About

In the 2022-23 school year my job is to support the planning and design work of the design team for the new P-8 at the Aurora Highlands. Working on the design is a privilege, to be sure, and it is very different than the work my Teaching Partner colleagues in APS engage in daily. Right now, the school is more of an idea than its brick and mortar brethren. It's conceptual, unlike the buildings where bells ring and educators engage with young people. It is a construction site, a set of architectural plans, and a web of documents growing in a shared Google drive. Our school doesn't yet have classrooms to visit, or students to high five. 

So instructional leadership this year for me is different and theoretical. There is much to learn, lots to do and a ton to plan. In the same way that dialogue is often the work of instructional coaching, this design work calls for conversations with all kinds of people. It affords me the chance to find out what other schools do, and what the people we hire envision should take place in that building that's a little closer to completion today than yesterday, for the students we haven't yet met. 

This blog will be a space for me to capture my learning and work during this design year. 

-Joe Dillon

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