Celeste Bolin on How One Stone is Rethinking Assessment

In this episode of the Getting Smart Podcast, we take a look at the transformative assessment practices of One Stone, a unique high school that prioritizes student agency and real-world skills. Host Victoria Andrews speaks with Celeste Bolin, Executive Director of One Stone, and students Sophie Gunther and Raya Naymik. They discuss the school’s innovative approach to assessments, which emphasizes resilience, leadership, and the ability to “fail forward.” By integrating students’ diverse interests and lived experiences into the learning process, One Stone fosters a supportive environment where effort and growth are valued over traditional grading metrics. This episode offers valuable insights for educators, school leaders, and anyone interested in creating more human-centered, dynamic educational experiences.

Outline

• (00:00) Introduction to the Getting Smart Podcast
• (01:33) Sophie’s Athletic Journey and Learning
• (03:38) Leadership and Learning at One Stone
• (08:06) Raya’s Diverse Interests and Learning
• (12:34) Contrasting Traditional and One Stone Assessments
• (14:44) Celeste on One Stone’s Assessment Journey
• (18:50) Student Agency in Assessment
• (25:28) Addressing Student Anxiety in Assessments
• (31:07) Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Introduction to the Getting Smart Podcast

Victoria Andrews: Hey, you’re listening to the Getting Smart Podcast. I’m Victoria Andrews, and for the past few months, we’ve hosted a community of practice with school leaders from all over the country, focusing on assessment and evaluation, as well as school-within-a-school practices that can be scaled out. These communities of practice have been supported through our work with the Learning Innovation Fund, supported by the Walton Family Foundation.

Through these communities of practice, we’ve looked specifically at assessment and how it can truly capture the lived experiences and knowledge of young people, and how we can scale it to larger systems and the practices of smaller, agile schools. Which is why I’m super excited today about my conversation with members of the One Stone Family.

We’ve got Celeste Bolin, who’s the executive director, and two young people, Raya Naymik and Sophie Gunther. How are y’all doing today?

Raya Naymik: Good. Thanks for having us. How are you?

Victoria Andrews: I am good. I’m good. Very grateful for y’all being here, even though, from what I understand, your campus offers flexibility for events specifically like this. Yeah. Let’s get to it and let’s have a good little conversation about it.

Sophie’s Athletic Journey and Learning

Victoria Andrews: Assessment and evaluation and what that means, especially as students at One Stone. Sophie, I know that you’re a passionate athlete, right?

Sophie Gunther: Yes.

Victoria Andrews: All right. And you play volleyball, right, girl?

Sophie Gunther: Yes.

Victoria Andrews: As a former middle school volleyball player, I’m super passionate about sports and just all that it requires because it’s a different skillset than if you’re, you know, preparing for an algebra test or physics test. You’ve developed traits like discipline, resilience, and performance tracking. Can you share a little bit about how some of those skills have helped you with testing and that environment at One Stone?

Sophie Gunther: Yeah, definitely. One of my favorite things to talk about that connects the most with my learning and athletics is the mindset of “try, try again,” or as we like to call it at One Stone, “failing forward.” It’s the ability to say, “Hey, I didn’t do well at this, or I didn’t like this thing, but I’m still interested in it, or I want to do well at it, so I’m going to try it again because I know that I have this support system who believes in me and wants me to grow.”

Victoria Andrews: And was that something that was familiar to you? Was it natural, or was it the background with sports that helped tie that together?

Sophie Gunther: I definitely think a sports background has helped, but I would say in a very interesting way, they’ve kind of collided together. My journey at One Stone and that “fail forward” mindset and encouragement from my coaches and peers have helped me become a better athlete. When I go up and hit a ball all the way to the wall in the back of the court, I’m not afraid to try to hit the next ball harder. I kind of think of my learning that way, like, “Okay, I’m going to try to lead this experience, and if it totally falls flat on its face, it’s like, well, I’m going to try this again and maybe reach out for some help. But I know that I have this support system who wants me to try again and knows that I can do this.”

Leadership and Learning at One Stone

Victoria Andrews: And so, for those that may not be familiar, One Stone is a high school. So that opportunity to fail forward and try again is embedded in the culture of the school, right, Sophie?

Sophie Gunther: Yes.

Victoria Andrews: And how long have you been at One Stone?

Sophie Gunther: I’m in my third year currently. I’m on a four-year plan, so I plan to graduate next year.

Victoria Andrews: Okay. And all of your high school experience is at One Stone?

Sophie Gunther: Yes.

