Kyrene de las Manitas Innovation Academy
Additionally, special education teachers, special area teachers, specialized paraeducators, academic interventionists and community educators join the core educator team to support learners. The school will expand to K–8 in 2023–24.
Read on to find out how the school, formerly called SPARK School at Kyrene de las Manitas, is implementing a team-based Next Education Workforce model.
How Kyrene de las Manitas Innovation Academy came to be
The school first piloted a team-based approach in the fall of 2019, with a single educator team serving a multi-age band of about 75 third- and fourth-grade students.
The pilot was the result of a collaborative effort between Kyrene district leadership, a core design team of Kyrene stakeholders and a team of faculty and staff at MLFTC, who set themselves the task of designing and launching a “school of the future.”
In response to strong interest from families, they grew the program each subsequent year. In fall 2022, they adopted a whole-school Next Education Workforce model, which is now Innovation Academy.