Seventh grade at Powell Middle School will look a little different as they join a program focused on student centered learning, for its second round this coming fall.

As the RIDE (Reimagining and Innovating the Delivery of Education) pilot program continues in Wyoming schools, Park County School District 1 is one of six districts added this year.

The education initiative was announced in 2021, with Cody being one of the first school districts to join the program. Among other things the district has utilized RIDE to partner with businesses in the community for hands on learning through what they call Classroom 2 Careers, “empowering students to explore careers in high-need, high-skilled, high-wage fields,” the release said.

In the second round, Platte County School Districts 1 and 2,  Sweetwater County School District 1, Weston County School District 1 and Fremont County School District 25 will begin this fall alongside Powell, according to a press release from the governor’s office. The program is a collaboration between Gov. Mark Gordon, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Megan Degenfelder, the Wyoming Department of Education, the State Board of Education, the University of Wyoming College of Education, the Wyoming Community College Commission and the Wyoming Association of School Administrators. 

The program immerses participating districts “in more student-centered learning design across four areas of focus: competency-based learning; flexible pathways; personalized learning; and student choice,” the release states. Participating districts customize the approach to the needs of their community stakeholders.

“I am really looking forward to working with the state and 2Revolutions (an education company involved with RIDE) to bring something to Powell that could potentially transform our educational processes in a way that we are reaching all students,” Superintendent Jay Curtis said. “The type of learning where it's … project based/problem based learning, is a shift and the opportunity that we get to have this incredibly high quality professional development at no cost to the district, but as part of the pilot program at the state level, I think it's just a wonderful opportunity for us to improve as a district.”

It’s about supplementing what is already done in Powell Middle School, not replacing it, both Curtis and Powell Middle School Principal Kyle Rohrer said.

Powell Middle School is in the planning phase as teachers figure out how to apply interdisciplinary education using RIDE. One potential project would involve wolves at Yellowstone National Park as an interdisciplinary unit that would combine English language arts, science, social studies and math.

“We're trying to find projects that are relevant to our area while also maintaining the standards in that grade and so that's kind of our initial idea,” Rohrer said. 

Ideas are still being tossed around — at the time of the interview in late April roughly an hour and a half had been spent with the seventh grade team in a meeting. It’s not that interdisciplinary projects aren’t happening at Powell Middle, Rohrer added, it’s more about being intentional, including in planning, preparation and delivery. Consideration is also being given to potentially moving some of the interdisciplinary projects already in place into the fall, ahead of state testing, rather than after in the spring.

“We feel like we're doing a lot of great things here … we're pretty dialed in with what we're doing, we want to maintain kids are getting guaranteed viable curriculum with fidelity, but some of this learning is just more student centered learning,” Rohrer said. “We've got a team that's excited about that they're willing to take on this challenge and I honestly feel like there's more people that that will probably be eager to jump in as we kind of kind of blaze the trail here at Powell Middle School.”