Victoria Andrews: All right. So, just being embraced in an environment like that where you are encouraged to fail and fail again is unique. I’m sure you know that not everybody’s learning environment or school fosters that sense of “it’s okay to try, let’s learn from our mistakes, and let’s actually embrace those mistakes.” Talk about what kind of athletes you are and all that you’ve done.

Sophie Gunther: Yeah, so I am a competitive athlete in terms that I travel almost every weekend. I am out of town a lot of the time, and I think that’s also kind of intersected with learning in an interesting way because I’m navigating how to be a good leader, a positive student while also being out of town and having external pressures outside of school. Kind of thinking about, like, I have practice tonight, I want to work on this thing, but I need to make sure that I’m present here. My peers and we call our teachers coaches, just for clarification, which I know can get confusing. But because we believe that our teachers are learning with us, they’re coaching us through things rather than just lecturing and teaching us. It’s the concept that I’m going to look up this cool Russian war that happened, and maybe I get to teach my teacher about it as well. I just wanted to clarify that. For example, I have actually led some experiences which have also been really interesting with sports.

I definitely can see how my leadership in sports and being a team captain goes into helping people learn and deciding what we’re going to do today, what’s the lesson plan, how to make sure that everyone stays in this area and doesn’t disperse and distract everyone else at the school. That sort of thing. I definitely have a lot of support to go up to a coach and be like, “I want to form a group so that we can talk about Angela Davis, her books, or her writing.”

Victoria Andrews: And I love to hear that sense of agency that is fostered at One Stone. Like you said, you can speak to your coaches at One Stone and take that initiative. Before we move to Raya and her multifaceted, dynamic life, Sophie, can you share a little bit about what it’s like to participate in a space where discipline and resilience are honored?

Sophie Gunther: I’ve always been a pretty grade-oriented, A-plus student. I’ve always taken pride in getting that high number and performing in a high way. One of the things about One Stone that I notice about the grading system the most is that you’re taking areas like applied mathematics, scientific inquiry, and synthesis and holding them at the same level as leadership or grit communication and other life skills that you need. That are part of the process of learning and part of the process of making a project. Rather than just focusing on what your product is or what your grade is, we’re looking at what you did during this period of time, how you grew, what you did that makes you a better person or a better leader.

Victoria Andrews: And in some other learning environments, some of those skills and traits are either diminished or not even addressed at all. While there is value in the content you’re learning, I really appreciate what you said about how you are continuing to grow and evolve as a human being.

Sophie Gunther: Yeah.

Raya’s Diverse Interests and Learning

Victoria Andrews: Raya, you are, like I said, just a Renaissance woman. Your hands are in many pots. We love a multihyphenate woman, and that is indeed you. You sit on the board of One Stone. You have an interest in conscious living. You have a passion for art. You excel with traditional academics as well. I’m kind of floored and a little bit intimidated by you, but also silently cheering for you in the background. Can you talk a little bit about how you think schools could better recognize and assess diverse forms of learning?

Raya Naymik: Hmm. Ooh, that’s a good question. I think One Stone has done some really special stuff to address that. When One Stone began as a school, the question that was asked was, “What’s missing from your learning?” A huge one was relevancy.

Victoria Andrews: Hmm.

Raya Naymik: I think that brings in that dynamic part of it because, like reality in the real world, you’re not just doing a math problem. You know, I was taking an exponentials and logarithms class not that long ago, and I was talking to my dad about it. I was like, “Yeah, it’s cool, and it’s helping me learn how to learn, but I don’t see myself using logarithms.” He was like, “I just used logarithms and had to learn them in my job.” He’s a water quality biologist. I was like, “No way.” But it wasn’t just him solving a given problem. It was like, it’s because he’s looking at the oxygen levels in this river for the farmers. It’s a dynamic problem that involved his leadership with his team, his curiosity, and his scientific inquiry. All of these skills are pulled in, and it’s not just mathematical application. I think One Stone really keys into that and helps students define a goal in an area of interest, not just by its academic title.

Victoria Andrews: Mm-hmm.

Raya Naymik: I’m in a math experience, more so than practicing mathematical application, I’m practicing vulnerability and curiosity because I don’t super connect or feel like I have a natural talent for math, but I enjoy and find a lot of value in being vulnerable and asking questions and figuring out how it can fit into my life. Instead of just being like, “No, I don’t need that.” I’m in my final year at One Stone, similar to Sophie. I’m on a four-year track, so I’m graduating in the spring. My whole high school experience has been at One Stone. My mindset has had a lot of time to develop into this place of being able to see my learning as dynamic and not just writing off an experience. I think that would allow me now, if I was placed right now back into a public school classroom, I wouldn’t necessarily agree with potentially the curriculum or the grading process, but I’d be able to find value and create it into a dynamic learning experience for myself.

