The Agency-Driven Leadership Self-Reflection Tool enables leaders to examine their own beliefs, skills, and capacity for change in service of identifying next steps in their development as a catalyst for agency.
The Aurora Institute toured three Kentucky sites in 2025 to elevate lessons from past work and to assess progress to date and goals for the future. Using document review, on-the-ground interviews, observation, and existing expertise in deeper learning, each case study aims to authentically tell the story of each system’s shift to deeper learning and the way the changes have shaped the student experience. The three sites include: Metcalfe County Middle School, Woodford County Public Schools, and Beechwood Independent Schools.
Together, we uncovered four key themes as key elements of success at these sites: a shared vision to unite the community, clear expectations that enable flexibility, student demonstrations that unlock authentic applications of knowledge and skills, and opportunities for teacher learning and leadership to lay the groundwork.
These themes echo the existing body of work of the Aurora Institute, the field of competency-based education, and the education research field more broadly. Understanding the implementation journeys of real schools and districts helps bridge a transformative vision into reality for our young people.
This family-facing AI policy clearly outlines how United Charter High Schools use AI tools to support student learning, safeguard privacy, and promote equity. It includes tool examples, usage rationale, privacy protections, and guidance for family engagement.
This foundational article by Jon Saphier and Matthew King outlines 12 key cultural norms that drive sustained instructional improvement. The Eliot team cites this research as a guiding force in their AI strategy, intentionally sequencing their innovation work after building strong data practices, peer collaboration routines, and shared norms around experimentation and growth.
This schoolwide Google Sheet tracks student progress in writing across informational, argumentative, and narrative genres. By visualizing individual growth against personalized goals and color-coding progress, the tracker helps teachers pinpoint student needs, measure intervention impact, and recognize growth over time—including outcomes related to AI-supported instructional shifts.
This Padlet board captured collaborative learning from Eliot’s AI-focused text club, where educators explored foundational questions about AI’s role in teaching and learning. The forum offered a supportive, low-pressure space for teachers to develop shared understanding, raise implementation questions, and connect AI to instructional goals, laying the cultural groundwork for future innovation.
This companion resource to Bridging Urgent to Future offers concrete, role-specific recommendations for SEA leaders, LEA leaders, funders, and researchers to take coordinated action on AI in education. Using the Hop, Skip, Leapfrog framework, it outlines practical steps that address today’s challenges while building toward long-term instructional transformation.
Introduction
We know that there are many models of innovative learning aimed at systems transformation. This case study series aims to explore the work of community schools, who take a whole-community approach to education that aligns with the goals of competency-based education. Dive into learning with us as we explore two community school models–one in Chicago and another in Winooski, Vermont, in the first year of this project.
Chicago International Charter School (CICS) West Belden
Get a glimpse of the student experience and the community-centered and learner-centered approach West Belden takes to support learners in this short video.
Welcome to CICS West Belden, Chicago IL
CICS West Belden, a K-8 charter school in Chicago’s Belmont-Cragin neighborhood, demonstrates how strong community connections enhance personalized learning. Through their Community Schools Coordinator, the school transforms parent-teacher conferences into community resource hubs while addressing student needs beyond academics. This family-driven approach—born from pandemic challenges that revealed hidden student needs—creates a foundation where students feel safe, supported, and ready to learn. Read the first post of the blog series here.
CICS West Belden: For the Community
At CICS West Belden, strong family ties, community support, and a focus on the whole child make all the difference. In this post, we explore the ways in which CICS West Belden enacts the six key practices of community schools:
Discover the inspiring work happening at CICS West Belden, from their remarkable successes to the challenges they’ve overcome and their vision for continued growth.
Learners at the Center: Competency-Based Education at CICS West Belden
In this post, we explore the ways in which CICS West Belden is implementing several of the seven key elements that define competency-based education. Although CICS West Belden is still on its journey toward becoming a fully competency-based school, it has established a strong learner-focused foundation that’s yielding impressive results. Dive in to discover how students at CICS West Belden are flourishing in an evolving environment that increasingly emphasizes personalized, competency-based approaches.
Winooski School District
Get a glimpse of the student experience and the community-centered and learner-centered approach Winooski School District takes to support learners in this short video.
The Learning Community of Winooski, Vermont
For over a decade, the Winooski School District has been reimagining education for its 800 students. This small Vermont district—housing both an elementary school and middle-high school in one complex—has developed a unique approach blending community partnerships, student-centered learning, and inclusive culture. Explore how Winooski Middle-High School embodies the principles of the community schools model and competency-based education.
The origins of the Winooski transformation started with the community process that led to their graduate expectations, similar to what others might call a portrait of a graduate or learner. Over the years, active engagement and participation in the school has become part of the fabric of the community. Dive into how Winooski Middle-High School brings learning to life through student voice, a culture of care, and community-connected classrooms.
Proficiency-Based Learning at Winooski
At Winooski Middle-High School, proficiency-based learning fundamentally shifts the educational experience to place students at the center of their learning journey. Through deliberate system design and pedagogical approaches, Winooski has created an environment where student voice, choice, and individual needs drive education. Learn how proficiency-based learning lets Winooski students shape their paths with community-connected capstone projects and out-of-school learning.
Should we feature your school? Let us know!
We are searching for schools that blend community-centered and learner-centered approaches to feature in our national case study project. If your school fits this criteria, we want to hear from you! Please reach out to us here.
If your school is selected, we’ll send an Aurora team member to visit in person and learn more about your learning community. Your school will be featured on this website, invited to speak at our annual Symposium, and included as a case study in our comprehensive report on the intersections between community schools and competency-based learning models. We may also be able to send a videographer to produce a short video highlighting your work! Please note: we will not be able to select all submitted schools.
Stay tuned for our next study on Winooski Middle High School to be added here. Thank you to the Siegel Family Endowment for supporting this work.
This is a student-created chatbot that supports community members in exploring ways they can attain citizenship in the United States. Users can receive tailored advice for different immigration statuses.
Tinman Kinetics is a community partner that worked with students at DSST Public Schools to turn their chatbots into more developed apps. VoteWise was a chatbot built on Playlab, and Tinman Kinetics worked with the students who built the original chatbot to transform it into another platform.
