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Meet the New 2018-2019 Cohort of the League of Innovative Schools

Kimberly Smith

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This year, Digital Promise is excited to announce 12 new districts will join the ranks of the League of Innovative Schools.

The League is a powerful network of forward-thinking school district leaders. Across 102 districts and 33 states, administrators and educators are testing new programs, technologies, and strategies in an effort to provide equitable and excellent education for all students.

From dense urban centers to expansive rural regions, our 2018-2019 cohort is challenging the status quo to improve learning for students. To ensure equity and access for all, these districts meet students where they are with real-world, personalized, and locally relevant lessons. In this highly competitive application cycle, new districts were selected based on their:

  • Vision for innovation to advance equity and excellence;
  • Evidence of successful and effective design, validation, and impact of practice; and
  • Demonstration of scaling access for all

These selection criteria focus on advancing the League’s vision: to galvanize our networks to design, validate, champion, and scale effective, innovative learning opportunities to advance equity and excellence for every learner.

We’d like to officially welcome these 12 new districts to the League!

  1. Arcadia Unified School District
  2. D.C. Everest Area School District
  3. Fairbanks North Star Borough School District
  4. Graham Local Schools
  5. Harrington Park School District
  6. Meriden Public Schools
  7. Middletown City School District
  8. San Diego County Office of Education
  9. Socorro Independent School District
  10. South Bay Union School District
  11. Southampton County Public Schools
  12. Wyckoff Township Public Schools

There are many powerful stories of innovation within each district. Students in Ohio’s rural Graham Local School District, for instance, pair STEAM learning with local industry at Falcon Farms, a student-managed commercial farm. In East El Paso, Texas, the Socorro Independent School District meets the unique needs of a growing migrant student population by personalizing learning through a combination of 1:1 devices and Migrant Temporary Instructional Aides. And in Alaska—a state with one of the highest percentages of Native students in the country—the Fairbanks North Star Borough District has embraced personalized
learning as an equitable education strategy, with alignment to and celebration of Native cultural roots. More on the work of our League districts can be found on our District Profiles page.

We are also excited to welcome back Albemarle County Public Schools, Elizabeth Forward Schools, Enlarged City School District of Middletown, Gurnee School District 56, Huntley Community School District 158, Rock Hill Schools, and Vista Unified School District under new leadership. This fall, these 19 new and returning districts will convene in Utah with our veteran League members during our biannual meeting to share best practices and solve emerging challenges. We can’t wait to watch innovation unfold in the next year and beyond.

Authors

Kimberly Smith

Chief Innovation Officer

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Kimberly A. Smith is the co-lead and chief innovation officer of the Digital Promise Center for Learner Pathway Innovations. She works in partnerships with school systems across the country in creating and sustaining Unbounded Pathways—accelerated, future-forward, responsive, co-created, credentialed pathways that enable learners to design their futures to achieve agency, well-being and economic mobility. She is a co-creator of the Digital Promise’s Collaborative Innovation model, a co-research and design methodology centered in students and communities working in partnership with school systems, industry and post-secondary to build innovative pathway solutions. Prior, she was executive director of the League of Innovative Schools, Digital Promise’s flagship network of forward-thinking school systems leaders.

Prior to Digital Promise, Ms. Smith was chief learning and innovation officer with the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE), leading the innovation strategy for the global leader in youth entrepreneurship education and vice president of education at PBS where she directed the digital education strategy, including launching a national public broadcasting PreK-12 digital curriculum service in partnership with school districts. She also served as vice president of product development for Discovery Education where she led the creation of a portfolio of broadband services for K-12 schools, including Discovery Streaming and curriculum digital products. Ms. Smith began her career in education innovation at the Annenberg/Corporation for Public Broadcasting Project where she was on a team pioneering delivering college courses for credit at a distance through online and broadcast.

Ms. Smith is an Aspen-Pahara Institute fellow focused on building sustainable, values-aligned education leadership. She is co-founder of the National Charter Collaborative, a non-profit focused on supporting single-site charter leaders of color in creating quality schools. She has served on the boards and advisories including the Black Alliance for Educational Options (BAEO), the Arts and Technology Academy Public Charter School, Catalyst Exchange, Learner Centered Collaborative, Education Reimagined, and Beach House in Washington, DC. She received her M.B.A from Johns Hopkins University and her bachelor’s degree in Journalism from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

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