Victoria Andrews: And that’s just a powerful trait to have, period, because now more than ever, it’s like if we’re not emotionally charged or excited by a topic, we can be so easy to dismiss it. What really stuck with me was the fact that you said to be vulnerable. We’re all humans, and we always say that, but to be vulnerable. There are going to be areas in my life where someone else is going to shine or get it faster than I do. But there’s still learning that can happen. While it also might be the content, it’s also just learning about who we are and how we learn. I can honestly say that was something I didn’t even consider—the metacognitive portion of being able to speak to how we learn and finding value in the things that I may not even be passionate about. I really love how you worded that. Raya, while you’ve been at One Stone for a good period of time, you’ve also participated in a larger comprehensive system too, correct?

Raya Naymik: Previously, yeah. I was at an International Baccalaureate public charter school.

Contrasting Traditional and One Stone Assessments

Victoria Andrews: Can you contrast how assessments took place in that environment and One Stone, and then just some of the key things that you learned from those experiences?

Raya Naymik: Yeah, totally. At my previous school, assessment was just so back burner. I didn’t care because it didn’t mean anything to me. It just meant nothing. Especially because I was there in middle school where it really meant nothing. It didn’t go on a transcript that anyone would see, and the learning wasn’t relevant. It wasn’t that hard, you know? I didn’t super struggle with the material, and I would get very average grades. I didn’t have parents that super pressed me about it. I’m very grateful for my parents because they started in a place of being in a traditional mindset of, “Oh, you didn’t do very good on that test.” We would kind of push back on each other, like, “But why do I need to?”

Victoria Andrews: Mm.

Raya Naymik: Like, what is this proving to anybody? That I kind of maybe comprehended a book that didn’t really apply to anything that I was doing, and I didn’t have the space yet. I had the ability, and One Stone brought that ability out in me. I think most students, if not all students, have that ability to then start critically thinking and connecting a book that might not feel like it has any relevancy and connect it to something and bring passion in, bring interest in. But at the time, I didn’t have that or see that. It was just so mundane. When I applied for One Stone, I was kind of at the point of being so numbed by that experience of not actually learning and just memorizing, regurgitating, forgetting over and over again that if I hadn’t gone into One Stone, I wasn’t going to go to high school. I was going to find something more meaningful to do because I just couldn’t do another four years of that pattern.

Victoria Andrews: Yeah. I’m just living through that.

Raya Naymik: Yeah. Now.

Victoria Andrews: Oh man. Thanks for sharing that, Raya.

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Celeste on One Stone’s Assessment Journey

Victoria Andrews: So, Celeste, I want you to chime in because hearing Sophie’s experience as a competitive athlete and Raya’s experience in middle school, I know that the journey of assessment for One Stone isn’t a light switch. It didn’t happen overnight. To hear that effort is honored, grit is honored, resilience is honored, and there’s autonomy on even what is covered or discussed. Can you share a little bit of the journey to help get young people to, for their collective brilliance and their individual brilliance to be able to shine through the learning experiences at One Stone?

Celeste Bolin: Yeah, thanks for asking that, Victoria, and thanks for your articulation, Sophie and Raya. I have to reflect on what they just said, which is a huge part of what assessment looks like at One Stone. I heard a lot of showing up authentically as who they are, and then a lot of room to try different things to figure out who that person is and how they want to grow. I heard that there is a lot of emphasis on the process, not necessarily the product. That relevancy, particularly to them, is key to the journey. All of that was behind the big why of our growth framework. Our growth framework is our assessment, which includes a growth transcript. That is our really rigorous way of feedback as well as community member feedback, like what they’re doing right now. I will do an assessment after we’re done and include some of the feedback you gave real-time, Victoria. You’re not necessarily doing the assessment, but you were a part of this process with these two.

Victoria Andrews: Yeah.

