The Chelsea Opportunity Academy is a small, public, alternative school within the Chelsea Public Schools of Chelsea, Massachusetts, USA. The city of Chelsea itself lies immediately north of Boston, Massachusetts. At 2.5 square miles and approximately 40,000 residents, the city is the second most densely populated in the state. Chelsea is truly a gateway city, beaconing to many of the great waves of immigration since 1739, Chelsea’s year of incorporation. Though 38% of its documented residents have immigrated from a multitude of other countries, residents of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras make up the bulk of its population. Economically, 20% of all families reporting to the 2020 census and 28% of the youth population in the city reside below the poverty line. Many more residents in the city remain unreported and without documentation, thus skewing the above data.

The Chelsea Public School district has historically faced many of the same challenges that other urban school districts in the United States face. Many students are impacted by homelessness, hunger, and community violence. In the past, the district has been deemed an underperforming district and managed by the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. At the district’s comprehensive high school, during the 2017–2018 school year, the four-year graduation rate was 59% and the dropout rate was 8.2% (Massachusetts state averages were 87.9% and 1.9%, respectively). Since Chelsea Public Schools last left a direct management program run by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education in 2005, the district has engaged in several, five-year cycles of planning, revision, and revitalization.

Flexibility and Relationships: The Chelsea Opportunity Academy (COA) Is Born

As part of the Chelsea Public Schools’ long-term goal of decreasing the dropout rate and increasing the four-year graduation rate for all students, the district created a team in 2010 to study the reasons why students drop out of high school, learn more about preventative strategies, and begin planning an alternative high school to meet these district goals. Ronald Schmidt was a member of the original data team, the leader of the school design team, and the Chelsea Opportunity Academy’s Founding Principal.

SCHMIDT (Founding principal): Most schools with Chelsea’s demographics participated in DESEFootnote 1 dropout prevention meetings regularly. Our data did not change. A grant was shared at one of these conferences. We applied, our team gained momentum, and eventually we were deemed a finalist. We created a very succinct profile of a Chelsea High School (CHS) dropout—an 18-year-old male from Central America, less than two years in the country, significant gaps in their education, ELL learner, with a high trauma past. What they needed from a school—flexibility and caring adults.

During the 2017–2018 school, a design team composed of several students, families, teachers, administrators, support staff members, and central office team members worked to design and build a truly democratic school.

SELA KENEN (Founding English Language Arts (ELA) teacher): I came on [to the team] in the middle of the year. It became a little crazy. We had 6 a.m. meetings. Based on our data, [the reasons students dropped out of Chelsea Public Schools] were work hours and feeling lack of community and lack of connection. Our Central American students often have a lot of financial responsibilities—remittances, debts for coming to the U.S., lawyers’ fees, rent, food. Also, students were often in big classes [at the traditional high school]. They felt that their teachers did not care about them or see them.

In order to allow for flexibility, the school would have a flexible schedule, have a curriculum that is accessible both online and in person, and assess all work based on mastery of academic skills. In order to create a caring and welcoming school environment, the team would focus on hiring staff with a demonstrated ability to build appropriate, caring relationships. This would ensure that all staff embody what Zaretta Hammond (2015) refers to as the “Warm Demander Framework” and utilize a student voice and opinion in all school matters. The first school design component to fully rely on student voice was the creation of school rules.

Building Voice: Creating the COA Rules

As the 2018–2019 school year began, thirty-seven students walked into their new school for the first time. The day began in a very different way. Instead of going to their first period class or homeroom, students and staff all filed into a large room and found chairs symbolically placed in a circle.

ANGELA BARRIENTOS (School Secretary): It was a community meeting. We get all together, students and staff, and talk about what is happening. We gathered in the room of the history teacher. It happens every Monday for the whole school year. It’s something new every week.

At this first community meeting, staff and students met as equals to begin the process of writing all school rules. Staff acted as facilitators and asked students what they wanted to create rules around.

KENEN (Founding ELA teacher): We asked our students to come up with the norms, what could be called rules [in a traditional school]. So we had students come up with norms around phone use, around going to the bathroom, around what they want to be called, dress code, food [consumption in classrooms].

Staff and students exchanged ideas and discussed past experiences with schools they had attended. They talked about the meaning behind rules and why they connect to learning.

ALVIN RIVERA (Humanities teacher): The school rules are a collaborative effort between staff and students where we set up standards, expectations where the students and staff work together during community meetings or side events where we come up with these standards and expectations for kids to follow throughout the year.

