Beyond the Classroom: Education That Prepares for Adult Success

Season 4 of the Designing Education Podcast kicks off with Shawn Morris, Executive Director of the Mark Armijo Academy located in the South Valley of Albuquerque, New Mexico. 

This episode explores how the Mark Armijo Academy is helping students take ownership of their futures through internships and work-based learning. The conversation touches on the changing landscape of work, the decline of traditional career pathways, and the urgent need for schools to adapt by offering students meaningful exposure to modern opportunities.

This episode sets the tone for a season focused on innovative approaches to education, featuring leaders, thinkers, and practitioners from across the country who are working to create systems that truly support all learners on their path to adult success. 

Listen now and subscribe to the Designing Education Podcast for powerful conversations with education leaders across the country.

Transcript

Robert Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: Hello and welcome to Season 4 of the Designing Education Podcast. I’m Dr. Robert Balfanz, director of the Everyone Graduates Center at Johns Hopkins University. Today, we will be talking to Shawn Morris, Executive Director, of the Mark Armijo Academy located in the South Valley of Albuquerque, New Mexico.   We are excited to have him as the first guest of the fourth season of conversations we are having with education leaders, thinkers, and practitioners from across the country. With them we are talking about what it will take to create an education system that truly empowers all young people and sets them on a pathway to adult success.  We will be discussing how his school promotes student ownership of their futures, by implementing creative internships and work-based learning opportunities. 

We can’t wait to start the conversation.  But before we do, we want to take a moment to remind you to subscribe to the Designing Education Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts. Subscribe to the Designing Education Podcast and never miss an episode.

Perhaps the most important role high schools play today is enabling students to make informed decisions about how they will prepare themselves for jobs and careers that will enable them to achieve adult success. Given the pace of change, this is harder than ever for our high schools to do. Today we are going to learn more about how our high schools can be designed to enable students to get direct experience in the options and possibilities that await them in the world of work. So, let’s get to it!

Robert Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: Welcome, Shawn, it's wonderful to have you here today. We start all our podcasts by asking our guests the same question. When you were in high school, what was a good day?

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Shawn Morris: So first off, I just want to thank you for this opportunity, and getting to the question, I guess when I was in high school, what was a good day? Probably a good day was not having me get in any sort of trouble. So that was probably the first piece, but also, probably, I guess, looking back at my high school experience, a good day would have been a day that had some choice involved and engagement.

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Robert Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: Yeah.

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Shawn Morris: I I think, in the beginning or since the beginning of my school, my schooling, I found it hard to engage in the classroom, in the traditional classroom. So, I and some of that, I think, was related to not having choice, student choice, and always being told this is what you will do and I wasn’t part of that conversation.

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Shawn Morris: So, I I think reflecting back on my experience, I would say I rebelled a bit, got myself in my fair share of trouble. I think that is why I do the work that I do.

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Shawn Morris: I believe that at that time I wasn't engaged so, I was gonna engage myself, and sometimes that was destructive. And I firmly believe, even to to this day, that students will engage themselves if we don't engage them.

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Robert Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: Yeah.

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Shawn Morris: And I, and I believe there's a ton of opportunities out there and we can changed the trajectory of our students

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Shawn Morris: if we only give them those, provide them with those opportunities.

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Robert Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: Yeah. And you know, I think what I hear from what you're saying is that you know a good day is when you felt you had agency,

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Robert Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: correct?

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Robert Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: And if it wasn't a good day you would find agency yourself. And so that's really central. That makes sense.  For us to feel like a part of something, we have to feel like we have some voice and vote. And what's happening right? We're not just there to

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Robert Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: to sort of, you know, do as we're told right? 

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Shawn Morris: Yeah. And I also, well, and I was gonna also just add, sorry about that – also just add that

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Shawn Morris: I didn't always feel like I belonged as well. So, I think that is also a key piece to the work that we're doing currently is creating a sense of belonging and connectedness because I didn't feel connected to school. I didn't feel like I belonged. I didn't feel that if I miss school people would miss me, so it was one of those things that

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Shawn Morris: I was engaged when I participated in sports and those types out of school time activities. But the traditional school, schooling at that time just wasn't engaging me to the level that I felt was what I probably needed at that time.