Celeste Bolin: Those pieces come together for a holistic picture. Our portrait of a graduate is key to how our growth framework works. Currently, our growth framework has 24 real-world durable skills. One of the big iterations we made is we went from 36 to 24. We have it in four quadrants: skills, mindset, creativity, and knowledge. That was a very mindful, intentional shift because we realized tracking all these skills, and it could be for two years, three years, or four years, is overwhelming for the learner. If they came in knowing, Raya already mentioned a math experience on exponential and log. If she knew and we could ask Raya, “Well, you’re going to be assessed on all 24. It’s going to be mathematical application, communication, and leadership, and that’s way too much.” That was a learning lesson along the way that curating with the learner, with the student, what they’re being assessed on. It’s not top-down. Sophie has firsthand experience on helping to assess a group of peers and an experience that she drove. She mentioned it, something we called community read, and they were reading Angela Davis. That is in itself a huge collaborative process that we had to learn along the way is developing the growth framework with students. The voices of students coming into it saying, “Hey, we can’t do 24 skills for everything we do at One Stone. It needs to be curated down, and we need to have some mindful curation based on what we want, as well as what the coaches are providing and bringing to the table.” That covers all of it, right? We do have a lot of opportunities for information literacy and research, and then there’s plenty on iteration, ideation, and they’re not all there at the same time. The real-world piece, assessing the context in which a learner is applying their skills can be tricky.

Victoria Andrews: Mm-hmm.

Celeste Bolin: I just heard these two talk about it, and I’m already saying, I think they can be assessed on this. This is a real-world experience. We’re doing a podcast with Getting Smart. There’s got to be a way to capture that. Then how does that funnel in?

Student Agency in Assessment

Celeste Bolin: Right now, we really think of student agency, which you’ve mentioned, Victoria, and you can hear it in these students’ voices. We talk about the context, which I referred to, and then complexity. Our tools surrounding the growth framework allow coaches and students to see what an indicator of growth from emerging all the way to mastering looks like based on indicators for those particular skills. We didn’t always have those. We’ve built those indicators with students.

Victoria Andrews: Okay.

Celeste Bolin: We did have a lot of beautiful fail forward moments, some great heated debates around a table. Right now, we have a really great platform that helps us record the assessment. It’s a very human process, though. A lot of what our assessment looked like back in 2016 was the coaches sitting around the table with notes from students on all these objectives and talking it out.

Victoria Andrews: Yeah.

Celeste Bolin: We had four-hour meetings, like six of them.

Victoria Andrews: Yeah.

Celeste Bolin: That was us. It’s us prototyping and getting in this very real assessment. We don’t do that anymore. Not that we don’t sit around a table and talk about it, clearly that’s very laborious. But what those meetings did was to really hone in on case studies of what learning looks like. How do we define context? How do we define agency and complexity? How do we do it outside of just a brick-and-mortar school? We have an HQ; we have One Stone HQ, our headquarters. But the learning is happening so far beyond that. I mean, Raya just got back from presenting at South by Southwest. It was a big deal, a room full of educators asking hard questions and digging into our assessment. Sophie’s about to engage in a rigorous summer experience not here.

Victoria Andrews: Yeah.

Celeste Bolin: She’s going on to higher ed for this experience the summer before her final year. How are we capturing those opportunities appropriately? We don’t need to go to whatever the opportunity is and say, “Here’s our framework, make it fit this,” that being the assessment. We don’t do that. We say, “Wow, what is this opportunity you have? We want to make sure our assessment is capturing that appropriately.”

Victoria Andrews: No, you’re good. I love that because it honors students where they are, and it makes assessment way more accessible. If you have a basketball player that may not shine as well in geometry or physics class, but if they’re the point guard, they’re showing leadership, tenacity, and many other traits. Or if you have a student that has an activist mindset and is heavily in the community and just building synergy around how they can galvanize people and make sure people are informed, that experience is being honored by the current system that One Stone has. I know that is often the case for a lot of young people. It’s like my academic life is separate from my real life. It’s like you’re constantly being assessed. I love that you said, “Let’s bring in the community.” I’m so grateful to be a part of your community and that this podcast is going to be part of an assessment.

Celeste Bolin: Yes.

Victoria Andrews: Especially right now when there are so many portions of education that are very divisive. Parents feel like they don’t know what’s going on, or caregivers don’t know what’s going on, and young people feel like they have an obligation here and an obligation there. But to hear that there are so many ways to honor just the lived experience and for it to truly have value, not just in the confines of a brick-and-mortar classroom, I really love that. Celeste, if you could give advice to a system leader or any kind of school founder that wants to be like, “Hey, we’ve got our weekly assessments, and then we’ve got our…”

Celeste Bolin: Yeah.

Victoria Andrews: “…and we do SATs and PSATs, and we do TSI and all the assessments.” They know in their heart that there should be a way for them to honor the work of young people in a different way. What’s a small nugget that they could do to kind of begin their journey for more liberation in assessments?

