Schools explore portrait of ideal graduate
New Canaan team to look for elements of success
NEW CANAAN — Superintendent Bryan Luizzi wants to draw a portrait of the desired high school graduate to help guide all aspects of the school experience.
He told the Board of Education on Monday that he wants to put together a “design team” of 100 to 150 members to work together over the course of three months early in 2023.
They would “discuss and identify knowledge, skills and habits of mind that all graduates of our school district should have and should be demonstrated throughout their time in school,” Luizzi said.
Envisioning the portrait of a graduate is “sort of a backwards map into the processes and the scope and sequence that we have with our students going through from K to 12,” the superintendent said.
The concept of a portrait of the graduate is not new among educators and can work as a “north star,” that would incorporate the district’s mission, vision and goals, he added.
Design team
The design team would include parents, students, community members, deans of colleges, members of human resource departments in business, social service agencies and mental health professionals.
“I think the strength of the process is to bring as many diverse perspectives to the table as possible. I think that we are very fortunate to be in a community that has quite a diverse skill set,” Luizzi said.
The superintendent would like deans, provosts or college presidents to share their perspectives, such as “what do they look for from incoming freshmen?” To help in the effort there are “some great universities around the area and folks that are living in town who are involved with universities at various levels,” he said.
In addition to preparing students for college and careers, he wants to tap into the social services and mental health workers ”to think about what it takes for students to excel and thrive while they’re in our schools,” Luizzi said.
The superintendent plans to hear feedback from Saxe Middle School and New Canaan High School students, since they “certainly are in a good place to share their insight and feedback.”
He is eager to have the team of designers work in a room together. “One of the challenges of the last couple of years has been the isolation that the pandemic created,” and what “I really like about the portrait of the graduate process is that it brings everybody together physically.”
Four meetings
One of the steps will be to have school board members and educators meet in an initial group to build the design team and set four meeting dates between February and May.
The first meeting will determine a baseline, explore how the world is changing and examine living in “accelerated times,” Luizzi said.
“We want to make sure that the portrait of the graduate is responsive to what the world is going to be like when students leave our district.”
Looking at essential skills and mindsets will be discussed at the second meeting, and the team will delve into what is required for the graduates to navigate the quickly changing world.
At the third meeting, the design team will develop a shared portrait, which would “contextualize the competencies that should be part of this shared vision for our community.”
Creating the portrait will be the goal for the fourth meeting.
Once the portrait is articulated, the district’s work will not stop. Then the educators will discuss it in relation to district goals, learning sequencing, the budget, and all of the systems and processes across the five schools, Luizzi said.
The portrait of the graduate will help ensure “all of the steps that we take are in line with those outcomes that we’re driving toward.”
Educators will revisit the portrait over time and may broaden the effort. “Some districts have taken this work and expanded it into creating a portrait of an educator,” including teachers and principals, Luizzi said.