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Robert Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: Yeah, I mean, and again, that really resonates because you know, some of the work we do here at the Everyone Graduates Center, we make the case. That sort of the, you know that agency, belonging, and connectedness are sort of the ABCs of school success. And so that really reflects in I think both our experiences.

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Robert Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: Let's just start today by hearing just a little bit more about your school and where it's located and who it serves.

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Shawn Morris: So, Mark Armijo Academy is located in the South Valley of Albuquerque, New Mexico. We're a small public charter school. We serve about 250 students.

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Shawn Morris: We're a hundred percent Title One, free and reduced lunch school we serve.

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Shawn Morris: We've been in existence now for about 20 years. So, we're one of the oldest charter schools in Albuquerque.  When Mark Armijo initially was founded, really it was working with at-promise youth that were not

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Shawn Morris: doing well in a traditional setting.

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Shawn Morris: And, and initially, when the school started is probably only about set around 75 students. That was the Max. We've now grown to about 250 students, with plans to increase to about 450 students.

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Robert Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: That's great!

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Shawn Morris: Our population has changed over time.  I would say  about a third of our population are at-promise youth that are still struggling in a traditional setting.

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Shawn Morris: Another third come to us just because the parents want a school that's closer to their homes and they want a smaller setting, and then about another third come to us because they've had siblings or relatives that were successful at Mark Armijo. So, I would say, it's about 3 buckets of where we pull our students from.

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Robert Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: I mean at some level. You can't have a better vote of of the success you're having when siblings bring their siblings in, right? When they have choices like they don't have to go to that school.

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Shawn Morris: Correct.

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Robert Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: That's really great to hear.

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Shawn Morris: Well, I was gonna say, and I, I participated in a forum today with some of our students.

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Shawn Morris: And it was interesting because some of our students are actually recruiters to our school.

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Robert Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: Right.

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Shawn Morris: Indirectly. And that’s what they talked about today is just that, you know, their friends, that go to other schools.  When their friends are struggling, they’re like, “Hey! Why don't you come to Mark Armijo? You get more individualized instruction, more one on one.”

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Shawn Morris: So, our students are becoming recruiters of our school, not intentionally, but they're doing it just because they're finding themselves successful. So then, in turn, they're trying to bring their friends over so that their friends could be successful as well.

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Robert Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: I mean, you know, once you unleash agency, who knows where it goes? Right? 

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Robert Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: You know, for, for several years, you've been working with us on an effort called, “On Track to Career Success.”

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Robert Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: Can you share with this audience why, it's important for middle and high school, or just adolescents in general, let's say, to think about and explore how they could achieve career, success?

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Shawn Morris: Well, I think one of the big pieces to this work is really the opportunity that it provides students to what’s out there.  

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Shawn Morris: I think a lot of times like when we have guest speakers, or we put students on a program that gives them a little introduction, but it doesn't give them that hands on learning that really can then shape their future. Or they might try something and decide, no, that's not really what I thought that was gonna be like.  

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Shawn Morris: So, I think for me, the biggest piece is providing opportunity and actually providing them with the opportunities that provide that hands on type learning, that real world learning, that sometimes we can't replicate in the classroom as well as if a student goes to participate in an internship.  

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Shawn Morris: They, automatically, they get that that real world learning. They see how an organization works. They see the pieces that are involved with that position or that job. They see the things that they need to do to be successful. They have mentors at those locations that help them to be successful.  Because it's, it’s one thing just to be like here, we're gonna, 

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Shawn Morris: we're gonna provide this internship.

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Shawn Morris: But, we also need to provide that mentorship as well. 

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Shawn Morris: So, I think for me, I have students that don't get outside of a five mile radius of our school. It's hard to know what you don't know.

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Robert Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: Right.

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Shawn Morris: So, for me, it's really providing these opportunities. And it's not just me. I mean, I guess when I'm talking, I'm talking to school because this takes a team effort and collaboration across many different areas. But it's really to provide students with opportunities to see what options are out there.

