School of Education Convenes School and District Leaders to Reimagine California’s Secondary Schools

How should today's middle and high schools prepare students for a future defined by technological change, workforce needs that are quickly evolving, and complex social challenges? Educators across California have been wrestling with this question as schools seek to build learning around the core skills and qualities that students need in a rapidly changing world.

From July 30 to August 1, Loyola Marymount University 's (LMU) School of Education hosted its first-ever Secondary School Redesign Institute to support its partners faced with this challenge. The two-and-a-half-day event brought together 60-plus school and district leaders and administrators from across California to put roadmaps into place for making transformative and sustainable changes within schools and systems.

"This gathering will help us answer a critical question: What would it take to redesign our schools and systems so that every student is prepared to contribute meaningfully to the world in the future?" said Estela Zarate, dean of the LMU School of Education. "Meaningful transformation requires courageous leadership, strong partnerships, stakeholder engagement, and a willingness to reimagine how we prepare all students. We believe the challenges facing secondary education cannot be solved by schools working in isolation, or by making incremental changes to systems that were designed for a very different era."

The convening comes at a pivotal moment for K-12 education in California. Through the California Department of Education's Secondary School Redesign Pilot Program and statewide efforts led by the California Collaborative for Educational Excellence (CCEE), in partnership with the California State Board of Education, districts across the state are exploring student-centered approaches that emphasize deeper learning, real-world experiences, and stronger connections between students and their communities-all of which evolved from the state's community schools movement. To support whole-system transformation across entire school communities, the 2026-27 state budget allocates $50 million for the redesign pilot program, alongside $1 billion in ongoing funding for community schools, to empower districts to build more engaging, relevant learning environments that integrate career connections into the high school curriculum.

ReDesign Ed, a non-profit organization that supports schools and districts in implementing transformative practices in education, and eKadence, a foundation that offers integrated AI tools for student-centered learning, were co-conveners of the Institute. Both organizations have been working closely with school leaders on redesign efforts.

Despite dramatic changes in society and rapid advances in technology, most U.S. K-12 education systems have remained largely unchanged for more than a century, when the rise of factory production drove the approach and format of the school day and curriculum as we know them today. For years, teachers and educational leaders have been expected to improve student outcomes within these outdated structures, which were not designed to support deeper student learning, belonging, or readiness for today's world.

In a brief address to attendees, LMU Executive Vice President and Provost Kat Weaver said the Institute demonstrates the university's commitment to the common good. "Across California and our nation, we're asking profound questions about what students need to flourish in a world that's changing faster than our educational systems were designed for," she said. "This gathering invites us to consider, from our various perspectives, how we can work together to create better systems."

The keynote speaker was Linda Darling-Hammond, founding president of the Learning Policy Institute and current president of the California State Board of Education. Her presentation, "From Fragmentation to Coherence: Aligning Initiatives Across the System," offered an historical overview of the current secondary school curriculum in California and the ways that it reinforces existing social structures rather than supporting students in reaching their potential. The Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Education Emeritus at Stanford University is renowned for her staunch advocacy for designing equitable schooling systems and has been a leading voice in the redesign movement. "When I was a teacher myself, with 180 students coming in for six periods per day, I desperately wanted to know them well and speak to their needs," she said. "But the rigidity and constraints of the master schedule made this impossible. Redesigning benefits not only the students' learning, but also the teachers and leaders who want to meet kids where they are and support them in the ways they need."

Experts who led discussions throughout the event included were Kyo Yamashiro, associate professor of educational leadership at LMU; Manuel Ponce, clinical professor of educational leadership; Leyda Garcia, director of the LMU Family of Schools and an expert in community schools; Matt Coleman, CEO of Inflexion, a nonprofit that leads systemic change in education; Barnett Berry, Senior Research Policy Fellow of the Learning Policy Institute; and Mike Matsuda, executive-in-residence at LMU School of Education. Matsuda is a nationally recognized educational leader who retired in 2025 after a 12-year tenure as superintendent of Anaheim Union High School District, where his efforts on re-imagining the student experience for more than 29,000 students earned widespread acclaim.

Participants came from all sectors of education-public, charter and Catholic schools and districts. Early sessions gave an overview of the broader forces driving secondary school redesign, with time for discussion and reflection. Follow-up sessions offered a framework for planning a redesign, gave attendees space and time to develop their own roadmaps, and emphasized the importance of ensuring that redesign efforts were sustainable over time. Educators worked in groups and sometimes solo, heard about new ideas and best practices from presenters and fellow school and educational leaders, and ended the Institute with action plans that were rooted in the unique needs of their own communities. "In many ways, redesign is a return to an old truth: education works best when it is rooted in relationships and shaped by the people it serves," said Travis Russell, S.J., president of Verbum Dei Jesuit High School in Los Angeles, who attended the Institute with several colleagues.

State-wide stakeholders in attendance included Cynthia Vasquez Petitt, Interim CEO of the California Association of Bilingual Educators; Juan Manuel Santos, president-elect of the California Association of Latino School Administrators; Andrea Yamasaki, president of the Asian Pacific Islander School Board Members Association; Rene Rickard, president of the Association of California School Administrators; Lisa Eck, community schools organizer for the California Teachers Association; Debra Schade, president of the California School Boards Association, Alison Yoshimoto-Towery, member of the California State Board of Education; and Richard Barrera, president of the San Diego Unified School Board.

Educational system transformation is central to the School of Education's mission. Its programs are designed to advance the education and mental health professions through innovation, research, and partnerships in collaboration with leaders and educators to co-create solutions to today's most pressing challenges. "Serving our six million students in California is an extraordinary responsibility and an extraordinary opportunity," said CSBA president Schade. "We're at a moment that requires us to think differently, and no single person, district, school, or institution can do this work alone. The best ideas will come from the questions we ask, the assumptions we challenge, and the perspectives we bring together."

Building on the momentum of this inaugural Institute, Zarate announced that the theme for the next SOE Education Summit will be The Portrait of the Future Educator, an outgrowth of California's emerging work around the Portrait of a Learner in K-12 schools. The summit will explore how schools and colleges of education must themselves evolve to prepare K-12 educators and school leaders for the future of learning. "It's critical for us to carve out time away from our day-to-day duties for initiatives like this," said Zarate when announcing the theme. "We're confident that meaningful change will come from the work we're doing together, and all of us at LMU are honored to learn so much from those of you who are on the ground every day at our K-12 schools."

SOE's Education Summit will take place on February 11, 2027.