Scott Bess and Keeanna Warren on Purdue Polytechnic High School

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Backslash, New Pathways. Music Hey Scott, what does learning look like at Purdue, Pauli, on a good day? On a good day, which almost, they’re almost all good days. When you walk into one of our buildings, you see students who are really actively engaged on something that interests them, right?

And so it’s not going to look orderly. It’s not going to look like students sitting in rows facing the front and a teacher talking. It’s going to look like students trying something. Maybe they’re trying to build something, right? And the coolest thing happens is when that doesn’t work. And you hear the conversation between them and their teacher, who we call coaches, saying, here’s what you could have done. And the student going, oh man, now, yeah, I get it. I’m going to do that the next time, right?

And then you might go into another room and you’ve got students in different groups who are taking on different topics and researching something, arguing amongst themselves, arguing with the teacher, and then coming up with some kind of their own pitch, right? And so, again, it’s going to look a little bit chaotic. It’s not going to look like anything that you expect a high school to look like, but you’re going to see it day after day after day. And so again, they’re almost all good days when you come into a Purdue Polytechnic. That’s beautiful. Keanna, what brings you joy when you walk into a poly classroom?

What brings me joy when I walk into the classroom is that moment where you see a click for a student or they get really, really excited about a project that they’re so excited that they cannot wait to share it with you when you walk into the space. And that you know that deep, deep learning is happening because the student has been so engaged in a project that they care about. That’s really beautiful to see. I’m Tom Van Der Rack and you’re listening to the Getting Smart podcast. And today we’re joined by leaders from Purdue Polytechnic High Schools in Indiana, the founder and head of school, Scott Bess. And we’re also joined by Keanna Warren. She’s the associate executive director and Keanna was the founder of the second school, the Poly North.

Scott and Keanna, welcome. Thank you. Good to be here. Thank you. Very glad to be here. And you guys are off and running as schools back in session, right? Yes, it is. We’re hot and heavy in it. And it feels strange that we feel like we just entered the school year, but here we are again. So it’s good to be going.

Keanna, I, in researching this, I noticed that you, like Scott, were a leader of the Goodwill Excel centers. They’re well known in Indiana, but less so in other parts of the country. What are Excel centers? What was the mission and maybe what were the big takeaways from your leadership role there? So the Goodwill Excel centers are an avenue or schools that allow adults to earn their high school diplomas for free. And not only do they get the opportunity to earn their high school diplomas, but they leave with college credits and industry certificates and they have to make nice certifications because the focus is not just on success in the moment, but what happens next. And that’s how we measure outcomes. And they have now at this point have graduated over a thousand students and just really had a generational impact. What my biggest takeaways from the Excel center is that to dream big, to innovate. They’re there at the time that Scott founded those schools. There was really nothing like it in the world and it helped us to think big and think what is possible in order to have impact on the education system and just the economic impact that

Enrolling in the schools had on the students is just very powerful. Scott, I think just having observed you for the last five years that that your experience with Goodwill just gave you a sense of imagination of what that education could look different that opened you up and maybe ways that traditional educators aren’t. Is that part of your takeaway? Oh, absolutely. So I think the biggest thing that the Excel Center’s taught. First of all, when you’re dealing with people who have dropped out of high school and understanding the reasons why it always came down to not a lack of academic ability, but a lack of academic engagement. And that if you could design high school to be different, right to to really bring in the needs of the students into the space and whether those needs are academic whether those needs are social emotional whether those needs that you whatever it might be.

If you can bring that into the high school space. And you don’t you don’t create more dropouts and be you create opportunities for students to realize their full potential which in our case hopefully that they go on to a place like Purdue University or any other post secondary. And I think the idea that what the Excel Center’s forced us to do was to really reinvent what that high school experience could be. And we’ve been able to take those lessons and bring them on into Purdue Polytechnic even though we’re dealing with traditional age high school students. But that idea that as kind of said you can you can think differently and get a different outcome and you really have to take a chance and be bold. And that was really the big translation between the two organizations.

