When we talk about Kairos, we like to focus on the work we do to build student agency–that is, teaching students how to make choices that are aligned with their life goals. As we thought about where Kairos was going, and growing, we knew we needed a specific set of goals we wanted each of our graduates to achieve when they enter adulthood. We call these goals our graduate profile.
As we built our graduate profile, we looked closely at our mission, vision, and values. While our mission–empowering students to direct their own lives and learning–didn’t change, our values evolved and we’ve spent the past year deeply integrating those into everything we do as a school community. You’ve seen them: Love, Excellence, Agency, and Diversity.
Today we’re ready to share how those values translate into the characteristics we want for our students when they leave our halls and enter the world. A Kairos Graduate is…
With feedback collected directly from our students, teachers, and families, we’ve begun backwards-fitting every step of our education journey so that those experiences tie directly to one of these goals above.
I recently had the opportunity to sit down with two founding Kairos students–Grace and Gabriel–who started with us in sixth grade and our now high school juniors. They both participated in our student focus groups and shared why it’s so important for students to have a voice in shaping our future.
“I think it's important for students to help us come up with what a graduate plan is supposed to look like because then the school knows how to better teach us and prepare us to become those students that we want to be,” said Grace. “That way the school can be working more interactively and collaboratively with their student body to actually have the best high school experience for the students.”
Gabriel, our student body President, agreed, “ Everybody’s different. Students should play a role in this process so that they can build the future that they want.”
When asked what features of our graduate profile resonated with them, Grace went straight to advocacy, “A lot of us come from a place where we feel like our voices aren't heard. It's important to have school be a place where advocacy isn't just allowed, it's in fact encouraged and taught.” Gabriel on the other hand zeroed in on learning to make his own decisions. “I would definitely say being a leader and architect of my own life [resonates with me]. I like having the freedom to make choices, to govern and direct myself and, you know, make decisions for myself and my life and my future.”
To highlight how Kairos has shaped their future plans, I asked Grace and Gabriel to share more about their plans for the future and what they’re doing to get there.
Grace, a film fanatic, spoke of being on the fence about college–not really knowing what a career in the arts could look like or how to pursue it. Despite being one of the few students exploring the arts, her teachers went above and beyond to create a unique experience just for her. “Me and one other student were given the opportunity to go see a 48-hour film festival as a field trip. It was a really cool opportunity that allowed me to meet a lot of people in the film industry in St. Louis. Having a few teachers that were closer to me tell me and show me different film schools and what a film program would look like has kind of opened my mind more and I'm actually really excited to hopefully go to film school now.” Grace tells me she’s considering UCLA, NYU, and Emerson. NYU actually sent representatives this year to meet with Kairos students.
Gabriel on the other hand is focused on a career in aerospace engineering–a path that he discovered through visits to Boeing and St. Louis Community college. “Next Prep has so many amazing opportunities–even site visits, which are very important because you don’t really know if you actually want to do something until you’ve done it.” The experience was transformative: “I got to see an airplane literally go from a piece of scrap metal to this huge bird, this huge aircraft.” His weekly visits to STLCC along with regular pushes from his mom, his mentor, and his teachers have kept him focused on completing the steps to pursue Boeing’s pre-employment program. “I’ll get a guaranteed interview, and if they hire me, they’ll pay for me to go to school and get my degree.” Gabriel is thinking about the courses and grades he needs to transfer to Michigan State or Stanford.
These life-changing experiences were built from the goals and values expressed by our students. Their feedback is allowing us to create a truly unique learning experience where interests turn into concrete next steps that these future graduates know how to pursue with confidence. Grace summed up the experience like this “I’m really excited and proud that my school is a place where I do get to have my input heard. Our teachers and staff went out of their way to find opportunities that would help me.”