Real Stories from a School in Colorado

Watch the full video interview with Claudette and Kelly below to hear their inspiring journey with student agency.

I recently had the opportunity to interview two educators from the Metropolitan Arts Academy, a part of the Westminster Schools District in Colorado, who had downloaded the book, Agency By Design: An Educator’s Playbook, and used it across their school to re-examine their approach to competency-based education. The thoughts below capture some of the key moments from the video that I feel are worth sharing…

The Missing Piece in Competency-Based Education

Metropolitan Arts Academy and Westminster Public Schools have been implementing competency-based education for years, introducing things such as proficiency scales but the school leadership had felt something was missing. When their superintendent brought Agency By Design to the leadership team, it immediately clicked.

As teacher Kelly Layton explains in our video conversation, “It really struck home at what we had been missing around agency… it really just bundled it and put it all together and handed that back to the kids.“

When the teachers found that it was going to take two to three days for the district office to download the book and have enough copies printed for everyone they were too excited and couldn’t wait. “The teachers were like, well, that’s not soon enough. Can we have them sooner?” recalls Claudette Trujillo, the school principal, “So we did our own copying and had copies available for each staff member the following day.“

From Teacher-Designed to Student-Designed

The key learning for Claudette, Kelley and the staff was the need to consider the shift in ownership of learning required to for agency to flourish. Where possible, they explored where they could enable the students to be the ones who were driving the learning experience. One of the most powerful shifts happened when they applied this thinking to the creation of their weekly learning trackers. They had been using these for a while now – but using the ABD book prompted them to consider how more effective it could be if the students were the ones that designed these. “We decided… we shouldn’t design these. The students should design them,” Kelly shares. When she gave students time to create their own tracking systems the difference was immediately obvious. “What they came up with was beautiful. It was personalised,” Kelley observed.

As students took responsibility for designing and using their own tracker to guide their engagement in the learning activity, they discovered more about their learning preferences through the design process: “Oh, I’m a list maker. I need to have a list on mine.” Some wanted to complete all their work early in the week for passion projects, others preferred spreading it out daily. They talked with each other about different approaches, showing genuine care: “Well, that might not be how you best learn. So you might have yours differently.“

Kelley’s class became an environment of mutual support and encouragement. It wasn’t an environment of competitiveness. She recalls conversations along the lines of, “you learn at your own pace and I’m so happy for you that you’re meeting your goals.”

The Ripple Effect: From Classroom to Culture

What started in individual classrooms created waves throughout the school, with stories of impact being shared almost daily. The evidence shared by Claudette and Kelley includes:

• Student Advocacy: Students began articulating sophisticated requests, connecting their wellbeing to their academic performance in ways that impressed adults.
• Attendance Changes: “Students coming to school because… they had things they wanted to do. And they were excited about it,” Kelly observed. Truancy became less of an issue when learning became personally meaningful.
• Peer Recognition: The school’s student-of-the-month ceremonies transformed from teacher presentations to students creating artifacts and giving speeches about their peers’ character and community impact.
• Test Score Improvements: “We got our test scores back, and there was some big gains there,” notes Claudette, attributing this to increased engagement and students showing up authentically for themselves.

The Leadership Challenge: Modelling What We Expect

During the interview I asked Claudette about her role as a leader in the school, and what she had done to actively encourage staff to engage with the book and the ideas it presented. Perhaps the most vulnerable moment in our conversation came when Claudette, a veteran principal, admitted her own learning curve. She told me; “I found I wasn’t good at is that agency piece with my staff… I’m a control freak. Like I like everything a certain way.“

Her solution? Modelling the same trust and personalised support with teachers that she expected them to show students. “If you take that mindset of what comes out of agency by design and you apply that as a leader to your staff, you’re then modelling it.” This comment moved Kelly to tears during our interview. She responded with; “I feel so that you trust me, you trust what I’m going to do and you’re gonna back me no matter what… you personalised our time and it made this year such a joy.”

Beyond the Classroom: Building Future Citizens

I think the best part of the story for me was the emphasis that Claudette, Kelley and their colleagues had been placing on a competency-based approach to their curriculum and learning design. They had a strong rationale for doing this that was about ensuring they were providing their learners with an opportunity to develop the competencies that would equip them to navigate life into the future – and to thrive in what the future world might hold for them. This wasn’t just about better test scores or classroom management for them (though both improved). It was about developing humans who can advocate for themselves and others thoughtfully.

“If we all could advocate for ourselves in an appropriate way… that doesn’t impact others in a negative way, yet we still get our needs met, it can be a win-win,” Claudette told me. “And that is a skill… that is at such a deficit right now, globally.” Students learning to design their own learning trackers today become adults who can navigate workplace challenges, make thoughtful decisions about their education and careers, and contribute positively to their communities.

The Practical Path Forward

For educators inspired by this Metropolitan Arts Academy story, both Claudette and Kelly have a simple message: don’t wait.

“Get a copy of the book, give it to your educators when they return to school and get your students involved,” urges Kelly, who even offers to have her students join video calls to share their experiences.

Claudette’s advice for those on a competency-based journey: “Start as early in your competency-based journey as you can, because you’ll wrestle with trying to create teacher-centred artefacts… when really the mindset of agency drives competency-based.”

The key insight? Agency isn’t about teachers giving up control or lowering standards. As Kelly puts it: “It is not about not having a pace, not having a plan… it is about having a plan but having a better plan – and the kids creating their plan.“

Want to see this transformation in action? Watch my full video conversation with Claudette and Kelly below to hear their authentic reflections on implementing student agency and the profound changes they witnessed in their school community.