After spending the past several months immersed in empathetic understanding of stakeholders and defining and prioritizing the challenges facing middle schools, the Reimagining Middle School Committee continues to engage in the equity-centered design thinking process. Over the past few weeks, the focus of the committee has been to highlight student voice. Committee members engaged students by visiting each comprehensive middle school and meeting with students to gather input. Middle school students who completed the annual student Panorama survey were also asked to share their ideas for an ideal middle school experience.
AVID Students Develop Ideal Middle School
Additionally, students in AVID classes at Tyee and Odle middle schools had the opportunity to create Reimagining Middle School projects. In collaboration with the district development team, students worked on their own design thinking process by identifying a problem or need they felt should be a part of an ideal middle school experience. Then students identified new or existing solutions and finally, identified all who were impacted by the problem and the effects of the solution. This process mimicked the design process the larger RMS committee has utilized.
New Year, New Design Possibilities
The next phase of the committee’s work will continue to generate possible solutions for some of the current challenges stakeholders have identified to improve in the middle school experience. The committee will spend a day workshopping in November to uncover and explore new angles for possible solutions and engage in collaborative thinking. By the new year, the RMS Committee intends to test and reflect on prototypes of ideas.