High Tech High Unboxed

Episode Notes Juli Coleman, Chief of Improvement for School Networks at the CORE Districts in California talks to Dr. Brandi Nicole Hinnant-Crawford, an Associate Professor of Educational Leadership, Clemson University, Dr. Louis Gomez, a Distinguished Professor of Education and Information Studies at UCLA, about doing improvement with the goal of advancing equity in education during the current m...

Episode Notes In this live recording from the 2026 National Summit for Improvement in Education, Partners in School Innovation CEO Derek Mitchell interviews Tenette Smith and Elise Brown about their roles in Mississippi's extraordinary improvement in reading, and how they are bringing the lessons from that into their new work in Maryland. Learn more about  continuous improvement Learn more about t...

Episode Notes In this live crossover event for the National Summit on Improvement in Education and the Deeper Learning Conference, Alec Patton interviews Ben Daley, Jim May, and Ash Vasudeva about what deeper learning and continuous improvement have to offer each other. Learn more about deeper learning Learn more about continuous improvement Click here to learn more about the High Tech High Gradua...

Alec Patton talks to Patrick Yurick about how High Tech High Chula Vista came together to create a mural as a memorial to one of its students, Sean Fuchs. This episode is about a disturbing subject—we don't recommend listening with kids around. Episode Resources: Photos of the completed mural (both versions) and more "Choosing Sean," an article Patrick Yurick wrote for Unboxed Th...

Episode Notes In this episode, Stacey Caillier talks to Cornelius Minor about what it means to be bold in education right now, and the journey he and his colleagues took from observing a problem to making meaningful change with students. Every other week, we publish a newsletter with great resources like this one, sign up for it here ! What are you waiting for? Sign up for National Summit for Impr...

Episode Notes Alec talks to Robyn Snyder, Director of Supplemental Services at Clovis Unified School District, Ray Gamez, the principal of Janet L. Young Elementary School, and JJ Donat, who’s the guidance instructional specialist at Janet L. Young, about how that school cut the suspension rate for African-American students from 8.7%. to 4.2% in a single year. Every other week, we publish a newsle...

Alec Patton talks to Beverley Jenkins and Kate Hogan of the System Improvement Leads Networked Improvement Community and Nicole Leveille of Cloverdale Unified School District about how Cloverdale dramatically increased the percentage of students with IEPs in the general education population, and cut chronic absenteeism among students with disabilities in half. Every other week, we publish a newsle...

Episode Notes Alec Patton talks to Liz Chu, Executive Director of the Center for Public Research and Leadership (CPRL) at Columbia University, about the new book she co-authored, The Learning Hive: Leading Collective Innovation to Transform Education Systems. __ Every other week, we publish a newsletter with great resources like this one, sign up for it here ! What are you waiting for, register fo...

Episode Notes In this episode, Alec Patton talks to math teachers Sunny Chan and Sandy Tu, and improvement coach Amanda Meyer, about Fremont High School's remarkable success at improving ninth-grade on track. Every other week, the High Tech High Graduate School of Education publishes a newsletter with great resources like this one, sign up for it here ! Amanda is going to be talking about her work...

Episode Notes Alec Patton talks to teacher High School teacher Karen Shaffran and student Alegria Vargas about how their class created a socially conscious cosmetics business, featuring products made from plants grown hydroponically in a storage room! Every other week, we publish a newsletter with great resources like this one, sign up for it here ! Listen to our podcast miniseries about Cheltenha...

Episode Notes Alec Patton talks to Tammy Unck, Maria Smith, and Uchenna Lewis about Bernal Intermediate School's work with Partners in School Innovation on improving outcomes for multilingual learners, using techniques such as "shadow a student" and elements of the AVID curriculum. The result was remarkable: During the 2022-2023 school year, Bernal achieved a 250% increase in the rate of...

Episode Notes Alec Patton talks to Lincoln High School Principal Melissa Agudelo about the challenges of bringing exhibitions of student learning to a large urban high school, and how they made it successful by literally doing everything all at once. Want do bring exhibitions to your school, or take your exhibition game to the next level? Check out our resources here ! Learn more about the High Te...

Episode Notes Alec Patton talks to Michael McDonald, Stephen Rinaldo, and Tarima Levine about how Yonkers Public Schools and Bank Street Education Center improved eighth grade math proficiency particularly for students who are Black, Latinx, or experiencing poverty. Learn more about the curriculum Yonkers used, i-Ready Mathematics Read this Case Study to learn more about Yonkers' work Learn more a...

