Sorrento Springs

Sorrento becomes a school for Personalized Learning

In 2017, the Parkway School District launched "Project Parkway 2.0" which was an avenue for community feedback to help set the direction for the strategic plan for the next five to ten years.  As a result of that feedback from the community, Parkway began an initiative to offer more opportunities for Personalized Learning.  At the high school level, programs like SPARK! and other non-traditional school experiences were growing.  Parkway also desired to innovate at the elementary level but knew that a model would be needed before the initiative could successfully expand to all elementary schools in the district.  At the time, Sorrento was the smallest school in Parkway (about 250 students) so it was selected to be the school where the model would be developed.    

Sorrento would go "all-in" on Personalized Learning so it was important that everyone on the faculty was completely on board.  As a result, in the fall of 2019, teachers at Sorrento would have to re-apply for their positions if they wanted to stay and help develop the new model.  Many teachers chose to move to other buildings, and likewise, teachers from other Parkway schools chose to apply to Sorrento to be the early adopters of this new approach to school.  Sorrento would be redesigned around making learning relevant and meaningful with specific attention to student voice and choice.  School would be personalized toward each child's interests and learning needs.  The teachers who were selected to work at Sorrento the following year all had a passion for this work and were eager to innovate and help re-imagine what school could be.  

A few parent meetings were also held in the fall of 2019 to explain the transition.  The fist meeting was challenging as many parents were unsure about this new direction and especially worried about potentially losing some of the existing staff.  Subsequent meetings helped clarify the direction, gain input from parents, and as the new teachers were hired and introduced, a passion was growing to make Sorrento a truly special learning place that would help prepare children for the ever-changing world. 

The "new" faculty began building relationships with each other and visiting other model schools around the country, such as EPiC Elementary in Liberty, MO; MOSAIC Elementary in the Mehlville School District; and Design39 School in San Diego, CA.  The second team to visit Design39 in the spring of 2020 returned to St. Louis just as COVID-19 began spreading across the U.S.  The new Sorrento faculty would have to design an innovative school during unprecedented educational circumstances amid a global pandemic.

When Parkway decided that school would again be "virtual" in the fall of 2020, the principal asked the faculty if they wanted to put the development of the new school on hold for an additional year while the pandemic played out, and the teachers unanimously said, "NO!"  They were eager to redesign school, and the pandemic might have even offered a good chance to do this since traditional school had been severely disrupted anyway.  Through online Zoom conferencing, the team designed the new approach to learning during the 2020-21 school year as they were also teaching through one of the most difficult school years ever due to the ongoing pandemic.  And after working together for several additional days over the summer of 2021, "Sorrento21" was launched in the fall of the 2021-22 school year as almost all children returned to in-person learning for the first time in one-and-a-half years.  

This dedicated team of Learning Experience Designers (LEDs) worked passionately over countless hours to develop a school that would feature: 

• Flexible learning spaces 
• Co-teaching models
• Flexible student groupings
• Student voice and choice in their learning (example: e4 Exhibition)
• Meaningful learning that could impact the real world (example: TEDx Sorrento)
• Emphasis on design thinking 
• Real-world problem solving and project-based learning (example: Indigenous People's Museum)
• Strength-based mindset toward learning
• Competency-based learning
• Empowering students to understand themselves as learners and take ownership in their learning

Most importantly, the faculty was dedicated to always learning, growing, and adapting in order to meet the changing needs of the students and the ever-changing world.  Sorrento would be a school based on flexibility, innovation, and empowering learners to thrive and make a positive impact on others.      

Parkway Personalized