In El Paso, Texas, educators at Socorro Independent School District recognized a pressing challenge: many of their students felt disconnected from writing. Eager to nurture students' creative expression and learning through writing across all content areas, the district embarked on a transformative journey alongside students and their families, community members, and our team at the Digital Promise Center for Inclusive Innovation.

With the goal of igniting students' interests and passion for writing, the district leveraged Inclusive Innovation to co-create student-designed and -led small writing groups. These writing groups provided a new platform for students to explore their voices and choices, diving into genres that sparked their imaginations—from crafting thrilling science fiction tales to bringing comic book heroes to life, or penning dramatic scripts. Through collaboration and feedback, students not only honed their writing skills but also discovered the joy of creative expression, changing their relationship with the written word. Socorro’s story captures the promise of Inclusive Innovation and its potential to improve engagement and learning, for students traditionally underserved as well as the overall school community.

Districts and Communities Partnering Together

The Center for Inclusive Innovation at Digital Promise seeks to address critical challenges in education with those closest to the challenge in co-leadership roles. Inclusive Innovation brings together students, families, community members, educators, researchers, and solution developers to understand education challenges from the perspectives of those experiencing the challenge and to to co-create solutions that address the issues underlying it. “A New Narrative: Unlocking How the Power of R&D Through Inclusive Innovation Can Transform Education” summarizes our approach to inclusive research and development (R&D) and provides key examples of how the Center for Inclusive Innovation has engaged districts, students and families, and communities working in partnership to generate insights and solutions in areas such as adolescent writing, student mental health, and the recruitment and retention of teachers of color.

Broadening Perspectives

In Socorro, Dove Rempfer, an eighth-grade student at the time and now a junior in high school; her mother Leslie Rempfer; Catherine Twomey, an ELA and journalism teacher at the time at the participating middle school; and Monica Castro, the principal at the time, helped investigate the challenge and worked together to design an innovative solution.

In conversations about the process, Dove and Leslie Rempfer pointed to the need to incorporate perspectives representing the range of experiences that students and families bring to a challenge to ensure that the team understands the problem accurately. Defining the problem from the perspective of those closest to the challenge improves the likelihood that solutions effectively address the central issues perpetuating the challenge. As Leslie put it: “[T]here's quite a few parents [whose] children are struggling, and it's really important to get a perspective from a parent's view [to] come up with ideas of how to encourage the children to start loving to write again.”

Dove reflected on a new open-mindedness that resulted from gathering data on her peers’ experiences with writing as part of her co-research: “I got to see so many different points of views that now I incorporate that into my own writing… I think that kind of sprung my open-mindedness even more because… not everyone has the same academics as me, or the same knowledge as me in different ways, and I don't have the same knowledge as them in different ways.”

Equipping and Renewing Educators

For Catherine Twomey, experiencing Inclusive Innovation was an opportunity to develop new strategies on a broader scale for a problem she worked to solve daily in her own classroom: “[I]t was so important for me to be a part of reigniting [students'] passion for expressing themselves and realizing that writing is more powerful than they believe.” It gave Monica Castro, the principal, “a love for learning again… when I see kids get excited about learning. That is what it should be about… It was this new energy inside of me.”

Getting Started with Inclusive Innovation

Engaging in an inclusive R&D process is an investment, especially for those not traditionally involved in R&D. However, Castro urged: “[T]hey'll be fed by this… As principals, we're the ones running around trying to find ways to feed our teachers and our kids with that excitement. And so I felt very fed by this. I felt very enlightened and very motivated to want to help out and get this done... So just telling principals you will gain a lot out of this, you will be re-energized by it.” 

Twomey would tell fellow teachers “not to be afraid. When we first started, I was very fearful. I didn't feel confident in my talents, and as I worked with the group it was very accepting, and I thought, we just jump in feet first… I think we have to get away from that fearfulness of being judged… because in the end we came up with such an amazing [solution], more than we could have imagined singly [individually].”

Leslie advised parents that “not everybody [is] the same. Every student [is] different,” and engaging in an inclusive R&D process brought that home.

The final word goes to Dove: “Go into it with an open mind... Don't be scared, and it's so nice to be able to witness and just be that voice for your peers.”

Bringing youth, their families, communities, and educators together offers power in understanding and addressing persistent education challenges. As education leaders, begin to center student, family, and community voices in co-leadership to address your key challenges and goals now. As community partners in education, engage with students and families, education leaders, and practitioners to ensure innovative solutions meet the needs of all students, particularly those from historically and systematically excluded communities.

To build capacity and to learn about tools and resources to put Inclusive Innovation into practice in your community, join Digital Promise at the Inclusive Innovation Action Summit in Oakland California, February 4-5, 2025. Alongside education and community leaders, students, industry experts, and researchers and program designers, you will build capacity in Inclusive Innovation and co-design strategies and solutions that advance student economic mobility and well-being in your local community.