A lineage of collaboration

Like any authentic co-design effort, this work could not have been done alone. The Co-Designing Schools Toolkit is the product of ten years of iterative work in schools and communities—through the programs that came before it; the coaches, facilitators, local collaborators, and organizers who sponsored this work and co-designed, iterated and refined the tools; the administrators and teachers who helped to design, test, and make it their own; and the foundations and individuals who provided ongoing support.

The Co-Designing Schools Toolkit represents a compilation of efforts and insights, in hopes of making the co-design process  accessible to anyone who wishes to use it to pursue equitable change in schools. It began with work supported by the Hewlett Foundation and the Design Thinking for Educators Toolkit, the practice of which inspired both School Retool and The Teachers Guild programs. Released in Fall 2020, the Toolkit is a collection of 40 activities, frameworks, and research-based practices collected together by The Teachers Guild and School Retool programs, supported by and in collaboration with Riverdale Country School, the Deeper Learning network, Liberatory Design, National Equity Project, the Stanford d.school, and the input of educators, local collaborators, and coaches.
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The Co-Designing Schools Toolkit exists to increase accessibility to a design-driven, equity-centered, and collaborative process—all in hopes that educators customize resources for their own context, leading their school teams through a process of transformation for the sake of all students, regardless of who they are or how they learn.