Collaboration, transparency, and inclusion are essential for designing an innovative school; those values are just as essential throughout the process of implementing your design. Thoughtful, skilled, and committed educators must be at the center of the work of implementation, so their expertise and leadership are fully reflected in the operations of the school. At the same time, young people, families, and community partners need to be involved at every step.

With so much happening on the path to implementation, you may need to create new systems to communicate and coordinate across your team. If you’re redesigning an existing school, you’ll need to engage members of the school community who have been less intensively involved and may feel out of the loop or even skeptical. Project planning tools can help. Perhaps you’re familiar with some standard project planning software tools or processes; if so, those can be good starting points. If you don’t have experience with those resources, do some research and choose a system that helps you and your team share documents and information, monitor progress, and stay on track.

You’ll also need to get really good at explaining your school concept to people beyond your immediate circle: local elected and education leaders, officials, regulators, potential supporters and funders, community partners, journalists, prospective teachers, and, of course, students and their families. If you’re starting a new school, people will mainly be curious about what will make your school special, and what needs you’ll meet in the local education landscape. For a redesign, you’ll need to explain all that, and you’ll also need to make a compelling case for the difficult work of change.

School implementation is challenging and sometimes hectic, full of unexpected setbacks and opportunities. The temptation to revert to status quo solutions, to “do it this way because that’s the way it’s always done,” will sometimes be strong. Ongoing communication with young people, families, and key allies will help your team stay true to your innovative vision and continue to learn.

A learning organization is one “where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning to see the whole together.”
PETER SENGE
The Fifth Discipline