Community-Based Design & the Whole Child Model - A Conversation with Cynthia Robinson-Rivers and Jeff Wetzler

<p>Most school reform efforts claim to be &quot;research-based.&quot; But fewer are genuinely built with the people who have to live inside them every day. Building on some of the themes that I explored with Iwan Syahril on a <a href="https://www.goodimpactlabs.com/podcast/dr-iwan-syahril" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferer">recent episode</a>, this week we&#39;re diving deeper into community-based design. Rather than starting with an expert’s blueprint, what happens when innovation starts with the community&#39;s own convictions about what its children deserve, and why that starting point often determines whether an idea actually takes root, or just gets installed and then quietly left to atrophy. As a fantastic example of that process working really well, we also discuss the Whole Child Model (<a href="https://www.wholechildmodel.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferer">https://www.wholechildmodel.org/</a>), born exactly that way and now reaching thousands of students across the US and beyond.</p><p><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/cynthia-robinson-rivers-9ab86791" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferer">Cynthia Robinson-Rivers</a> is a managing partner at Transcend (<a href="https://transcendeducation.org/">⁠https://transcendeducation.org/⁠</a> ) where she supports schools as they adopt the Whole Child Model that she developed while serving as head of school at Van Ness Elementary (DC Public Schools).  Before her return to school leadership, Cynthia worked in the DCPS central office as the Director of Teacher Retention and Recognition.  In that role, she developed projects to improve retention of highly effective teachers, including LIFT: Leadership Initiative for Teachers, a career ladder system for teachers.  Prior to her work on teacher retention, Cynthia directed the DCPS master educator program during the inaugural year of IMPACT, the district’s teacher evaluation system.  She holds a B.A. in Communication and Art from Stanford University, M.A. in Education from George Washington University, and EML from the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University. She is a fellow with the first class of the Aspen-Pahara Teacher Leaders Fellowship, a recipient of the Rubenstein Award for highly effective leadership, and a 2020 Boulder Fund grantee. Cynthia and her husband live in Washington, DC with their three children who all attend(ed) DC Public Schools.</p><p><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeff-wetzler-9ba3824/" target="_blan