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Shawn Morris: Because if you're only exposed to

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Shawn Morris: this little piece of the world, 

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Shawn Morris: you just don't know what's out there.  And once you're starting to get exposed, then that curiosity, I believe, continues or

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Shawn Morris: becomes a flame. Where then, you're curious of what's next? What else is out there? 

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Shawn Morris: And that type of learning, I think, is infectious.

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Robert Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: Yeah.

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Robert Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: Yeah, that's you know, that learning by doing is so important, especially when we think about, you know, trying to make informed decisions about like, what type of careers are out there. Given, how fast things are changing.  There's a lot of interesting opportunities that, like very few of us know about, and until you get out there and and see them, you can't really imagine them. Could you share a little bit more detail on some of the specific internships or work-based learning experiences your students are engaged in?

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Shawn Morris: Yeah. So, one of the ones I'd like to highlight is a a partnership that we have with the New Mexico Early Learning Academy, which is an early childhood center.

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Shawn Morris: And this was a partnership that we developed last year, a partnership in which we send interns. We, we pay them.  I believe right now we're paying them $17 or $18 an hour. Most of the ones that we send are usually seniors because they're also working on their

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Shawn Morris: early childhood certification process.

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Robert Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: Yeah, that's so cool.

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Shawn Morris: And we send them to the Early Learning Academy.

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Shawn Morris: And we have this agreement, an informal agreement at best.   But basically, the interns that we send over, if  all goes well, those interns then get hired on at the end of the internship. The organization, The New Mexico Early Learning Academy, then

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Shawn Morris: provides them with employment after like I said, the internship, after they graduate. The organization also helps them navigate college. 

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Shawn Morris: So, if they decide they want to pursue an early childhood

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Shawn Morris: degree or certification, the organization would help provide that guidance, what classes they need, those types of things.  They also provide a small scholarship so that they can

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Shawn Morris: grade or bridge that funding with other funding that they get from the state of New Mexico. All students that want to go to college have that opportunity. If they graduate from a high school in New Mexico, they can go to any of the state schools. So The Early Learning Academy then provides a little additional scholarship so that could help them with continuing their learning.  

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Shawn Morris: But it was interesting when we first started sending students over there. 

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Shawn Morris: A few of them were like, well, I don't know if I'm gonna be good working with little kids. I don't know. This is maybe not the thing for me.

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Shawn Morris: And we, we sent them over there.  And like I said,  last year, out of the the four that we sent, three are still successfully employed over there. They are pursuing their early childhood certification and degrees.

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Shawn Morris: So, for me, that's a success. We, we also are in the South Valley of New Mexico. So, there's a lot of agriculture in our area. So, we also have a program called the YCC which stands for Youth Conservation Corps. So, during the spring and the summer we employ some of our students to work in our YCC program

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Shawn Morris: which again, it may not be where they want to go down the road in their future careers

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Shawn Morris: but it provides them again with an opportunity to earn $16/17 an hour. It provides them opportunity to work in some of our local farms to see how the farms work. It provides them an opportunity to work with some of our wildlife organizations on repairing trails in the Bosque and in the mountains in some different areas of New Mexico.  

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Shawn Morris: This year we're also going to have an opportunity to work closely with our Alamosa Neighborhood Association, and our students are going to be able to work in the in the yards of some of our veterans, some of our disabled, some of our elderly, and help them clean up their yards and those types of things. So, it's a, it's also a gives back to the community. It provides an opportunity for our students to provide and give service back to their community that they come from.

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Robert Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: Yeah, I want to just tease out two things you said there for our audience. A little more detail is that one, you know, I sort of talked about internships and work-based learning, but your examples you gave are really more what's often called pathways, right? That, it's not just a one off to go job shadow somebody for three times.  And that has value, but it doesn't, it doesn't lead necessarily anywhere directly. And the things you both described are, you know, students may or may not choose to follow through, but they do have the option of

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Robert Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: building an actual pathway which will take them through school to employment, and perhaps more schooling and back to employment.

