DC+XQ Summer Design Retreat
2022
As part of the DC+XQ Design Journey, XQ hosted a Summer Design Retreat in July for teams from six DC high schools: Cardozo Education Campus, Columbia Heights Education Campus, Coolidge High School, Dunbar High School, H.D. Woodson High School, and Ron Brown College Preparatory High School. Our purpose was to provide these hard-working teams with the dedicated time, space, and inspiration needed to make their full redesign proposals as strong as possible before submitting them in August.
Impressively, each team leveraged this precious, protected time to produce an even more coherent, bold, and rigorous school concept. Everyone—educators, students, community partners, and coaches alike—left the retreat inspired and energized to continue on the DC+XQ journey.
Over four intense days, the teams reviewed what they’ve learned, reflected on feedback from their communities and coaches, and fine-tuned the elements of their unique redesign visions. Teams went deep to articulate some of the key elements of their designs through tangible “artifacts”—for example, a profile of their ideal graduate, a plan for a signature learning experience, or a narrative showing a day in the life of a student.. These artifacts pushed the teams to strive for greater clarity and bring their ideas to life.
