Fall 2019 saw the opening of the SPARK School within Kyrene de las Manitas Elementary School, nearly two years after Kyrene district leadership, a core design team of Kyrene stakeholders and a team of faculty and staff at MLFTC set themselves the task of designing and launching a “school of the future.”

Having secured school board approval and having earned the interest of a number of families, the school opened as a program of choice within Kyrene de las Manitas.

SPARK breaks out of the constraints imposed by the standard one-teacher, one-classroom model by combining innovations in learning environments, teaching methods and staffing. When students enter SPARK, they step into a dynamic learning space that can be configured for collaborative project-based learning activities. They are welcomed by a core team of six educators that includes teacher-leadership roles, certified teachers, full-time MLFTC residents and a part-time MLFTC intern. The instructors work in cross-disciplinary configurations to support 120 students, in multi-age grade bands, from third through fifth grade.

The benefits of teaming

Hear four educators from SPARK School describe the impact of teaming with distributed expertise on both educators and students.

Deeper and personalized learning

Lead teachers, known as teacher executive designers at SPARK School, share how they leverage teams of educators with distributed expertise in combination with an innovative learning space to deepen and personalize student learning.