Episode Notes Alec Patton talks to PBLWorks Lead National Faculty in Math Bryon Demerson about why led him to shift from being a highly successful "traditional" math teacher to embracing project-based learning. Read Bryon's blog post: Overcoming PBL Hesitancy in the Math Classroom: A Teacher's Journey Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Episode Notes Alec Patton talks to Dr. Kim Carter, superintendent of Battle Creek Public Schools in Michigan, about how her district broke a pattern of outmigration through building relationships with families and local businesses and nonprofits based on transparency and LOTS of conversations. Dr. Carter is a member of the National Attendance & Engagement Meta Network Learn more about the...

Episode Notes Alec Patton talks to Paola Capó-García about "Politics of the Personal," the twelfth-grade English project she created in which students chose a topic of personal interest to write an essay about—and create a piñata Read more of Paola's poetry See photos from the project Learn how you can do professional development with Paola and the rest of the team Learn more ab...

Episode Notes Bell Middle School reduced its D/F rate from 51% in 2022 to 28% in 2024. That's a 23 percentage point reduction. Even more impressive, for low income students, the D/F rate was 67% in 2022, and Bell cut it by more than half, down to 29% in 2024. In this episode, Alec Patton talks to science teacher Teddy Meckstroth about how they did it. Mentioned in this episode: Grading for Equity...

Episode Notes In this episode, Alec Patton talks to Hamilton Elementary Principal Dr. Brittany Daley and San Diego County Office of Education Executive Leadership Coach Julia Bridi about how Hamilton cut its chronic absenteeism rate from 24% to 10% in a single year, using creative parent communication, home visits, data checks, and public sliming See photos of the sliming, silly string, and Britta...

Episode Notes Alec Patton talks to Derek Mitchell, CEO of Partners in School Innovation, about his daily reading rituals. Mentioned in the episode: Arnold R. Hirsch, Making the Second Ghetto Martin Gilbert, Churchill and the Jews Jeanie Daniel Duck, The Change Monster Sheldon Eakins, Leading Equity Brian McClellan, The Powder Mage Trilogy (strictly speaking, Derek mentioned Blood of Empire, which...

Episode Notes In this episode, Alec Patton talks to Maria Curtis, director of the Early Childhood Center at La Jolla Country Day School, in California, and Junior Kindergarten teacher Kristin Owen, about how they turned the discovery of a mud nest being built outside a classroom into a year-long project. You can see photos from the project, including photos of the book, here (as soon as the link i...

Episode Notes Sofía Tannenhaus talks to Jarrod Bolte, CEO of both Improving Education and Bedtime in a Box, a nonprofit that provides families with boxes containing everything you need for a positive bedtime routine. Each Box contains four age-appropriate books; bath wash, a towel, and bath toys; a toothbrush and toothpaste; pajamas; a stuffed animal; an alarm clock; a Teach My Learning Kit; and a...

Episode Notes This episode comes from the Climify podcast, which is hosted by Eric Benson, and produced by the Climate Designers Network. Benson interviews Tish Tablan, senior program director at Generation 180, about how going solar can benefit schools' budgets and provide opportunities for PBL, as well as helping us all thrive as we face an unprecedented climate crisis. Links: Check out This Epi...

Episode Notes Alec Patton talks to Juliette Price, the senior Improvement Science coach at the National Association of Higher Education Systems, about how their Network Improvement Community has achieved its remarkable results on transfer enrollments from two-year to four-year colleges. You know you want to try it: David Williams’s Mr. Potato Head Game Check out Juliette’s Substack Newsletter, Thi...

Episode Notes Ben Krueger talks to cellist, composer, and teacher Okorie Johnson, who performs as OkCello, about music, teaching, and community. And, appropriately, they talk about how all three of those are, themselves, a form of conversation. OkCello Website Learn more about the PBL Leadership Academy Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Episode Notes Alec Patton talks to Nika Dubrovsky about Anthropology for Kids, a project she started with her husband, anthropologist David Graeber. Referenced in this Episode: Anthopology for Kids Cities Made Differently by David Graeber and Nika Dubrovsky The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow David Graeber on the Charlie Rose Show Debt: The First 5000 Years by David Graeber D...