ParkHowell.com

Would you move your underperforming student to what most parents consider an underperforming inner city high school to help him improve his grades?

That’s what Michele and I found ourselves doing right after the Holidays this year. And it has been an education for us ALL.

Not only did our son, Caed, earn a 3.0 grade average in the second semester of his junior year (I especially commend him for his guts in changing schools halfway through his high school career), but Michele and I learned what a difference a truly engaged, inventive and industrious principal can make on students that typically get the short end of the stick in our public educational system.

Dr. Chad Gestson, Principal, Camelback High School, Phoenix, AZ

In fact, Arizona State University just recognized Dr. Chad Gestson, a brilliant man whose wisdom is well beyond his 33 years on this planet, and Camelback High School with its award for student achievement. That’s rather miraculous considering the school was pegged one of the worst performing high schools in the Phoenix Union School District just two years ago.

Dr Gestson’s approach, although you are to call him “Chad,” is quite simple:

“Focus on what interests the individual student, and the grades will take care of themselves.”

Most local parents are just learning about the incredible educational renovation going on at CBHS. I can picture a national story about Chad’s proven philosophy and methods, which he has used to turn around two other poorly performing schools before CBHS.

The kind of educator America needs to learn about.

Now you might be wondering how Michele and I found the nerve to move our son to Camelback from his high performing Scottsdale high school; the alma mater of our two other kids who have since graduated from San Diego State University and Chapman University. We had an inside look at CBHS first through our work with the local nonprofit, Social Venture Partners Arizona.

SVPAZ is a group of successful professionals who invest their time, expertise and resources to help the local nonprofit community. It’s all about applying business skills to charitable concerns in order to make them more socially productive and financially independent.

In 2010, the SVPAZ partnership began focusing their investments to help support the educational renoovation Chad had already started at CBHS. With that first school year now behind them, they needed an annual report that celebrated the progress made, the lessons learned and the devoted volunteers who helped raise the bar for an urban high school on the rise.

Click on the image to explore the interactive online annual report

Our agency was able to create SVPAZ’s latest annual report, which focused on the work at SVPAZ, from the unusual position of our volunteerism with the group, as well as our journey as parents actually benefiting from SVPAZ’s involvement in our son’s new school.

Park Howell, '79 Bothell High School, Bothell, Wa

When we sat down to brainstorm, we began to reflect on our own high school days. And as we looked back, a natural artistic direction began to emerge. Old report cards, yearbooks and ASB cards were soon recruited to create a scholastic theme throughout the piece.

Actual high school photos of SVP partners (Yep, that’s me to the right) were included to add a personal touch of nostalgia, and the partners themselves wrote short articles detailing their involvement with Camelback students, faculty and facilities. These stories reveal how the experience of going back to high school was an extremely rewarding education for everyone.

The resulting piece is entitled Voices, a nod to the old-school yearbooks it draws from and the variety of perspectives it brings to the work of improving education. And yes, it still has the requisite financials and figures called for in every annual report. But what an inspiring story it surrounds them with.

Side note: Michele and I also had the honor to chaperone 50 CBHS students on a marketing field trip to Manhattan over Spring Break. It was one of the greatest extracurricular volunteer experiences we have ever had. You can read about it here.