Common Ground High School

Demographics

Percentage of students*

Why Common Ground High School was nominated

Charter school located on an urban farm and large city park. Focus on high expectation and equity. Lots of local partnerships that they are in the process of further leveraging to have robust school experiences outside of the classroom walls. Students are deeply involved in their ongoing school iteration.

Student experience design

Common Ground has grown and continues to nurture a student-centered model of urban public high school education that leverages the larger learning ecosystem to help all students succeed in and beyond high school. Our goal is that all 9th and 10th graders experience a rich set of interdisciplinary, community-based learning experiences, culminating in performances and products for real audiences. Our students’ 9th and 10th grade experiences were built to help them navigate and succeed in learning opportunities within and beyond the classroom, preparing them for more independent work in junior and senior years. In 9th grade, as students are first finding Common Ground, their experiences starts close to home -- focused on their own identity, our 20-acre campus, and their place in our community. The year starts with an immersion in Common Ground’s urban farm, and in questions related to this place -- how we feed ourselves and meet our other basic needs, how we build a food system is fair and just, how energy flows through our food system, what math tells us about what Common Ground’s urban farm should grow. Students move from this focus on basic needs to a study of how to survive and thrive in a diverse community, and then explore how we create positive change in the places we call home. Each unit culminates in a real performance for a public audience: presenting a variety of work at a family food night, for instance. Through these experiences, students make measurable and significant growth as readers, writers, and problem-solvers -- and gain the skills they need to navigate and advocate in a variety of learning settings. Because a team of teachers share these new students and the curriculum is built to help students share their experiences, teachers can be responsive to the young people in front of them. In 10th grade, students turn from their own campus and identity to the City of New Haven as a whole. Four integrated units -- New Haven Stories, Justice & Change, Climate & Power, and Community Health -- push students to explore the systems and dynamics that have shaped our city, and how they can help to create a more just and sustainable community. Student venture out into the city throughout each unit -- connecting with neighborhood leaders, exploring neighborhood change, helping policymakers develop solutions to real problems -- and community members regularly push in to roles as co-teachers. Again, each unit challenges students to synthesize and share their learning for an authentic audience: building a website and photo essay about their New Haven stories, producing an original piece of theater that enacts and intervenes in injustice, creating public art that helps address climate change, producing video public service announcements that help create a healthier community. The expectations of students ramp up, as they prepare to take greater control of their educational path in grades 11 and 12. These experiences will be grounded in a common set of design principles, co-created by Common Ground students and teachers -- the foundational building blocks of teaching and learning at Common Ground. Through extended units of study, students will tackle questions and problems that hit close to home – relevant and responsive to their own lives, and the communities and cultures they call home. These interdisciplinary units will integrate core disciplinary standards and teachers from math, science, ELA, and social studies into a deep learning experience that takes up half of students’ school day. Through start-of-unit expeditions, ongoing field work, and culminating performances for public audiences, students will experience and develop skills for navigating a larger learning ecosystem. These experiences will also be designed to build students’ capacity as leaders, change agents, and social justice advocates – rooted in Common Ground’s school-wide leadership framework. Students will have real and growing voice and agency about what they learn, how they learn, and how they demonstrate learning – and universal design will support the participation of all students. Our aim is that all juniors and seniors are able to curate their own learning plan, with support from their academic advisors, integrating college courses, work experiences, internships, elective courses, and core academic offerings. As students move into their last two years of high school, they will take increasing control of their own education. A core junior seminar will ground their experience, in which they will build skills for action research, explore college and career options, and identify expanded learning opportunities that match their interests. The following year, a Senior Environmental Justice Capstone will support students as they refine college essays, conduct college-level research on social and environmental challenges, take on capstone projects that address these challenges, and prepare to defend their leadership portfolios. We know, as well, that core academic classes will form a key part of every student’s schedule, and that these courses will include opportunities for community-based field work, culminating performances for public audiences, and learning that is tied to college, career, and community leadership. We are fully committed to a vertically aligned, scaffolded experience in the core subjects that ensures that all students graduate college-ready. In the context of these anchor experiences, the junior and senior experience will consistently blur the line between school and the larger community, between school day and out-of-school time. All of our juniors and seniors will participate in a combination of early college courses, work-based learning opportunities, internships, and credit-bearing