Featured in the Podcast Series “Murder 101”
Elizabethton High School sits in the heart of Appalachia, a region rich with resilience, culture, and heritage. The school wanted its students to build brighter futures around the world while also uplifting the Appalachian community they call home. Traditional learning wasn’t getting them there. So students proposed something bolder: a high school redesign built around purpose and community, skills that matter beyond graduation, and work with real responsibility and real stakes.
The Elizabethton+XQ partnership began with a shared belief: students are co-creators of the future of high school. EHS students named what they wanted from school—more voice, more relevance, and more opportunities to connect learning to the real world. With XQ’s support, the school began turning that vision into powerful learning experiences: community improvement and entrepreneurship courses, interdisciplinary projects, work-based learning, expanded college and career advising, and student-designed spaces like the Cyclone Student Center.
EHS also leverages XQ’s Design Principles and Competencies to strengthen how its teachers connect academic standards to durable, real-world skills. Across the school, students build research, communication, collaboration, and problem-solving skills through work that reaches beyond the classroom walls. In Mr. Campbell’s sociology class, for example, students investigated a series of cold cases, collaborating with law enforcement and building the research that later became the basis for the hit podcast and documentary series Murder 101.
Over the past 10 years, the school has achieved significant outcomes: rising graduation rates, strong academic proficiency gains across all demographics, expanded access to advanced courses, and students who’ve gained national attention through projects like Murder 101.
But the deepest impact is the ecosystem EHS is building. Elizabethton serves as a hub for the Appalachian Futurism Project, a program created in partnership with higher-ed, educational organizations, and nonprofits to expand community-based, student-centered learning across the region. Educators from across Appalachia and beyond can connect directly with EHS to learn how to bring this same redesign to their own schools.
The Elizabethton+XQ partnership proves that high school can be a launchpad—both for students ready to change the world and for communities built to thrive.
