Announcing the Innovative School Design Incubator Cohort
The Center for Artistry and Scholarship (CAS) is delighted to share the news that we have selected the first cohort of the Innovative School Design Incubator. All members of this cohort are schools in various stages of planning, all pre-launch, that will open in the greater Boston area within the next year or two.
They are:
Boston Collaboratory School, in the planning stages as a Boston Public School
Through cultivating their creative potential and constructing positive self-images, learners at BoCoLab will launch themselves into a college and career pipeline leading to exciting opportunities within the knowledge-based and innovation economies. Situated in proximity to Boston’s Innovation District, BoCoLab’s 480 students in grades 7 through 12 will employ mindfulness, an entrepreneurial mindset, computational agency and social and cultural awareness to unearth and cultivate their passions in service of the greater good.
Equity Lab Charter School, in the planning stages as a charter school in Lynn
Equity Lab Charter School will partner with families and communities to provide powerful learning experiences that unleash students’ natural ability for creativity, innovation, collaboration and social responsibility. Through integrated and project-based curricula anchored in authentic experiences of social entrepreneurship, students will develop the academic and social emotional competencies to complete higher education, thrive in evolving economies, and seize opportunities to be change agents in their communities. Serving as an incubator for educational and social innovation, Equity Lab will work to scale equity in schools and communities. This public school will serve students in grades 5 to 12. Equity Lab will be an inclusive school serving all students, including English Learners, students with diverse abilities and disabilities, and at-risk youths.
Mission Hill High School, in the planning stages as a Boston Public School
Mission Hill High School (MHHS) will prepare students in grades 9-12 to become eco-literate empathetic citizens and change-makers with the knowledge and skills to envision solutions to challenges of 21st century life in socially just ways. With creativity as a core goal of learning and diversity as a core principle of design, MHHS will build on each student’s potential, nurturing graduates who will be resourceful and resilient life-long, life-deep and life-wide learners. As a high school that immerses students in a research- and design-intensive education through studio-lab practices, MHHS will serve as a model for 21st century learning. The MHHS network—students, faculty, families, community and institutional partners—will be connected by joint, reciprocal activities which bolster our students to imagine possibilities for living interdependently in a dynamically changing world.
Powderhouse Studios, in the planning stages as a Somerville Public School
Powderhouse Studios (PHS) is best understood as an attempt to create a highly functional, creative workplace with youth in grades 8-12. That workplace will start as in-district high school in Somerville, authorized under Massachusetts’s Innovation Schools legislation, overseen by a Board of Trustees, and reporting to the Somerville Superintendent and School Committee. PHS draws inspiration from two kinds of organization with tremendous track records for cultivating and sustaining creative work. The first are creative workplaces: places like marketing agencies, research labs, and architects’ studios. The second are institutions devoted to a craft: places like vocational schools and masters of fine arts programs. Like these organizations, we support small, tightly-knit teams working on real projects independently and collaboratively. We believe such work is core to human development and is essential to enable youth to tackle an uncertain future with confidence.
We're thrilled to be working with this group, which represents a range of approaches and a common commitment to the hearts and minds of young people and their communities. This cohort will collaborate for two years as they move through the stages of design, planning, and launch. CAS staff and consultants will collaborate with each school to address its specific needs and challenges with an emphasis on supporting meaningful innovation that creates positive change in the lives of young people, arts infusion, creative leadership, and long-term sustainability. At the end of the Innovative School Design Incubator project, we'll publish a Massachusetts School Design Playbook to share what insights and support for future waves of educational innovation and excellence.
Stay tuned for regular updates on the Incubator's progress. Please visit our Innovative School Leadership page for more on the Incubator and related CAS programs.