CHALLENGE

Work on Climate (WoCl) is an international non-profit organization aiming to spark coordinated system-wide action on accelerating the climate workforce. WoCl wanted to launch a new global coalition that would collaboratively identify and solve talent bottlenecks that are preventing the rapid deployment of climate solutions across all economic sectors.

SUPPORT

Amy Sandoz led the Executive Director and leadership team through a co-creation process to develop a launch strategy for the new coalition. The launch strategy included an initial coalition purpose, structure, launch workshop design, desired attendee types, strategy for securing attendee commitment, and attendee and funder messaging. Amy then designed the workshop and supported the team in their efforts to recruit participants, fundraise, and coordinate event venue logistics. Amy facilitated the launch workshop at Climate Week NYC 2023.

RESULTS

With Amy’s guidance, WoCl successfully conducted their first launch event at Climate Week NYC 2023 towards creating a climate workforce coalition, with the support of 40+ diverse cross-sector stakeholders including government, corporations, nonprofits, and educators. To date, WoCl has raised more than $50,000 for this work, with an additional $300,000 grant in discussion with a major foundation. Participants noted that the launch was exceptional, sharing “This was the best-facilitated event of all of Climate Week NYC” and “Unlike other workshops I've attended before, this one was facilitated in a way that people were willing to listen and collaborate.”

At the end of the process, WoCl’s leadership reflected: "Think of a world-class professional in your field, and how much better they are at their craft than an amateur - it's not even the same game. That's how good Amy is at helping groups make progress; working with her felt like magic and left us stunned at how quickly she took us through decision-making and design processes that would normally take months."

CHALLENGE

Project Future, a climate initiative started by Amy Sandoz, Severino Cirillo, Jimena López de Silanes, and Pauline Levy aimed to tackle the dual crises of climate change and youth unemployment.

SUPPORT

Amy Sandoz led the team of four to complete a user research study of more than 30 young people to identify how young people are currently thinking of climate action and barriers to climate action. Next, she led the team through a design thinking process to identify possible solutions where young people could take climate action while also developing workforce skills. Then, she recruited and led a team of nine Climatebase Fellows to develop and test a protoype.

RESULTS

Under Amy’s leadership, she and the team identified key pain points for taking climate action and used those insights to develop a mobile app prototype based on Yu-Kai Chu’s Actionable Gamification Framework. Further, they tested the mobile app prototype with high school students in Oakland, CA.

CHALLENGE

Summit Public Schools, a charter school network of 14 schools in California and Washington, is one of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies. Backed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Laurene Powell Job’s XQ Institute, and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, and spurred by student feedback, Summit needed to develop a holistic program to help students from grades 6-12 make informed decisions about what to do after high school, be prepared for careers and college, and increase college-going rates.

SUPPORT

Amy Sandoz led a research & development team to complete a multi-year user research study of more than 150 students on the key needs a student has in making the decision on their next steps for after high school. Then, Amy led the team to design and pilot new assessments, curriculum, and instruction for more than 600 students across four school sites based on those key needs. Further, she advised senior leadership on program strategy, including positioning, growth, and change management.

RESULTS

Under Amy’s leadership, she delivered innovative new community-based summative assessments, research-based assessment tools, and a comprehensive package of career preparation and life design curriculum coupled with teacher professional development trainings. The tools are now used in all 14 Summit Public Schools sites, impacting more than 4,000 students annually.

Amy is the co-author of the “Clearing the Path” whitepaper, a field-building framework and set of tools on how schools across the United States can remove obstacles for young people as they transition from high school to college and high-paying careers.

CHALLENGE

Summit Public Schools, a charter school network of 14 middle and high schools in California and Washington, is one of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies. Backed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Laurene Powell Job’s XQ Institute, and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative; Summit wanted to develop innovative new measures for postsecondary readiness and use those measures to help students from grades 6-12 make informed decisions about what to do after high school and be prepared for careers and college.

