources like this one, sign up for it here! Amanda is going to be talking about her work on ninth-grade on track in Oakland at the National Summit for Improvement in Education. It'll be like experiencing this podcast episode in 3D! Book now so you don't miss out! Resources mentioned in the episode: The Gradebook Audit protocol mentioned in the episode was co-developed between educators in Oakland Unified and the Breakthrough Success Community To learn more about the Breakthrough Success Community and how to join, visit https://www.btsc.coredistricts.org/ Click here to learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Episode Notes Alec Patton talks to teacher High School teacher Karen Shaffran and student Alegria Vargas about how their class created a socially conscious cosmetics business, featuring products made from plants grown hydroponically in a storage room! Every other week, we publish a newsletter with great resources like this one, sign up for it here! Listen to our podcast miniseries about Cheltenham High School's PBL program here See photos from the PBL Farmacy Project here Click here to learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Episode Notes Alec Patton talks to Tammy Unck, Maria Smith, and Uchenna Lewis about Bernal Intermediate School's work with part Partners in School Innovation on improving outcomes for multilingual learners, using techniques such as "shadow a student" and elements of the AVID curriculum. The result was remarkable: During the 2022-2023 school year, Bernal achieved a 250% increase in the rate of multilingual learners reclassified to fluent English proficient status! Check out Ivannia Soto's Shadowing Multilingual Learners** Also Tan Huynh and Beth Skelton's Long-Term Success for Experienced Multilinguals* * What are you waiting for, register for the National Summit for Improvement in Education before you miss out! Check out this Blog Post from Partners in School Innovation with resources for student shadowing and so much more! Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Episode Notes Alec Patton talks to Lincoln High School Principal Melissa Agudelo about the challenges of bringing exhibitions of student learning to a large urban high school, and how they made it successful by literally doing everything all at once. Want do bring exhibitions to your school, or take your exhibition game to the next level? Check out our resources here! Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Episode Notes Alec Patton talks to Michael McDonald, Steven Rinaldo, and Tarima Levine about how Yonkers Public Schools and Bank Street Education Center improved eighth grade math proficiency particularly for students who are Black, Latinx, or experiencing poverty. Learn more about the curriculum Yonkers used, i-Ready Mathematics Read this Case Study to learn more about Yonkers' work Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Episode Notes Alec Patton talks to PBLWorks Lead National Faculty in Math Bryon Demerson about why led him to shift from being a highly successful "traditional" math teacher to embracing project-based learning. Read Bryon's blog post: Overcoming PBL Hesitancy in the Math Classroom: A Teacher's Journey Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Episode Notes Alec Patton talks to Dr. Kim Carter, superintendent of Battle Creek Public Schools in Michigan, about how her district broke a pattern of outmigration through building relationships with families and local businesses and nonprofits based on transparency and LOTS of conversations. Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Episode Notes Alec Patton talks to Paola-Capo Garcia about "Politics of the Personal," the twelfth-grade English project she created in which students chose a topic of personal interest to write an essay about—and create a piñata Read more of Paola's poetry Learn how you can do professional development with Paola and the rest of the team Learn more about the San Diego Teacher Residency Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Episode Notes Bell Middle School reduced its D/F rate from from 51% in 2022 to 28% in 2024. That's a 23 percentage point reduction. Even more impressive, for low income students, the D/F rate was 67% in 2022, and Bell cut it by more than half, down to 29% in 2024. In this episode, Alec Patton talks to science teacher Teddy Meckstroth about how they did it. Mentioned in this episode: Grading for EquityarticlevideoThe CARE Network Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Episode Notes Alec Patton talks to Derek Mitchell, CEO of Partners in School Innovation, about his daily reading rituals. Mentioned in the episode: Making the Second GhettoChurchill and the JewsThe Change MonsterLeading EquityThe Powder Mage Trilogy Derek’s recommendations to get started: Morning reading: Dreams from my Father Lunch reading: Only Connect Evening reading: Stranger in a Strange Land

Episode Notes In this episode, Alec Patton talks to Maria Curtis, director of the Early Childhood Center at La Jolla Country Day School, in California, and Junior Kindergarten teacher Kristin Owen, about how they turned the discovery of a mud nest being built outside a classroom into a year-long project. You can see photos from the project, including photos of the book, here (as soon as the link is live). This episode is part of an occasional series on Regenerative Education. Here are the other episodes in the series (so far): Derek Mitchell and Scott Sampson on Regenerative EducationGreen School: Regenerative Education in the Balinese JungleGreen School Student Louis LacourA Story of Butterflies, Regeneration, and HopeSolar for All Schools [guest episode from the Climify podcast] Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education