JJ Pina (Founding student, alumni): It is more so about us as students coming up with the school norms. It is about us voicing our opinions about how the school should run. [Creating the rules] makes me know what I deserve in an environment, meaning what I would want and how I would want things to be run. I have a say and I am in control. There is nobody to blame but myself if I don’t follow these rules.

Students created categories of rules and then wrote out the definitions by hand. The collaboratively designed school’s Cell Phone and Headphones policy is below:

Phone/Headphones

  • If you have an important phone call, you can take it, but go outside the room.

  • Personal responsibility—if your phone is distracting, put it away or ask a teacher to hold it for a while.

  • If you are watching a video, put headphones in.

  • If you have earbuds in, lower the volume or turn off so you can hear people talking to you.

The discussion was different from those that students or staff had at their previous schools, and was not always easy.

JJ Pina (Founding student, alumni): Sometimes students were afraid to speak up and use their voice, say “Hey, I want this.” They were afraid of people not agreeing. I feel like coming from a different school, given the opportunity to make our own rules was a positive thing, but it was different and new. [I got over it] when I realized I actually have a say and a voice at COA. I have control.

After several hours of deliberation and discussion, a new set of norms was created and a school culture of student voice, democracy, and agency was born.

Building Agency Through Ownership

From the very first minute spent in schools, COA students learned that their voice was paramount in their education. They learned, through norms and rules creation, that their voice mattered. School culture was radically shaped.

SCHMIDT (Founding principal): Students feel like this is genuinely their school. They care about it. They take care of it. And there is real ownership and then that transfers into the responsibility of what kids need when we talk to kids about other aspects of the school and what they need to do to be successful. It’s a great balance of this partnership that I frequently describe when interviewing potential students about what it means to be a student here—that it truly is a partnership and we [adults]contribute and they [students]contribute and together we have formed a school that has worked for both the people who work here and the people who come here for [their] education.

RIVERA (Humanities teacher): The ways that it impacts our school culture is that it is much more democratic. When students have a say on the way the school is run or how rules or standards or expectations are followed, they have a stake in the game. When they have a stake in the game, this school becomes theirs. It’s not just a vessel that they interact with every day as in a traditional school—isolated in their own desks and own minds. Here they are an active participant in their school and the school building process.

KENAN (Founding ELA teacher): It makes it less “do this because I said so.” It does not remove authority from teachers, but it places teachers in a role more like coaches. They don’t look at us as though we are going to tell them what to do, but that we are going to be there to remind them what they have decided to do, that they think is going to help their learning.

Perhaps most importantly, there was a drastic change in the way students thought about themselves and their own learning. They began to have agency in their school and, in turn, their work. Teachers did not own their school; everyone owned a small piece of it. Teachers did not own their education, the students did. Nikholas, a student who transferred to the Chelsea Opportunity Academy from a nearby school, reflected on his experience:

NIKHOLAS (Current student): ​​It felt different. I am from Boston. I grew up low key everywhere with a. single mother. Two older sisters. My mom had more kids. Being the only kid was kind of rough. Once I turned 14-15 I lost the love of sports and got into the streets. I started doing things I wasn’t supposed to be doing. I was still in school. I repeated 8th grade and was kept back for my behavior. When I did my 8th grade year I got kicked out. I thought school was over with for me. My mom tried to sign me up for another school. I got kicked out of there too. I went to a third school. I got kicked out of there too. I went to another school, then COVID came. I lost a lot of friends and family around that time. I lost myself. Some months were bad, some months were sad. I lost myself in that big hole.

That’s when I started living on my own. I moved to Chelsea. My family started talking to me about school. My first year at the traditional school was worse. A good friend of mine told me about COA months prior to that. I got in trouble at that school. I had an interview with COA that same day. I was scared to have the COA interview. I thought it was a regular type of school. I took it as a job interview. I was honest.

He then reflected on the agency he learned while thinking about the rules in the school:

NIKHOLAS DOE (Student): [When you break a rule,] you have a conversation. You retrack on that. Just go on. You have to own it. The rules here are great. You need to meet head to head with every teacher and staff member here to make your life great. They know me. They know who I am. They know my story.

