Here’s the first of many weekly summaries. We love comments and feedback!

• We set ourselves a July 20th deadline to bring two suggestions for names to replace the temporary “ROSE” (Results Only School Environment). We are having a tough time avoiding acronyms or inherently implying a level of student. Suggestions are welcome!
• The retreat on Tuesday was a fantastic opportunity to chat with Alec from Somerville STEAM Academy. Their vision is pretty progressive and we took a lot away from the chat as well. Of course, more questions were raised.
• Kyaiera took the lead in creating a project map with some summer deadlines for all of us for blog posts, contacting schools for transcript information, etc.
• We’ve been having a good discussion this week about what should drive the lesson planning. Do you start with interesting, thematic questions (“What does it mean to be alive?” “How big is too big and how small is too small?”) that students and teachers can take in many directions and then backwards map to current standards/curriculum? Or should we compare standards/current curriculum and and look for natural connections to create themed questions? We’re leaning towards the former – what are your thoughts?
• Sarah has a post coming about why education should be shifting, Kyaiera has one in the works about assessment, and Brian is compiling a narrative about what a day in the life students would look like.

That’s where we’re at this week. Thanks for reading!