With an “Advanced Placement for All” model and a unique dual-language immersion program, CHEC fosters intellectual curiosity, cultural competence, and community engagement.
CHEC is part of DC+XQ, a multi-year partnership to reimagine the high school experience in the nation’s capital. This community-led initiative has brought together educators, families, students, and community members with bold ideas for what is possible for DC’s high school students. Each school’s redesign is unique because every community is different.
Learn More about the DC+XQ partnership.
Students attending CHEC come from over 50 countries, speak many languages in their homes, contribute to the school’s global curriculum, and focus on world cultures. The CHEC team emphasizes the importance of youth voice and choice by building and fostering a school environment where students are co-designers of their learning.
Since CHEC joined the second cohort of DC+XQ schools in the summer of 2023, members of the school’s design team wanted to ensure they intentionally redesigned with a focus on students who indicated on surveys that they didn’t feel like they belonged at school. In late 2023, for example, the school engaged with 45 of its students to contribute to the design of its vision of an inclusive school experience. The students participated in trust-building exercises with their teachers and peers and designed plans for increasing participation and belonging. During the 2023-24 academic year, the school set a goal in their Comprehensive School Plan to have 25% of their student population (including students furthest from feeling a sense of belonging) attend and participate actively in leadership team meetings, faculty meetings, and design sprints.
CHEC saw a 4 percent increase from fall 2023 to spring 2024 in the overall percentage of students responding favorably to a survey about their sense of belonging. As one student who attended the retreat told a CHEC assistant principal, “I really feel like I’m being listened to when I share these things with you. I feel like things are going to happen when we get back to the building.”
CHEC’s design team has fostered authentic student engagement by expanding opportunities for students to use their voices to improve their educational experience. Staff and leadership team meetings, previously only open to adults, are now open to all. Students have been active members of four different design sprints centered on issues they identified:
- Improving food offerings on campus
- Creating a new master schedule
- Making the grading system more equitable
- Addressing chronic absences
- Designing a community service and experiential learning initiative
In 2024, the CHEC team presented at the ASCD Annual Conference for educator professional development. Their session, “How Design Thinking Infused Student Voice Throughout a DC School,” shared how CHEC students co-design lessons, join staff meetings, and choose projects based on needs they identify in their community.
