The small school is part of the Santa Ana Unified School District (SAUSD), the sixth-largest district in California, where 32 percent of students are English learners and 71 percent of students are eligible for free and reduced-price meals. During the XQ Super School challenge, community members wanted to design a school that could give first-generation Americans and students from low-wealth communities access to the resources and opportunities surrounding them in the famously wealthy Orange County.

They came up with Círculos: an innovative approach to connect students with the county’s industry, arts, and culture through powerful place-based and project-based learning. Círculos started as a small pilot program before launching in 2018-19 as an option for high school students housed at the Advanced Learning Academy, a district-dependent charter school. Círculos serves more than 160 students. The graduating class of 2022 consisted of 12 seniors, with more than double that number in 2023. The school has been sharing its success with project-based learning by creating four PBL classes that are state-approved and available to any school in the district.

Caring, trusting relationships

Every student at Círculos is part of a learning circle of peers, teachers, and mentors. The school has an AP for All policy. It also uses a Socratic-style workshop format so students are seen and heard daily and encouraged to develop and cultivate their voices and discuss their goals, victories, and setbacks with teachers and peers. Social and Emotional Learning is embedded into the fabric of the school’s design, which fosters a strong community asset-based community and a sense of belonging—students don’t always know who has special needs or is still learning English. “Our teachers see us as people,” said one student.

Youth voice and choice

Students at Círculos are given space inside and outside of their academic settings to flourish. There are numerous opportunities for students to exercise voice, agency, and input on key decisions and to have agency in choosing learning experiences that reflect their interests and also leading their peers in learning. A 9th-grade project involved building something, and one student chose a clinic because Santa Ana is an expensive place in need of low-cost healthcare and free services. During Community Week, students can choose Passion Sessions—classes where they want to learn something specific—that can be taught by fellow students during a club like robotics. 

Community partnerships

Students work on projects with a wide range of local organizations, including the Santa Ana Business Council, Santa Ana Public Works Department, Well-Beings Studio, Visioneering Studios, and Latino Health Access. Educators at Círculos integrate these place-based projects with interdisciplinary courses. Projects are aligned with the school’s competency framework. To ensure that community partners share an authentic understanding of these competencies, Círculos educators work with community partners to co-create lessons and project ideas, co-teach the interdisciplinary material, connect these projects to core content areas, and conduct pre- and post-project surveys to measure student growth in specific competencies.

Smart use of time, space and technology

What began as a school-within-a-school model, Círculos has evolved into a comprehensive program emphasizing place-based learning as a core feature of student learning. Students can learn beyond classroom walls, thus expanding the scope of instruction. With flexible scheduling, students can design their own academic plans and choose to take college-level coursework, earning an associate’s degree by the time they finish high school. Much of their learning occurs outside the classroom, as students make frequent visits to local museums, businesses, nonprofits, and other community organizations to broaden the scope of their education.