out-of-school opportunities. Many will travel to Southern Connecticut State University, just around the corner from Common Ground’s campus, for a part of their school day. Community organizations will push into the school day and building in more robust ways, as well; for instance, the education director from a local theater company teaches a course on using devised theater methodologies to confront social justice challenges. Students will earn credit by documenting learning in out-of-school programs, work placements, and internships. Some students will develop their own learning experiences from the ground up. The mix of these types of experiences vary from student to student. Some will opt for more traditional high school experiences, while others will participate more in the wider learning ecosystem. Experiences through Green Jobs Corps, Common Ground’s urban farm and community programs, and out-of-school opportunities are intentionally connected with academic classes, so that students had a chance to practice skills and understandings developed in their courses in the workplace and other out-of-school settings. Students built and explored their own pathways through their four years of high school, integrating experiences in a wide range of learning environments. Some students will choose to blaze their own pathways, while others will find one that’s well trodden already. The farm immersion unit in the 9th grade core prepares students for a community-based exploration of food justice and access in the 10th grade core. Students can choose to dive deeper into these questions through an elective course on food justice, perhaps leading into a farm internship, a paid work opportunity through our Green Jobs Corps, farm-based after-school programs, and/or a senior project. Students will explore pathways to college, as well. Every 9th grader makes it onto the campus of Southern Connecticut State University -- touring campus, participating in workshops led by undergraduates, and accessing campus resources. As sophomores, they will collaborate with Southern’s public health department to take on community-based health research, and work with a theater company housed at Southern to create Theater of the Oppressed-style productions. They will be able to take a course on Common Ground’s campus, taught by Southern faculty and bearing college credit. They can also choose to take courses for free at SCSU -- and are more likely to experience success because of the supports that are in place. Students’ leadership portfolio and school-wide leadership framework are tools for documenting mastery and growth in non-academic and academic competencies, across all of these experiences and settings. Students’ academic advisors worked with students and their families to create and leverage the mix of learning opportunities that were right for them. When students participate in a program at the Peabody Museum, or an internship in our Nature Year program, they and the staff who supervise them will document their learning goals and outcomes using Common Ground’s school-wide leadership framework – earning credit by demonstrating growth and mastery of transferable skills. Working with Common Ground’s art teacher, they will demonstrate how these out-of-school experiences demonstrate mastery of subject area standards, as well – allowing them to earn advanced art credit toward graduation. Similarly, the grades and feedback that students receive in their Common Ground courses will reflect both students’ growth in transferable leadership skills, and their mastery of academic standards. Students’ advisors will help students identify and dive into experiences that match their interests, and will coordinate with the staff responsible for overseeing expanded learning to ensure that a clear learning plan is in place. Over four years of high school, students’ work in advisory will have scaffolded deep growth in non-academic domains: supporting social/emotional development, increased agency and leadership capacity, college and career exploration, and the goal-setting and follow-through skills needed to take control of their educational experience. By the time they graduate, students will have built and defended a rich electronic portfolio that integrates academic learning and leadership competencies. It will be the norm to share these portfolios with college admissions offices and prospective employers. Students’ transcripts will also reflect growth and mastery through this rich engagement with the wider learning ecosystem. Our commitment -- through these experiences and the flexible pathways that connect them -- is that every Common Ground student graduated ready for college success (recognizing that some students will choose to pursue other paths), powerful environmental justice leadership, meaningful careers, and healthy, happy, whole, sustainable lives? That is our ultimate vision: That students choose their own path AND meet universally high expectations for growth and competence.

Core Practices

Core Practices	Length of Use
Student Advisories	5+ years
Community And Business Partnerships	5+ years
Extended Learning Opportunities	5+ years
Interdisciplinary	5+ years
Place-based Learning	5+ years

All Practices

Assessments For Agency And Self-directed Learning

Assessments For Deeper Learning

Career Prep And Work-based Learning

Co-leadership

Family And Community Support Services

Culturally Responsive Practices

Disaggregated Data On Student Participation

Early College High School

Flexible Staffing & Alternative Teaching Roles

Hiring For Equity And Inclusion Values

All Courses Designed For Inclusion

Students Earn Industry Credentials

Individual Learner Profiles

Individual Learning Paths

Mental Health Services

Multi-tiered System Of Support (MTSS) In Academics

Project-based Learning

Performance Based Assessment

Physical Well Being Services

High Quality Instructional Materials

SEL Curriculum

SEL Integration School-wide

Social Justice Focus

Student-led Goal Setting

Self-paced Learning

Students Develop Projects

Universal Design For Learning

key reasons for innovating

Artifacts

Evidence of Impact Resource 2024 - 1