SUPPORT

Amy Sandoz recruited and guided a multi-disciplinary cross-functional team through an EquityXDesign design thinking process. Leveraging key insights and feedback of historically underrepresented students, Amy guided the team to co-create a Theory of Action, a Measurement, Evaluation, and Learning framework, and strategy for an integrated career and college readiness assessment, curriculum, and instruction package. Further, she advised senior leadership on program scale and organizational change management and wrote a grant to secure funding to launch the initiative.

RESULTS

To date, Phase 1 of the initiative is now complete, impacting more than 4,000 students annually across all 14 Summit Public Schools sites. In final reflections, the team noted that the design process facilitated by Amy was one of the most inclusive and equitable processes utilized in school history. Amy successfully raised more than $1 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Walton Family Foundation to launch the initiative.

CHALLENGE

Summit Public Schools, a charter school network of 14 schools in California and Washington, is one Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies. Backed by Laurene Powell Job’s XQ Institute and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Summit wanted to develop new assessments, curriculum, and instruction to help students identify and foster a sense of purpose in their lives, both within and outside of school.

SUPPORT

Amy Sandoz led a research & development team to collaborate with the most influential purpose researchers across the United States to define Sense of Purpose as a graduate learning outcome, develop a meaningful and rigorous summative assessment, and design engaging and impactful curriculum and instruction.

RESULTS

Under Amy’s leadership, her team developed 1) rigorous community-based measurements for the hard-to-measure subjective experience of Sense of Purpose and 2) diagnostic tools for students to self-assess where they were in developing their Sense of Purpose and set goals for their growth. Based on her team’s research, Amy advised school network leadership on leveraging Sense of Purpose to help students make thoughtful informed decisions on what to do after high school, based on a student’s unique purpose, interests, and financial needs.

Amy’s work was featured in “Teaching for Purpose”, “The Ecology of Purposeful Living Across the Lifespan”, Transcend’s Graduate Aims Database on Purpose, and the 19th European Conference on Developmental Psychology.

CHALLENGE

Next Generation Learning Challenges (NGLC) is a non-profit community who invests in educators with bold new visions for the most urgent challenges in public education today. In an initiative funded by the Leon Lowenstein Foundation, NGLC wanted to gather and share ideas on how schools could understand whether or not their program innovations were truly working.

SUPPORT

Amy Sandoz guided NGLC through an inclusive research and design process with students, educators, and national leaders in assessment to build a toolkit for school and district administrators to broaden their thinking on how to evaluate “what works” about their programs.

RESULTS

The Full Spectrum of Evidence toolkit launched in September 2021. The toolkit offers ways for educators to redefine program accountability and assessment; including how to gather, center, and use student insights to create learning environments that foster whole-child growth and academic achievement.

The toolkit launched to educator acclaim and was featured at the 2022 ASU-GSV Summit.

CHALLENGE

Marshall Street at Summit Public Schools is a coalition of educators working to systematically improve opportunities for students across the country. In an initiative funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Marshall launched a multi-year national Network Improvement Community (NIC) to advance academic outcomes for students with disabilities. Marshall wanted to provide the NIC with an outstanding Professional Learning Community (PLC) experience to develop participants’ skills in the areas of Co-Teaching, Reading Literacy, and Multi-Tiered System of Support.

SUPPORT

Amy Sandoz led the collaborative development of a 2-year Backwards Plan for the PLC experience, including program success metrics and guidance on high-quality, engaging program agendas. Additionally, Amy conducted three literature reviews summarizing the research of best practices in implementing Co-Teaching, Reading Literacy, and Multi-Tiered System of Support.

RESULTS

The PLC experience launched in Fall 2021 for 30+ participants representing 10 nationally recognized charter management organizations. PLC members have used continuous improvement methods - supported by the literature reviews - to make gains in the learning experiences, environments, and outcomes for Black and Latinx students with disabilities experiencing poverty.