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Robert Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: And that's, you know, in the end, what's needed, because, you know,  

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Robert Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: we used to have more of those defined pathways when there was, you know,

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Robert Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: mass occupations that you know were well-oiled. You follow your family into the factory, or you know, you you know, if you go into the professions, there's well-oiled ways to become a teacher or a nurse. But for many of our jobs today, like those things are still being created.  

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Robert Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: So really, you know, for having schools to work with their community to create those pathways are so important.  And then the other one I picked up on that I also want to comment on is that in both those cases you gave, the kids were earning money. It wasn't just a learning experience.

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Robert Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: So how important is both the idea of pathways and the idea that as part of that pathways, the kids are actually paid for the work they are doing?

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Robert Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: It's not just seen as a

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Robert Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: learning experience where they give their labor away?

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Shawn Morris: Yeah. So, I think on the pathways, that is something that we're very intentional on creating. It started last year. We're working on a couple of pathways, but the one would actually be a teaching pathway which ties closely into that early learning childhood that we started with. 

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Shawn Morris: And we're and we're still developing it. But yeah, eventually, that becomes a pathway where they, they take human development courses at the school that then leads into an internship, possibly either at New Mexico Early Learning Academy, or another organization, and then it provides them with opportunities to take dual enrollment courses so they can start the work.  

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Shawn Morris: If they decide they wanna

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Shawn Morris: be in the teaching field, in in some degree right - whether it's early childhood, K12, whatever it is.  We're trying to, you know, develop that pathway so that they have the foundation. I think the part that we feel is important about paying our young, our young people, or I call them kiddos sometimes, even though they're not that they're not little anymore. 

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Shawn Morris: I think, that for us is one of the big things when I talk to students, because when we talk to them about the different internships and the different opportunities they have.  Because even right now, we have two students, and I digress a bit. But, we have two students that are working with an electrician, and they they because they want to be an electrician when they get older. So, they're working with an electrician. 

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Shawn Morris: But I guess, when, when I go back to the reason we pay them is because a lot of them, when I used to talk to them about like, Hey, we have these internships. Well, I gotta work, Mister.

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Robert Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: Right.

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Shawn Morris: I have to help out with with the family.

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Robert Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: Yeah.

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Shawn Morris: And they're working these jobs, which I, no, no disrespect, but I mean they're working usually fast food or retail jobs. They go in at 2 or 3, 4 o'clock in the afternoon, and sometimes work till 11 o'clock, 12 o'clock at night. So, our goal was really…

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Robert Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: And we are surprised - why are they late to school?

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Shawn Morris: Well, yeah, exactly. And then they're late to school. And we're and then people are like, why are they late? Well, they just worked till 12, and we're asking them to wake up at 5 or 6 to get to school. So, what that was, one of our goals is really to pay them so that they could then make a decent wage and maybe give up that other job that they had and still help out with the family and still help with the things that they need to do.  

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Shawn Morris: Some of our students live on their own because we are also a re-engagement school. So, some of our students live on their own, and they have to work.  And really, what we're trying to do is provide them with opportunities so that they can see that there are some great opportunities.

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Shawn Morris: Once they graduate, they don't have to be stuck in a in a job just to make ends meet. There are opportunities out there. So, we're really just trying to show them what they don't know and provide those opportunities so that they can eventually figure out this is something I really want to do when I get older. 

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Shawn Morris: This is something I want to pursue.

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Robert Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: And you know, it's so critical, because, 

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Robert Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: as an adolescent, to the adolescent mind, you know, especially in some places where the minimum wage has been raised to a degree, those jobs seem like decent money, but what they don't fully comprehend is that they're flat.

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Robert Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: They're going to be making that same money which seems okay at 17, when they're 27. And then it's not okay.

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Robert Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: So that idea of you know, creating ways that there's - they can get pathways to, you know, 

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Robert Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: family sustaining jobs is so important.

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Robert Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: What I want to build from that a little bit is that you gave some very rich and very involved examples that took a lot of work and effort to do.

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Robert Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: And we know that sometimes when we do this work, work-based learning or internships or pathways, it’s ultimately for we, we design it for some students.  Right? 

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Robert Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: You know, those students, we think that, you know, are ready for it. Those students that we think maybe don’t have a, you know, have not clearly declared.  