And Kiana, on your website, it says the Purdue Poly model is student focused and stem centered. What’s that really mean I mean describe the learning model at Purdue Poly. And the heart of what we do is we give students voice and choice and we want to empower them to create the futures that they want for themselves. And so we have a lot of schools say that they are our students centered, but when you look at the systems. A lot of them are really centered on what makes it easiest for the adults so a good example for that is the master schedule master schedules make it simple and easy to for adults to teach their, let’s say they’re 60 to 90 minutes and then the student moves on from place to place, but they’re not really making those connections.

They don’t often have the opportunities for real world application. And so what we decided to do is throw out that master schedule and students get the majority of their learning in projects and projects of their choosing projects that they opt into, which provides such an opportunity for students with various backgrounds with various educational backgrounds to to be able to engage in meaningful projects where they feel empowered. It’s very interdisciplinary, and we don’t let time dictate the learning. It’s important that students master the learning and that they don’t just have a surface level understanding of the material but they are really deeply engaged in it. And one one example is if you have a master schedule if you’re working on a project or an assignment that you really like the bell rings, which we don’t have bells by the way, it’s time to go to the next class and that’s what it’s like in a traditional

setting. But in our setting, the flexibility allows if a student needs to continue on a project, we are our systems allow for that. So things that are really truly centered on making sure the students are getting what they need. And we have a theory here that if students can find their passion, we can design really really great learning experiences because we’ve engaged them in the process. Yeah, Canada last time I was there, I asked a couple kids to show me their schedule and it was really a list of projects and then dojos these these sort of skill sprints is that still what a what a schedule might look like. And so we’ve made alterations to our schedule over time or what our academic model looks like over time to really even more meet the needs of the students and so at this point you’ll just see a series of projects that meet the various needs of students and that’s an evolution that I’m super proud of. And in your school more than any other that I know of it, it sort of push courses into the background that you really the foreground learner experiences primarily projects and then secondarily personalized and blended learning and really a unique combination of those.

Scott, let’s back up and just do the origin story and what does Purdue University have to do with all of this. So, when when Mitch Daniels, who was the governor to term governor of Indiana when he left the governor’s office and went to immediately to the presidency of Purdue University, or the first couple of years he spent time analyzing and thinking about his, which is one of his strongest skill sets. And he asked the question, where does the diversity at Purdue come from right because when you go on Purdue’s campus it’s a pretty diverse place you see people of all types walking around. But the answer he got back was very little of the black and Hispanic students on Purdue’s campus came from the state of Indiana and produce a land grant college so they have essentially an obligation to the state to educate all citizens. And his conclusion was we’re not doing that. So the challenge to us was to create a high school that would increase the pipeline of underrepresented minority students to Purdue.

And so our central thesis on that right when you think of the origin was if we’re going to change an outcome that’s been that bad for that long. You cannot nibble around the edges and just have a longer school day or do a double block schedule right I mean you’ve got to really dig in and say, how do we fundamentally change outcomes, which means you have to fundamentally change the system as Canada described this of that. That really was the origin was to increase that pipeline and as we’ll talk. We’ve done that, even in our first two graduating classes. Yes, I think I remember five years ago there were a couple students every year from greater Indianapolis that went to Purdue, maybe 30, all together over four or five years and now you have 30 of your graduates at Purdue just just from Polly. That’s right. Yeah, so it was the Indianapolis public school system was averaging anywhere between two and eight students of color going to Purdue every year. And we quadrupled that in our first year.

We did it again with the graduating class that we just had. And so what’s happening at Purdue now, they’re actually even though Purdue is a massive place, they’re starting to see the needle move on the percentage of underrepresented minority students who are coming from Indianapolis, because of us. Keanu, do you think about Purdue Polly and I guess you now have three campuses right. Purdue and North Indianapolis and then South Bend. Think about yourselves as a pathway network. Are you really a college prep stem network with that includes but isn’t limited to Purdue as a as a destination. Yeah, so I think that’s a great question. One of the things that we think is really important is to make sure that students have options and opportunity and as educators, it is not our job to decide to be gatekeepers for college so we just want to make sure that our students are prepared to get to not only get to college not only get accepted but persist and graduate and live the dreams that they have for themselves.

