Summit Shasta strives for every student to graduate with a sense of purpose—an understanding of their interests, values, and skills—and a credible path after high school for translating those interests, values, and skills into a life of well-being. As students move through their time at Summit Shasta, they convert this sense of purpose into a concrete next step. Through a course called Life After Shasta that was piloted in 2017-18 and expanded in 2018-19, educators in the Summit network researched how a strong sense of purpose is a crucial dimension of post-secondary success. By supporting students in their search for purpose, the team at Summit Shasta strives to help students become lifelong learners who persist in the face of adversity, challenge themselves to explore new opportunities and see and commit to making the most of the opportunities they find.

By nurturing students’ curiosity and expanding their capacity for self-directed learning, the Summit Shasta community produces graduates who are tenacious, audacious, and capable of achieving their educational, career, and personal goals. To accomplish this, every Summit Shasta student has a self-directed learning plan, a way to view their current academic progress across all classes that includes a daily time to set and calibrate goals and regular opportunities to check in with their advisor. The school’s leaders and teachers work to ensure that every student’s personalized journey is built on a foundation of enriching learning experiences that engage students academically, develop cognitive skills, and build habits of success.

Relationships are at the heart of Summit Shasta team’s efforts to support students in their personal and academic growth. Their Habits of Success Framework focuses on challenge-seeking, persistence, strategy-shifting, and appropriate help-seeking. It was designed with an understanding that skill development happens on a pathway that integrates cognitive, social, and emotional skills. To accomplish this, educators founded Summit’s curriculum on individualized weekly mentoring, self-directed project-based learning, home-to-school connections, and restorative practices. Each student is part of a mentor group of about 20 students that meets at the beginning of every day and dedicates time every Wednesday to building community. Mentor groups focus on group bonding, academic belonging, and habits of success. Mentors also engage families. In the 2022 school year, 93 percent of students trust their mentor and 94 percent of students feel that there is at least one adult at their school that they trust.

Educators at Summit receive some of the professional development in the country. One key to the success of their strategy is the Marshall Teacher Residency program which is designed to build a long-term, sustainable, and diverse pipeline of teachers prepared to lead high-quality, personalized learning classrooms at learner-centered schools. The residency program’s innovative and rigorous design mirrors the school’s goals for students’ experiences, and embeds one to one coaching, authentic projects, and self-direction opportunities into the curriculum at Summit.

The 2020–21 school year marks the Residency’s fourth year within the Summit Network. To date, more than 70 residents work in Summit’s network and meet the needs of diverse learners. Beyond the Summit network, the residency program is a new model for exemplary teacher preparation. These teacher residencies are lauded as the gold standard in educator preparation because of the focused time, guidance, and practice that comes with an apprenticeship model. Previously, residency programs in California have only operated through institutes of higher education. In March 2020, Summit Shasta became the first Local Education Agency (LEA) authorized to operate a residency program available to educators across California. Additionally, every teacher at Summit participates in 40 days of professional development each year, identifying their own goals for growth and collaborating best practices with their peers.