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title: "Bright Spots: Celebrating a New Phase of Work in California"
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Learner-Centered Collaborative has been tapped to lead phase two of the California Secondary School Redesign Pilot Program. ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­    ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­  

| View in browser September 24, 2026 Dear Educator, If you haven’t heard the news, we’re thrilled to share that Learner-Centered Collaborative has been selected by the California Collaborative for Educational Excellence (CCEE) to serve as a lead partner for the next phase of California’s Secondary School Redesign Pilot Program. This one feels especially meaningful because it builds on work we’ve already been deeply engaged in. Over the past year, we’ve had the opportunity to work alongside 12 districts across California as they rethink what middle and high school can look like when every learner is known, engaged, supported, and prepared to thrive. Now, California is making an additional $50 million investment to expand and deepen this work—and to connect secondary redesign more intentionally with community schools, expanded learning, student well-being, and family and community partnerships. For us, this isn’t simply about scaling a program. It’s about learning what it really takes to redesign public education at the school and system level—and creating the conditions for meaningful change to spread without losing what makes it meaningful in the first place. With Gratitude, California's Secondary School Redesign Pilot Program One of the things I’m most excited about is who is doing this work together. The pilot brings together an incredible group of networks and systems with deep experience in secondary school redesign: Anawakalmekak Living Lands Collaborative, Big Picture Learning, CORE Districts, Envision Education, High Tech High, Internationals Network, LAUSD, Learner-Centered Collaborative, Linked Learning Alliance, RedesignED, San Diego County Office of Education, San Marcos Unified, Tulare-Kings, and Yolo County Office of Education. Each comes to this work with different communities, approaches, strengths, and experiences. That diversity is an asset. Rather than prescribing one model of what a redesigned school should look like, this creates an opportunity to learn across contexts about the structures and conditions that consistently enable young people to thrive. Across the pilot, networks are: Creating stronger relationships so every learner is known; Fostering deeper learning and 21st-century competencies; Providing personalized supports and experiential learning opportunities; Increasing student engagement; and Building sustainable structures so these changes endure beyond the life of the pilot. But what makes this especially powerful is that the goal isn’t just to create bright spots. It’s to connect them. Together, these networks are working on school redesign in their own communities while building a statewide learning community where educators, leaders, learners, families, and partners can share what they are learning. We’ll have the opportunity to document what works, the barriers we encounter, and use those lessons to inform the policies, practices, and system conditions needed for redesign to take root across California. We can learn from what is already working, connect people who are solving similar problems, build evidence about what makes meaningful redesign possible, and strengthen the capacity for these ideas to spread and sustain. For me, that’s one of the most exciting possibilities of this next chapter: building a connected ecosystem that helps more communities redesign schools around the learners they serve. We’re incredibly excited to learn alongside this community and help turn what is possible in individual schools into what is possible across California. Of course, this work is relevant far beyond the state of California. At Learner-Centered Collaborative, we work with school and district partners across the country to redesign the future of public education. If you want support with your journey, reach out to us here. We have been quietly updating our School Redesign Playbook over the past couple of months, and we can't wait to share this updated version with our learner-centered community. Over 2,000 educators accessed the original publication and gave us great feedback on how we can make this resource even more valuable. If you want to know why School Redesign is so important for today's educational context, what makes a redesign journey sustainable and successful, and how you and your community can embark on your own journey, click the button below to make sure you don't miss this release. Notify Me When This Goes Live Resources to advance your learner-centered practice 📖 What School Redesign Makes Possible When a District Says No to the Status Quo. "Inside Escondido Union School District’s multi-year effort to redesign school by turning a community-built vision into learner-centered experiences across every campus." Explore this inside story. 📖 Testing Change Helps Educators Learn Their Way Forward. "Testing change surfaces assumptions, reveals how learners are actually experiencing the change, and provides evidence before decisions become permanent. Instead of committing to full-scale implementation before there’s evidence, teams learn their way forward." Learn how you can test change with your colleagues. ✍️ Creating a Strong Communication Plan for Change Efforts. "Finding ways to communicate the Framework for the Future (or Portrait of a Learner and Strategic Plan) after the initial launch is crucial for ongoing success. This includes ongoing transparent communication, storytelling that highlights the bright spots and feedback loops that center the voices of learners and continue to build relational trust amongst the community and the school system." Gather ideas. Learner-Centered Collaborative, 1611 S Melrose Dr., STE A #334, Vista, CA 92081 Manage preferences |
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