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Robert Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: Like, I plan to go to college.

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Robert Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: But really, what you know, what you're what what, Mark Armijo, and you know a few schools like it are really, you know, being pioneers on, is saying that this is something that all our students at some form have got to do.

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Robert Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: So, what are some challenges and some things you've overcome to moving from that idea of some, or a few, or those that are ready and willing to like how do we make this more a broad-based

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Robert Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: part of high school for everybody?

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Shawn Morris: Yeah. So, I mean, I think there's definitely some challenges in this work. One of the challenges for us is we're a small school. So, it would be nice to develop collaboratives with other small schools

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Shawn Morris: so that learning could take place

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Shawn Morris: in multiple organizations within multiple schools. So, for us and I guess what I'm getting at, with that small school is, we can't create ten pathways. It's just not feasible. But we still want to create pathways. So, we have to kind of really look at

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Shawn Morris: capacity within our organization

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Shawn Morris: and then we have to look at what is possible with even facility wise. But if we could create a collaborative with multiple schools, then I think we could do a lot of interesting types of, yeah types of things where, you know, for instance, we could have the early or the teacher pathway at our school.

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Shawn Morris: But yet, if a, if a student wanted to be a welder, I could then transport them over to another school so that they could participate in a welding pathway.

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Shawn Morris: So that's just something that I kinda always envision of creating these, these partnerships with other schools as well. 

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Shawn Morris: I mean, I'm a firm believer that if you can dream it, you can build it. So, I kind of think, yeah, like, I, I think the sky is the limit. I think the adults, if anything, are the ones that are holding us back. And I think sometimes that's our politicians that are like, well, this is how it's always been, or even other administrators and other educators that are like, well, this this worked for me when I was in school, and this is how it's always been.

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Shawn Morris: And I kind of always question, did it really work? Because if 60 to 70% of the students are graduating, I, I wouldn’t say that’s success.

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Shawn Morris: And we wouldn't say that’s success in the classroom.

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Bob Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: Yeah.

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Shawn Morris: So, I think having capacity is a challenge

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Shawn Morris: changing mindset is a challenge, because I I think also within the building, sometimes there's a sense of

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Shawn Morris: well, why are we providing with these opportunities? I didn't have these opportunities. So, I think there's that. I think funding is always a challenge. Right now, our State, I would say.

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Shawn Morris: and I don't know how many other States are, but I would say our State is actually being very innovative where they are providing funding so that we can pay the students.

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Shawn Morris: Oh, that's great. Yeah.

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Shawn Morris: Yeah. So, I think the State of New Mexico is doing a great job of saying there is a need. This is how we're gonna support. But it would also be nice down the road to have businesses say, this is what we can contribute, because if, if we're building the next workforce, possibly and and really, it's in collaboration like we need to bring businesses to the table and say, what do you need?

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Shawn Morris: 10, 15, 20 years down the road, but then also have them contribute to this,

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Shawn Morris: this, this plan right? Or the work that we're doing, so that

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Shawn Morris: there. So, if funding because there's gonna be a day, I would imagine I've been in education now for 25 years, and I've seen where there's a lot of funding some years and then other years. It's very trim or slim. So, if we can get a little more invest

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Shawn Morris: investing by local businesses, corporations. I think that would definitely help out

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Shawn Morris: this redesign that we're working within the schools.

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Bob Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: Yeah. And when you think about it, right? You know that

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Bob Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: you know one of the the challenges that you know young adults face. You know those that you know, that would graduate high school and say, like, I want to go to work. You know, everyone in my family works work is what we do. Work makes us feel good.

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Bob Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: and schooling is, you know, okay for me at best. I want to go to work. You know. Many, many employers weren't anxious to employ those kids right out of high school, and they would often say, Well, they don't have workplace skills. We have to like, do all this training to get them just ready to work in a workplace.

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Bob Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: Well, now, like, you know, schools like yours are developing and creating ways for them to learn that in high school. So, it really seems like it is time and place for the businesses to step up and say, Okay, you're doing what we need. We can help you out right? 

