In 2014, the founding leaders and school designers of DSISD were charged to rethink high school through a competency based education model. After receiving an Opportunity By Design grant funded by the Carnegie corporation of New York, we had the support of Springpoint, a school design organization made up of respected leaders on the forefront educational innovation based in New York City.  Much of our design stems from Spring Point’s 10 principles.

In order to bring our vision and competency based model alive, we partnered with Summit School District from California and implemented the use of the Summit Learning Platform, also known as the Personalized Learning Plan (PLP). This on-line platform is a tool that aligns to our personalized and project based learning model. DSISD was part of the first 19 schools to partner with Summit in 2015 in its first cohort. Now, Summit as partnered with over 300 schools across 40 states.

Since our inception, DSISD has been provided support by DPS’ Imaginarium Innovation Lab. Through close collaboration, guidance and support, the Imaginarium team has supported DSISD with much of our work around developing student agency and personalization. They push our thinking and expand our visioning as we continue to improve our model as design thinkers and grow as innovators in education.

Being an Early College is a key part of our model, and we couldn’t do it without the support and partnership of Community College of Denver, Colorado Early College, and Denver Public School’s CareerConnect. Thank you for your support.

Learn more about CareerConnect