Newtown High School Principal Lorrie Rodrigue told the Board of Education at its meeting on Tuesday, June 7, her school's application for the XQ Institute's Super School Project has been "the most exciting opportunity."Four New Academic Pathways

In April, Superintendent of Schools Joseph V. Erardi, Jr, shared the news that NHS's application was one of almost 350 chosen in the contest, out of roughly 700, to continue to the next round. By the end of the challenge, five finalists from across the country will be chosen, and those projects will each receive $10 million over five years to help the applicants' ideas become reality.

Dr Rodrigue presented her school's Super School Project to the board, and said the project is a grant funding program to motivate "people across the nation to really rethink the American high school."

"When you put a challenge out there like that in that creative way, I think we all stepped up to say this is something we really want to do and we have to have passion around it," said Dr Rodrigue.

A team of NHS staff worked on the challenge. The working title for the NHS model is the "Newtown High School of Inquiry and Innovative Design."

"There were two avenues that we could have chosen, two approaches," said Dr Rodrigue. "One was to completely come up with a brand-new school, a creative design for a new school from the ground floor up. The other approach that school teams were allowed to take was rethink a high school in a particular district, and that was what we chose to do."

Dr Rodrigue said her school has "a lot of great programs right now," and those programs can be a foundation for the future vision.

"We wanted our school to emphasize personalization, we wanted our school to emphasize academic pathways for learners and we also wanted our school to emphasize partnerships," Dr Rodrigue said.

The NHS school improvement plan already has a focus on personalization for each learner, according to the presentation, and the new design would further those aspects. For "academic pathways," Dr Rodrigue said students entering the high school would be able to choose one of four pathways - literacy and language, business and entrepreneurship, visual and performing arts, and STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) - to follow when arriving at the school to work toward graduating.

For partnerships, Dr Rodrigue said, the idea is to expand academic partnerships within the school to offer different options for students.

Other ideas within the design for the school were shared with the board, and Dr Rodrigue said redesigning spaces within the building was also looked at, including a redesign for science labs. A "senior experience" for students to complete in their final year at NHS was also worked into the design.

"We want to make sure that every student has a device, so technology was huge in our concept," said Dr Rodrigue.

One of the things teams were asked to do, she said, was answer how the grant money would be used.

"We wanted to make sure that whatever we put into place, it had sustainability. That was really important to us," said Dr Rodrigue.

A documentary crew, led by director Lee Hirsch, also visited the high school on May 18 to film aspects of the school and project for the day, according to Dr Rodrigue. Mr Hirsch and his crew, Dr Rodrigue said on Wednesday, June 15, are working to film Super School Project teams across the country. While at NHS, the crew spoke with students, visited classrooms, and filmed for the day.

In August, Dr Rodrigue said, applicants will learn the outcome of project, and which schools will receive the funding.

"So keep your fingers crossed for August," Dr Rodrigue told the board, adding that if she gets the call, she will probably fall out of her seat.

The entire team that worked on the NHS design, according to the presentation, agreed to continue working on the new school model regardless of the Super School Project outcome.

"It was just such a powerful experience," said Dr Rodrigue.

Board of Education Vice Chair Michelle Ku and member John Vouros, as members of the board's Curriculum and Instruction Committee, added input for the design, which Dr Rodrigue also said reflected input from the school community.

Mr Vouros said one of the goals of the project is to use the five winning schools as models for the rest of the world to emulate.

"I personally feel we are going to win this, because the foundation that we have here is a model foundation," said Mr Vouros.

The end result if the NHS application were to win the funding, Mr Vouros said, "would be unbelievable, because we are ready to launch into something like this."

Mr Vouros said he is proud of the teachers that worked on the project.

The process behind completing the XQ Institute's Super School Project application, Ms Ku said, including brainstorming and working as a group.

"I know that there will be lots of good things that come out of all of that," said Ms Ku.