So I would definitely say we are that and then the other piece about the stem is we really want to make sure that students are exposed to all the possibilities you hear things like the future is tech data is the new gold. We don’t know what the future of work looks like because it’s constantly changing the jobs that a lot of folks are doing now didn’t exist when I was a child. So our job is we believe that if we can have students that are able to collaborate and work well in groups students who can communicate really well and students that can innovate. They will do well with us beyond but it is very important and crucial that we are preparing kids for the rigor of college and to not just get there but to persist and graduate. And Kiana do you have this dialogue in advisory where does it happen and and then specifically when the students hear about college when do they get to visit Purdue and other campuses.

Oh I love that question. And so I we serve a population that has historically not been as represented represented in higher education and a lot of students who are first who will be the first in the generation to go to college. And so we know that it’s really important to get them engaged with our with the college going process. And so yes they hear about these things in advisory and advisory is really that time where where students are in groups between the class sizes between 15 and 20 so much smaller than you see in a typical high school and they their advisory teacher or their coach is really their their go to person for support. They meet every day and they’re able to hear about college opportunities are able to grapple with really tough conversations around some of the current events and one of the things that it gives them an opportunity to learn critical thinking skills so we don’t exist to be able to tell people how to think we just want them to think

and to ask the right questions and there’s a lot of support that comes there. What’s really cool and unique about our model to is we empower that our teachers who we call coaches to speak to students about academic advisory academic advising at each campus has a college and career coordinator who support these efforts and from the first from the day that they enter their freshman year they’re already getting constant exposure to Purdue University and students will have multiple visits to campus. We have a summer experience where students at no cost to our families have gone to produce campus been able to take classes with other college students and live in the dorms just have that college life and have that exposure and we have so many students come back from that visit and say I didn’t think college was for someone who looked like me but I now know I can do college so absolutely that exposure piece starts in advisory but it’s also that connection with Purdue. That’s beautiful. It’s really about helping young people experience success and what’s next right. Imagining experiencing what’s what’s next experiencing themselves be successful in what’s next and you guys do that so well.

Scott any I think anybody that’s heard me present in the last five years is has heard me go on and on about your client connected project. I think of you guys as best in class at client connected projects. This seems so complicated. The way that you guys wrangle these business partners and match them up with students and then help students deliver value for clients. How the heck do you do that. It seems impossibly difficult and complicated. But it seems super valuable. So how does that work. Yeah that’s one of the cornerstones of the school when we when we set out in the very very beginning as we were designing the school one of the most important things to us and to students as we had focus groups was they wanted to interact with the community. Right. So that one of that’s you know the business community you know or nonprofits in whatever it is. So we had to say look we have to design the school so we can make that work.

And so it’s kind of said you know really the entire day for students is built around projects and it turns out that yes it gets complicated to manage the process. But it’s actually relatively simple to get businesses to say oh my gosh you’re doing this project that relates to something I do. I would love to come in and interact with students and judge their pitches and be a be a content experts because most businesses understand that the talent pipeline is essential to their future. They would love to help K through 12 but they don’t have the foggiest idea how to do that. We give them a really simple way. Say hey look here’s an eight week long project. It’s in your wheelhouse right so we have students who are interested in clean water in the river. So you are an environmental science firm that does clean water in the river. Would you would you connect with our students for this eight weeks and it’s a yes they come in there the content experts they help students with their ideas.

There’s field trips involved. If it’s if we’re doing a pitch on that this they’ll come in and judge the pitches and after eight weeks we go thank you very much that was great. And so for them it’s been a great experience for our students. They’ve a had exposure to content experts be they started to build some social capital. They now know someone who does that thing which they found really really cool. And so then we can lead that into internships. We can lead that into apprenticeships. We can lead that into part time work. And you put all those things together. And as you know we look at academic content not just what happens inside the school walls but outside. So if a student has an internship if a student has a part time job. We look at what they’re doing and we can translate that back into essential learning outcomes that might be part of that academic credits. So this whole ecosystem is really is essential to the school. So yes tracking it managing relationships all of that is

