STEAD School keeps striving for innovative education

Several sophomores huddled into an office, laptops open, ready to pitch their latest project idea: a flea-market style event at their school selling specialty products made right on campus. They wanted to give peers a way to sell items like honey, beeswax chap sticks and other goods they’ve produced as students at the agriculture-based STEAD School.

The project was part of their broader mission: to create a microeconomy at the school, complete with a student-run bank that can issue loans to fellow high schoolers who want to launch a business – such as 16-year-old Tyler Blunt, who wants to bring a coffee shop to campus.

Chelsea Thompson, a 15-year-old sophomore, said the student group’s work doesn’t end with starting up a microeconomy. They are also helping the school apply for 501(c)3 status.

“It gives you a really good insight on the business side,” Thompson said, “because I don’t know how many teenagers are helping put in for a 501(c)3.”

Striving for innovation

That type of project-based, student-led education recently garnered the governor’s attention. The Colorado Governor’s Citizenship Medals began in 2015 and honor leaders who serve their community. Awards are given for work in government, social work and business.

Gov. Jared Polis honored the latest medal recipients at a ceremony earlier this year.

Among those honored were Amy Schwartz and Kelly Leid, who received the Growth and Innovation Award for innovative public service for their work co-founding the STEAD School.

“Humbling. A huge honor, for our team and our design team,” Schwartz said.

More than 50 founding families volunteered more than 2,000 hours helping STEAD open its doors, she said. The school officially opened in October 2021. About 150 freshmen signed up before the school had a functional building, starting out in a temporary space for six weeks as construction of the STEAD campus chugged along.

The Commerce City charter school lets high school students play a central role in shaping their educational experience. The school focuses on teaching through projects or hands-on lessons, and is working toward ensuring students can graduate with a STEM certification.

STEAD stands for science, technology, the environment, agriculture and design. One core tenet of STEAD is to expose students to the agricultural world early in their education, introducing them to four areas in ag science – food, animal, plant and environmental.

Students are asked to decide which field appeals to them the most at the end of freshman year, and spend their final three years at STEAD pursuing a curriculum, or “pathway,” catered to it.

STEAD does not look like a traditional school, Schwartz said. Desks are a rare sight. In classes on Thursday, students sat on couches, on the floor, and sometimes on countertops, busily talking with one another amid afternoon lessons. There are literature books, but no textbooks.

“When you look at assessments, where the achievement gap and achievement is just really not moving,” an innovative approach to education is direly needed, Schwartz said.

STEAD is building the student body and campus one grade, and one building, at a time. Enrollment currently stands at 260, with plans to enroll 150 more students in the coming year.

STEAD currently enrolls 9th and 10th graders and recently opened the campus’ second building, while a third is under construction. Campus buildout is being financially supported with $10 million that the 27J school district — STEAD’s authorizer — earmarked for the charter school in its 2021 bond measure, Schwartz said.

At full buildout, the schools will serve roughly 700 students on an eight-building campus. The 10-acre property was donated to STEAD by Cal Fulenwider III, whose grandfather bought the land in 1905 and farmed it. The campus is named for L.C. Fulenwider.

STEAD will graduate its first class in the spring of 2025.

Director of Partnerships Candace Cheung said the school works to open students’ eyes to the career paths ag sciences can offer. Not many people realize, for example, that animal science can lead to a medical profession, Cheung said.

The school strives to ensure students are working with their hands, spending time outside, working with plants and animals, all while fostering creativity and artistic learning. STEAD is as much an arts school as it is a STEM school, Cheung said.

There is also an intentional focus on relationship building, like through small groups students do each day with staff.

“We’re looking at people holistically,” she said.

Student perspective

Kennedy Cobley, a 15-year-old freshman at STEAD, and Risa Rath, 14, also a freshman, think what’s unique about the school is the freedom they feel there.

Teachers, who are referred to as “guides,” are easy to talk to and get to know students on a personal level, Kennedy and Risa said. They aren’t scared to ask questions, and because students are given so much say in what curriculum they learn, they feel more passionate about their work. They like that the project rooms, or classrooms, are filled with natural light and boast garage doors that can open during the warmer months.

Two different classes are typically running in the same project room at once.

The bustle doesn’t bother Risa, who at first didn’t think she would learn well in that environment but got used to it quickly, or Kennedy, who said she has a harder time studying in spaces that are too quiet.

“It’s like white noise, almost,” Kennedy said. “I love the noise. It makes it easier for me to focus.”

The school is “very contemporary” and adapts to students’ individual needs, Risa said. Neither Kennedy nor Risa envisions a career in agriculture and are considering pursuing an AP curriculum that STEAD offers as a fifth option for students not interested in the agricultural sciences. The pathway functions similar to an independent study, Cheung said.

STEAD places an emphasis on student mental health, Kennedy and Risa said. Risa noticed she feels less anxiety at STEAD because project rooms are used for multiple classes, so if she struggles in one subject, she’s likely to have another course that she likes in that same room, so doesn’t exclusively associate that space with stress.

At her old school, a counselor told Risa to put her emotions on a shelf when she came to school, Risa said. Students at some traditional schools are “taught to act like robots,” she said, while STEAD teaches emotional intelligence and how to handle emotions.

“We’re just growing as people here. You don’t see that at a lot of other schools. You might see academic growth,” Kennedy said.