Independent Versus Dependent Learners

In order to fully understand the weight of the process of collaboratively creating rules at COA, it is important that we explore two key and connected concepts: independent learners and dependent learners. Though these two terms are often used in education, it is important to note exactly what we are referring to in this discussion. The difference between independent and dependent learners is not just how they learn, but what they learn—learning content versus learning about themselves. The following chart by Mynard and Sorflaten (2003) further outlines the differences between dependent and independent learners:

Dependent learners

Independent learners

 • rely heavily on the teacher

 • are self-reliant

 • cannot make decisions about their learning

 • can make informed decisions about their learning

 • do not know their own strengths and weaknesses

 • are aware of their strengths and weaknesses

 • do not connect classroom learning with the real world

 • connect classroom learning with the real world

 • think that the teacher is wholly responsible for their learning

 • take responsibility for their own learning

 • do not know the best way to learn something

 • know about different strategies for learning

In co-creating school rules, staff inadvertently pushed students at COA to become more independent in their learning. They provided space and a format for student agency and voice. Students in turn rose to the occasion. They reflect about the conditions that bolstered their own educational experience. They thought about their past school and rules that would help them in their current educational setting. They encouraged honest self-reflection. Because they felt a part of their community, they took responsibility for it. Because they felt ownership, it set the stage for enhanced learning. Here is the way students and alumni describe their experiences:

ISAAC MIDDLETON (COA alumni): It gives the students a lot more say and sort of power in how they dictate how they move throughout COA and how they act and I really think…So it sort of creates a guideline for students to follow for how students carry themselves while they are in COA.

JJ PINA (Founding COA student, alumni): I can make a decision and I do have a voice here and everybody’s listening.

JENNY GUERRA (COA student): I feel heard and respected. I feel like I am not underestimated. I feel like when I get looked at by a teacher in COA they look at me like “Oh, she has potential and she can do it.” We know ourselves and have to do our work. Overall, it’s our responsibility to do what we have to do.

Teachers too saw the difference in student agency and learning throughout the school:

SCHMIDT (Founding principal): More than anything, it builds a relationship and changes the perspective of what school and education is all about because they come in with a really bad taste of what education is and how it has been a negative experience for them. It really switches that. Then they see that there are possibilities where education can be a place where they can thrive or where they can gain experience and it has value to their lives.

RIVERA (Humanities teacher): It makes them from dependent, isolated learners into fully engaged and transformational students where a kid who comes in here who doesn’t trust the system and teachers. Over time you see a transformation from a dependent learner to one that is creatively contributing to a blossoming school.

Reflection from the School

The experience of the Chelsea Opportunity Academy staff and students is a microcosm of the possibility of democratic schooling. Most educators who teach in the context of secondary education agree that the primary purpose of high school is to prepare students for what lies ahead after graduation. For some students, this may mean post-secondary schooling. For others, this might mean a technical vocation. Regardless of the path desired by the student, the new reality of our world is that solely learning content knowledge in high school is not enough to prepare students. Rather, they must also learn the skills necessary to drive their own learning after graduation. They must learn to be independent learners—to learn the self-reliance, self-awareness, and metacognitive skills necessary to adapt to the ever changing world.

Through the norms building activity at the Chelsea Opportunity Academy, staff and students saw the importance of student voice in their ownership of one aspect of the school. In a traditional school environment, students are informed of a set of rules created by many different stakeholders. Principals, school committee members, and sometimes teachers create a list of rules that must be listened to by students. Violations often mean strong consequences. Though there is an effort in many traditional schools to include more voices (such as parents) in the process, the most vital stakeholder is often not given a seat at the table—students. When students were given a seat at the table during the creation of norms at the Chelsea Opportunity Academy, they not only were given a space to develop their voice, but they were also asked to develop several major components of independent learning—including self-reliance, making decisions about their own educational experience, and taking responsibility for their own learning.

This first school culture activity rippled through classrooms as students not only enforced their own norms but took control over their educational experience. At the Chelsea Opportunity Academy, it is now common practice for students to not only know their progress toward graduation, but to select their path toward graduation. It is not uncommon for students to collaboratively create courses with teachers based on their own best interests. Students provide feedback on teacher’s classroom practices and regularly participate in the hiring of new staff members.

Alumni from the Chelsea Opportunity regularly report high levels of autonomy and agency in their lives post-graduation. Of the 106 graduates from the Chelsea Opportunity Academy, seven have been hired by the Chelsea Public Schools within four years after their graduation. Most report living financially independently and either attending a university, vocational school, or having gainful employment. Many have become advocates for their former school within the community. Though building school norms itself set a strong precedent for building school culture, the results of the activity had far greater reaching effects on student growth and learning. Students built agency and ownership. This agency and ownership lay the foundation for them to become highly functioning citizens in an ever changing global context.