complicated and it’s time consuming. But it really is what makes the school work from a standpoint of if you’re going to say we do real world stuff. It can’t just be things that you make up and put into a classroom wall. It’s got to go outside and people have to come in. Keanna you open the second campus. You got to see this work pretty well at the first campus. What was it like for you and your team to try to stand up a new set of relationships with with business partners and kick this off for a second time. Was it was it terribly difficult or did it come pretty easy. You know honestly it was a it was a very it was a fairly easy process. And we were able to work with some of the partners that had had chosen had chosen to work with our first campus but also within our neighborhood there was a lot of really great partnerships we were able to work with more local organizations more small businesses which was which was really a gift because I really believe that schools exist to serve the communities and engage with the communities. And so it was really great to be able to

partner in that way. So it was it’s one of my favorite things about the work we do because it just gives students so much exposure and access to social capital that they may not have otherwise. Scott I heard you talk about design thinking a couple times but it seems like design thinking is important to you kind of a structured problem solving approach that you teach and but also project management just being able to deliver value and through a complex project. Tell me a little bit about how you how you teach design thinking and project management. Does that happen before these projects or does some of that happen real time during the projects. Yeah. So it’s awesome by the nature of what we do. It’s real time during the projects when a student comes to us as a freshman. It’s highly likely they’ve never had any exposure to design thinking they’ve never had to actually manage a project. Things have been scripted for them right so they’ve been handed something and there’s a timeline and the teacher coaches everybody through it.

And so here by again by definition again all students are doing this work right so it’s not like hey once you master your fundamental academics then you can go do projects or the projects are for the gifted kids. Everybody’s doing this from day one when they start. So what we have to do in those first projects is really incorporate the concepts of design thinking in it. How do you manage a project. How do you create a project plan. And so we have some structured things we do with students early on their freshman and sophomore year really designed to get them to be fully independent. It’s what you might see as a freshman student in their first couple of projects they might follow a relatively scripted process of design thinking right so understanding analyzing empathy. I mean all the things that kind of follow that. But by the time they get into their certainly into their sophomore year they start to riff off of that right. They go man I’m going to do this but instead of spending like hey this is analysis week and then this is empathy week.

It might be OK I’m going to start with empathy because I want to understand you. I want to understand the process and then I’m going to do some analysis but that’s going to take a while. But I’m going to spend almost all my time on prototyping and making something right so that you start to see the students on their own because they understand the process able to move and adapt that to their own needs and to the needs of the project. And I think that then carries over to all the stuff that we know when you think about what they’re going to do in an internship they’re going to be handed a project. And what we think is beautiful is that our students can go OK I got this I’m going to create a project plan. Here’s the deliverables here’s the timing. And what we hear back from some of our mentors is like I can’t get my full time employees to be able to do that out of the gate. And you’ve got a kid that’s a junior in high school who’s coming to me with a project plan and I’m able to respond to that right. And that’s a we think that’s a skill that lasts way beyond high school and even college and can really serve them well out into the out into the work world.

That’s a beautiful thing. Keanna what are you going to be working on this year. What do you hope is is different and better about this school year. So this year being post covid. Well I shouldn’t say post covid. I should say some of the restrictions have been lifted. Another word endemic covid or whatever this is. Yes the endemic. I love that word. One of the things I’m really excited about is getting students into even more internships. So that’s something that kind of slowed down a bit due to a lot of a lot of folks saying virtual and and all of those good things.

So I’m really excited about that and I’m really excited for the growth that is happening really at all of our campuses but specifically at our north and south Bend campus. We’ve welcomed new staff members to help accommodate the growth. So I’m really really thrilled about that and some of our our leadership development program that’s something else that helps accommodate our growth. I’m so grateful for the growth because it shows that there’s family demand. And so I’m glad that we have those structures in place. And then I’m really excited for the projects that will have this year because I’ve heard some of them pitched and the suit is in staff. I’m super excited. Keanu you’ve taken visitors this this fall. We are definitely taking visitors. We love having folks come in. All right y’all put this at the top of your schools to visit less Purdue Polytechnic High School in Indianapolis and South Bend. One of the best school visits in America.