Celeste Bolin: I am always going to say the same thing if somebody asks me this question: bring students into the conversation.

Victoria Andrews: Hmm.

Celeste Bolin: Bring them in. So, say the problem is, “I feel like I’m missing capturing students’ journeys in communication, and I know that they’re doing SATs and all these other really rigorous things that have been developed to try to capture, let’s just say, communication and more specifically English Language Arts.”

Victoria Andrews: Yeah.

Celeste Bolin: What are they missing though? A piece I would say they’re missing, and it’s probably across even beyond English Language Arts, is the student’s reflection on the process. I’m not trying to divert the question, but they might come to you with an idea that is so outside the box of what you were thinking. They could be like, “Wow, that is another way.” It could be super simple. It could be like, “What we’d really like is more time and reflection and for our voice to be captured in some sort of communication.” Whatever it is, in a portfolio presentation or to parents or to other educators. So they see, you know, my words on this, and see their voice anywhere.

You can bring students into the conversation, ask them. Like, where do you really feel inspired? Because assessment, we’re hoping, is really a tool for growth, student growth, to push themselves to access resources and to find a way that’s authentic to them that measures both where they are and more importantly, where they want to go in a growth mindset way, not in a stress-inducing or some sort of way where it’s like, “You’re not here yet, therefore you’ve done something wrong.” It’s, “You’re not here yet. Let’s get you there. I want you to be stoked, and let’s talk about all the ways to get you there.” Ask the student, where are they struggling? What would help them most? What’s meaningful to them? And see what they say. Even within already existing assessment frameworks, a little bit of student voice agency in that process could make all the difference in the world.

Victoria Andrews: Yeah, and you touched on it a little bit, Celeste.

Addressing Student Anxiety in Assessments

Victoria Andrews: We’ve been hearing the term “anxious generation” more and more, and we know that there are a lot of anxieties associated when people just say the word test, assessment, quiz, evaluation, or evaluatory. Raya and Sophie, can you share a little bit about how the process that you, the different ways that you all are able to show your learning and demonstrate how it either addresses some of those anxieties or just how it contrasts to maybe some of your counterparts that may not be in a similar system?

Raya Naymik: I can answer this. I think it kind of, One Stone likes to throw you into things and, you know, things that make you uncomfortable, you know, and things that you’re like, “No, I don’t want to.” It’s not like a harsh, “But you have to,” it’s like, “But you can.” You don’t have to do the full thing. If in my first year I was asked to go present in Austin, Texas, at South by Southwest, I’d be like, “No, I’m not there.”

Victoria Andrews: Yep. Bounce.

Raya Naymik: You know, I was asked to do in my first year a five-minute presentation in front of like 15 people, you know? At the time, that was like the worst thing I could have imagined. I was like, “No, I don’t want to,” and I just had a coach that was just like chill about it, you know? He was just like, “No, but it’s cool. It’s like five minutes, and then it’s whatever.” That’s how he really felt. He wasn’t trying to downplay it for me. He just really knew that students are capable of this. I went up and did it, and since then, I’ve done 20,000 more presentations, you know, increasingly large groups. At South by Southwest, the presentation wasn’t what scared me, you know? It’s like slowly, it just kind of pushes you out of your comfort zone and keeps pushing that boundary.

Which I think is insanely important right now, especially with there being more and more ways to stay in a comfort zone, like create these boundaries for yourself. Then there’s a lot of people telling you that that’s where you need to be and that you’re in this constraint. That’s correct, and that’s your comfort zone. I think if you allow students, you show them a way that they can push their comfort zone, and you tell them that, like, you just tell them they don’t even have a comfort zone. Just try. Just put yourself into it.

Victoria Andrews: Yeah.

Raya Naymik: I think that that is huge. I am so eternally grateful for One Stone for putting those experiences in front of me and just believing that I can do it. When you have 10 adults that just very nonchalantly believe in you, you start being like, “Am I being like, maybe I can do it,” you know?

Victoria Andrews: Yeah. Sophie, do you want to add anything to that?

Sophie Gunther: Yes, I do. Raya mentioned community. I think that’s the biggest thing that I see is you have both the nonchalant teachers being like, “Yeah, you can go speak in front of 700 people. You got that. You already know that you have that speech memorized, you can do it.” But also the culture that’s created with our students. I think our growth transcript weaves in the concept that leadership is just as important as the grade you would get on a math test.