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Shawn Morris: No, I agree completely. I mean, I, yeah, we have the power right now to design education, to meet the needs of our students, families, and communities. And it, it's gonna take everyone coming together

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Bob Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: Yep.

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Shawn Morris: To make that happen

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Bob Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: Yeah.

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Bob Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: And you know you, you brought up redesign. And I want to go there now, because for the second year in a row, a team of students and teachers from Mark Armijo will be participating in the National Secondary School Redesign showcase, which is next week in Washington, DC.

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Bob Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: Why is it important to engage students in school redesign efforts, and what do they gain from it? And what does the school gain?

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Shawn Morris: Well, I mean, I think one of the big pieces that initially, when we started with redesign is really providing student voice or student agency. Right? I I think a lot of times

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Shawn Morris: we do it. We do things to students. We don't involve them in the process of education. We, we, as the adults, think we know what's best. And and I think a lot of times our students.

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Shawn Morris: I mean, not even a lot of times, I would say a great deal of times. Our students can tell us what they need and what they're not getting.  Like even this morning, like I said, I participated in another student forum, and our one of the things that all our students that were from our Mark Armijo said was that they felt, heard, they felt they belonged, and they felt connected to the school. So, I think

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Shawn Morris: redesign and providing students with agency creates those opportunities for students to feel empowered,

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Shawn Morris: for students to feel like they have a voice that if they see something that could work better, or maybe we should try this, that they could bring that to the table and that it we're actually gonna we're gonna listen. We're gonna kind of figure out. Is that something we can do? And then we're gonna employ.

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Shawn Morris: If if it's if it's decided as a group, and that includes students and families and community, if that's something that we're gonna decide like, Hey, let's give it a shot. I think it. They're a part of that process, and I think whenever and I guess for me, going back to my education, I often felt that I wasn't a part of the education process. 

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Shawn Morris: I I felt like, I'm a good reader, but I was always told. These are the books you're going to read, and I wasn't

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Shawn Morris: interested in some of those books. I mean, in truth, the only book that I remember reading in high school was Old Man in the Sea, because I was interested in the ocean and the sea and those types of things. But outside of that I really didn't get choice

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Shawn Morris: or have agency until I got to college. So, I think, really providing these opportunities at early ages.

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Shawn Morris: Even, you know, I would even say, elementary, middle School, high school, providing students with these opportunities.

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Shawn Morris: creates that sense of belonging and creates that sense of connectedness gives them a drive to be at school because

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Shawn Morris: let's just face it. If if you're not engaged, you're not going to go. And the other side of that is.

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Shawn Morris: students will engage themselves if we don't engage them. So, they're gonna find things they get themselves into. If we don't provide authentic opportunities for them to have voice choice be a part of the conversation. So that was really kind of the

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Shawn Morris: the jumping off point. When we decided, Hey, this is something that we really wanna engage our students with is really providing them with more opportunities for engagement, so that they feel like, Hey, I am connected to this school. They care about me. They care about who I am, what I think, what I want to do, those types of things

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Bob Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: you know, it's it's quite wonderful. And really like it goes full circle to your answer to my first question when a good day, what was a good day at high school? You said one when I had when I had agency. And you're basically saying that the great benefit of you know, working on redesign and student voice is, it gives students agency, right, which increases their engagement and commitment. And

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Bob Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: just, you know, making, you know they're trying to make school a good place to be so they want to be there right? It's almost as simple as that, right when we think about it, like, you know, for you to be in school. School's got to be good for you right?  And the best way to do that is, if you you could participate in making that. So.

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Bob Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: So, you know, you and your school are engaging in many innovative ways to create pathways to adult success for all your students. As we come to a close. Is there anything else you'd like to share about what you've learned or found along the way? Or is there a school website for folks to visit

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Shawn Morris: Yeah. So, we do have a school website. It's a markarmijo.com. That's 

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Shawn Morris: it's kind of in the design process, so it's not completed. No, I I guess kind of just hitting on the question, though I I do believe this is the right work.