Doing great things for kids that deserve a shot at Purdue and and other great universities. Scott what’s what’s next for the network. Are you working on a new location. Well we are working on a new location. We’ve filed an application to start a new school a third school here in Indianapolis in 2023. And so hopefully next year at this time we’ll have we’ll have a school that’s open. And again I think the need was there the results again outside of the center of Indianapolis. Me or what happens in most urban cities and you know the outcomes just aren’t good. And so we we’re going to keep growing in places that have high concentrations of black and Hispanic students to try and change outcomes and we’re going to do that throughout the state of Indiana.

And the other thing that we’re particularly excited about is creating partnerships with districts charter schools whatever might be outside of the state of Indiana that maybe serve whatever demographic right it could be they serve high income kids maybe they serve low income urban kids but creating partnerships where we can help those schools implement all or part of what we do and so we’re starting to build an organization and technology that says hey look we can make it easy for you to create these business partnerships to create these projects that you blow up your master schedule and we’ll help ease you through that transition so you don’t have to you know frankly encounter all the pain that we had doing our first couple of years so that that work probably out there and you know in 2023 and beyond is really exciting because that’s where we think we can achieve true scale with growing the schools we do but also then helping others do what we do. We love that idea. I wrote a book called better together a couple years ago suggesting that schools work in networks because this stuff is super complicated you guys have 50 you figured out 50 gnarly problems. We would love to see schools around the country partner with you because what you’re doing is really best in class at combining project based learning and competency based learning.

In partnership with a great R one university it’s it’s very unique and it’s a powerful model and we’d love to see more people take advantage of what what you’re doing. Scott we should also add a word of gratitude for our friends at XQ that’s been that’s helped make it possible for us to work together for the last five years and I know their grants have been helpful but you’ve also really learned a lot and contributed to a community practice with other great school leaders across the country. Anything you’d add there about the XQ community. Oh for sure. I think the me for sure you know the grants and all that that’s been terrific and that’s enabled some things but as I actually had a conversation with XQ last week. The community of practice the thought leadership the the provocations have been more valuable right because you get connected to people and you get a chance to work with people they’re working with and you know again that’s whether it’s experts across the country whether it’s

other schools who are also trying to do something different a different model. But again if just trying to do something different is hard and sometimes you just need people around you who are like I’m trying to do something similar. And yes let’s you know let’s commiserate on this and let’s figure out how you solve that problem right and so that partnership and their leadership across the country as they work now in DC and New York and other places where they’re trying to also achieve scale. I think we’re all learning from that and learning from each other but that partnership for us has been just terrific. I mean it’s just I I I’m not exaggerating. I say we wouldn’t be where we are today without that. We’ve been talking to Keanu Warren and Scott Best from Purdue Polytechnic High Schools. One of America’s best go to Indianapolis and visit their schools. Keanu and Scott will be walking me there. Thanks so much for being on the podcast.

Well thank you Tom really enjoyed it. Appreciate appreciate your work. Thanks to our producer Mason Pasha for making this all possible. I couldn’t help that one. Thanks to the Getting Smart team for the support of the podcast. I think this is about 405 now. And until next week keep learning keep leading and keep innovating for equity. Thanks for tuning into the Getting Smart podcast today. We want this podcast to be actionable and insightful and a great way to learn about what’s next in learning. In order to stay on the cutting edge we need people in the field to tell us what they’re hearing what they’re wanting and what they’re needing to learn more about. Got a topic or a guest in mind. Send your recommendations to me Mason at GettingSmart.com and if you like what you’re hearing don’t forget to leave a review and Apple podcasts or subscribe wherever you listen.

Feel free to share the podcast on social media using the hashtag GS Podcasts. Thank you for listening to the Getting Smart podcast. The new Pathways campaign serves as a catalyst for unbundling education to allow for new learning models that are sustained by support and guidance and embedded in scalable systems. The new Pathways campaign will showcase how learners can shine as difference makers and learning curators when opportunities are intentional, equitable and personalized. Find out more about new pathways at GettingSmart.com backslash new pathways. Thanks to ASA, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Stand Together and the Walton Foundation for their support in this campaign.