That is a very big culture shift because you’re encouraged to go speak in front of 700 people, or you’re encouraged to grab the mic at the end of the day and tell everyone to do their dishes. There’s this encouragement of, “Yeah, go do that thing because at the end of the day, we all love you anyway. If you mess up, you tried, and that’s what’s important. Try again next time.”

I think that’s the biggest thing for me is there’s a culture of just trying and doing it. We don’t want to judge you because everyone is in their own part of their journey. Maybe for you, you feel 100% confident going and singing at open mic, and maybe the person after you doesn’t. But you know that people are going to cheer for you even if you mess up or don’t hit a note. I think that’s just a huge part of our community and the growth transcript that I would’ve never thought of until I came into One Stone. Just the concept of, “I know that I have this support system, and I don’t have to be afraid of failing because these people want me to fail.” They want me to fail so that I can do better next time or learn to do more or be comfortable failing, and then I can just keep failing at life. That’s how you grow.

Victoria Andrews: Yeah, that’s how you learn. There are so many different schools and learning environments where it is punitive, and you’re punished for failing. It’s like, “Actually, if I never failed, I wouldn’t learn. I wouldn’t grow,” like to your point, Sophie. I have truly enjoyed you guys sharing what it is to be in such a nurturing learning environment. Hearing about how your various skills that are not just academic or core content are honored, like grit, perseverance, your efforts, strong communication skills. I don’t know. It warms my heart, but also it makes me very hopeful.

Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Victoria Andrews: To hear that it doesn’t have to be a large lift if you’re trying to make a shift in your holistic approach to assessment and evaluation, you summed it up so great, Celeste, by just saying, “Listen to the young people.” It doesn’t cost anything to listen to young people. You don’t have to bring in experts or consultants. You don’t have to fly people across the country. It is as simple as slowing it down and listening to the young people. I guess I would take it a step further and just say, not just listen, but also apply what you know. I could ask; we could do a Google form all day, but truly honor what has been shared and truly treat that feedback as priceless as it is and make a move on it. I really just enjoy this conversation. Raya and Sophie, you are finishing up next year? Yes.

Sophie Gunther: Yes.

Victoria Andrews: All right, so we’ve got some graduates coming up. Enjoy this last year. Just know, both of y’all enjoy this last year. Know that this is just the beginning, and you guys are already on an amazing path. I want to thank listeners for joining us today as we continue to share and dive into what it means to assess and how we can do it in a more human-centered way. Thank you, One Stone crew. It’s great to chat with you guys, and I look forward to talking to you guys very soon.

Celeste Bolin: Thanks, Victoria. Thanks, Getting Smart.

Sophie Gunther: Yes. Thank you.

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Guest Bio

Celeste Bolin

Celeste Bolin, Ph.D., is the Executive Director of One Stone, an innovative, student-driven organization in Boise, Idaho. One Stone includes the Lab School, a high school that redefines education through student agency, hands-on learning, and personal growth. Before stepping into this role, Celeste served as the director of One Stone’s Lab School for five years.

She holds a B.S. in Chemistry from Whitman College and a Ph.D. in Neurotoxicology from the University of Montana. She also completed two postdoctoral fellowships—one at the Curie Institute in Paris and another in the Department of Biological Sciences at Boise State University. Her research career includes 12 peer-reviewed publications, multiple presentations at international conferences, and grant funding from the American Cancer Society.

Now in her eighth year as a transformational leader in student-driven education at One Stone, Celeste continues to champion innovation and student voice in learning environments. She plays a key role in shaping One Stone’s Growth Framework, a skills-based learning model designed to foster adaptability, leadership, and real-world problem-solving. She also leads One Stone’s R&D efforts, providing strategic guidance and feedback to drive continuous improvement.

Raya Naymik

Raya Naymik is in her fourth year at One Stone and plans to graduate in the spring of 2025. She has served on the One Stone Board of Directors for three years. Raya enjoys hiking, cooking, and spending time with loved ones. She is excited to finish her final year at One Stone and take the next step into college in the fall. Raya currently serves as Chair of the Development Committee.

Sophie Gunther 

Sophie Gunther is in her third year at One Stone and plans to graduate in the spring of 2026. Outside of her studies, Sophie enjoys club volleyball, junk journaling, and activism. After graduating, she intends to attend college to study international relations and law, and hopes that she can carry her passion for justice into her career.

Links

• Watch the full video here
• LinkedIn
• One Stone
• Growth Framework
• One Stone Blog
• PBS Brief but Spectacular