Hannah Costello graduated in January 2020 after homeschooling her whole life. While co-founding the Learner Council and volunteering at virtual camps in her distributed learning high school, she discovered a passion for guiding and supporting other learners, and for creating systems that work. She wants to help other kids to experience learning the way she did by designing and supporting individualized learning paths.

• What is a distributed learning high school?
• Enrolled in a program where you had lots of power over your learning.
• Created our own curriculum through grade 9.
• Still a diploma granting program, but in Grade 10 switched to a thematic learning system.
• There weren’t courses, but projects and ideas that were combined in a theme.
• Having the opportunity to see connections between things is really important.
• Find something you are interested in and delve into it.
• Learner council was like a student council, and we didn’t have one.
• Many students saw struggles with all the changes.
• One student got fed up with all the changes and decided we needed a student council.
• The model was based on the idea that every student should be heard.
• Our school was so happy to have learner initiative.
• Challenges were creating space for kids to talk with us.
• We did all of our communication online.
• Each learner has a learner consultant that they talk with at least weekly.
• The school organized events (like camps) that were in person.
• Befriended the communications team within the school.
• Forum space set up to meet with
• Tools to be successful
• Reach out and ask for what I needed.
• There was lots of support, but kids weren’t making use of their educators.
• Found it useful to find out who was doing what.
• I feel bad for my educators, because I asked a lot of them.
• What to do now?
• I could not join the educator team because I don’t have a college degree.
• There are definitely uses for college.
• I don’t want to teach a class, I want to facilitate learning.
• Different ideas to help people.
• How to be a transformative principal? Offer kids options as to how to express their learning. Because not everyone is going to learn the same way and not everyone is going to want to do it the same way.

Innovative school leaders across the country have started tracking online student participation using TeachFX because it’s one of the most powerful ways to improve student outcomes during COVID — especially for English Learners and students of color. Learn more about TeachFX and get a special offer at TeachFX.com

Today’s Transformative Principal sponsor, John Catt Educational, amplifies world-class voices on timeless topics, with a list of authors recognized globally for their fresh perspectives and proven strategies to drive success in modern schools and classrooms.

John Catt’s mission is to support high-quality teaching and learning by ensuring every educator has access to professional development materials that are research-based, practical, and focused on the key topics proven essential in today’s and tomorrow’s schools.

Learn more about professional development publications that are easy to implement for your entire faculty, and are both quickly digestible and rigorous, by visiting https://us.johncattbookshop.com/. Learn more about some of the newest titles:

• Michaela: The Power of Culture by Katharine Birbalsingh
• Teaching WalkThrus: Visual Step-by-Step Guides to Essential Teaching Techniques by Tom Sherrington and Oliver Caviglioli
• Putting Staff First: A blueprint for revitalising our schools by John Tomsett and Jonny Uttley
• The Teaching Delusion: Why Teaching In Our Schools Isn’t Good Enough (And How We Can Make It Better) by Bruce Robertson
• Stop Talking About Wellbeing: A pragmatic approach to teacher workload by Kat Howard

John Catt is also proud publisher of the new book from Transformative Principal host Jethro Jones: SchoolX: How principals can design a transformative school experience for students, teachers, parents – and themselves Visit this page to learn more about bulk orders and how to bring John Catt’s research-based materials to your school: https://us.johncattbookshop.com/pages/agents-and-distributors

Learn more about today's sponsors, Playworks, IXL, and Renaissance Learning:

As a global leader in education technology operating in more than 110 countries, Renaissance is committed to providing educators with insights and resources to accelerate growth and help all students build a strong foundation for success. We believe that technology can unlock a more effective learning experience, ensure that students get the personalized teaching they need to thrive, and help educators and administrators to truly, fully, See Every Student. Learn more at renaissance.com.

We’re proud to be sponsored by Playworks, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization with evidence-based practices that help schools improve the health and well-being of children by increasing opportunities for physical activity and safe, meaningful play.

If you’re a school or district leader struggling with the challenge of chronic absenteeism, as so many are across the U.S., you may not realize that structured recess is a research-backed approach to keep kids in school. In fact, a UC Berkeley study of Title I schools found that those partnering with Playworks had significantly lower chronic absenteeism rates. Further, Mathematica research demonstrated that Playworks schools spent 27% less time transitioning from recess back to learning, saving teachers valuable instructional time. 

These results are possible for your students, too. Learn how Playworks can help you improve student-educator relationships, belonging, and attendance by signing up for a quick no-obligation conversation.

We’re also thrilled to be sponsored by IXL. 

IXL’s comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins Universi...