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Shawn Morris: I like, I said. I believe that if we don't engage our students they're gonna be engaged. I I think we see that across the country, with the number of

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Shawn Morris: violent type episodes, both on campuses and off campuses where students are getting into things that they really shouldn't be getting into. But I think that again goes back to that. If we're not engaging students in positive engagement opportunities, then

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Shawn Morris: sometimes they find themselves engaging themselves, and some of those opportunities that they're engaging themselves are not always positive. Right? So I think the work is the right work. It's not always easy. So, I guess I would leave people with that. It does take some rolling up the sleeves

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Bob Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: Not for the faint of heart.

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Shawn Morris: Yeah, I mean, it does take up rolling up some sleeves. Getting out into community. We're also a community school. So that's one thing that we believe in just bringing community. I believe the school should be the center of community. And I see a lot of schools shut their doors at 3 o'clock, where, in truth, schools could be used as adult learning centers in the evening. And there's so many things that could happen within that building.

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Shawn Morris: So, I I do think there's those times where

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Shawn Morris: lying the foundation is not always easy. But I think once you have the systems in place, and once the foundation is in place, then the work continues, whether one person leaves.  Those types of things. So I think, kind of going into it. People just need to know that gonna probably have to roll up your sleeves a bit, get out

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Shawn Morris: to engage the community as well as your families and your students, because that's the other thing. I think one thing is, you want to engage. You want to also know what your families and what your student like you don't want to just develop like we could all develop pathways. But we want to develop pathways that our students are actually interested in as well. So, I think there's that fact finding piece as well like, I said, I believe it's the right work, and it's worth it's worthwhile. And and it's not for the faint of heart like you said. But

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Shawn Morris: I I do think positive.

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Shawn Morris: In a few years we'll we'll be definitely looking at the data that shows that

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Shawn Morris: these opportunities are providing positive outcomes for our students and providing them with opportunities that they may have never thought about if we didn't provide these experiences.

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Bob Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: Yeah, that's that's just so well said. And what it just struck me as you were saying it is that, you know, in some ways, you know, and it's a unique feature of the schools in the U.S. Is that they all started out in a way, as a local school, because they were. All communities had to build their schools. That's how they started.

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Bob Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: And over time we sort of got away from that. And what you're really, you know, learning and and sharing is that, like, you know, we really got to get back to the school, being, you know, of the community and for the community and with the community because it it really is about creating these pathways from schooling to adult success. And that that goes through and with the community. Right? So, we gotta, we gotta bring them back into the game.

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Bob Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: this has been a great conversation. Thank you, Shawn, and thank you for the great work of your school and all your colleagues and the students, and the amazing things they're learning and figuring out and sharing.

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Bob Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: So to close, for much of the 20th century there were well-established career paths for adolescents or young adults. You joined family members working in a factory or a farm.

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Bob Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: or, if you went to college, you joined a profession as a teacher, a nurse, a doctor, a lawyer, or accountant, and there were well-established pathways to do that.

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Bob Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: or you took a clerical job at an office or started as a sales clerk.

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Bob Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: These occupations still exist, but employ a smaller percentage of the population.

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Bob Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: At the same time, the pace of technology is changing what work looks like and the jobs that are in demand at a rate that is at least 2 times

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Bob Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: a generation or faster. This makes it much more challenging for adolescents to figure out what can and should I do with my life?

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Bob Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: Some of the opportunities that exist for them didn't exist for their parents, so they don't. They're not hearing at home about them, because no one at home knew about them because they're brand new.

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Bob Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: That's why the efforts of Mark Armijo Academy and a growing set of schools like it are so important as they work to figure out how all students can be given experiences in high school and help them make informed decisions about their future.

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Bob Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: We look forward to seeing what they figure out

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Bob Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: as we close, we want to ask you to please subscribe to Designing Education, to stay up to date on all the revolutionary work happening in education. If you're enjoying the show. Leave us a 5 star review. Also. Please share the show with a friend or colleague on social media.

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Bob Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: This has been Robert Balfanz from the Everyone Graduates Center thanking everyone for listening today.  I invite you to listen to the other

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Bob Balfanz, Johns Hopkins, EGC: episodes of our designing education series. Wherever you listen to podcasts onward and be well.