The HIDOE Learning Organization:
Strengthening our core while supporting innovation
Our greatest challenges as a state agency, an arm of state government, is the perception that we're a bureaucracy, synonymous with organizations that are slow to change, focused on monitoring and compliance, and thus by definition anti-innovation. Yet, public education in this nation has been at the forefront of teaching and learning innovation. Any innovation found in the private and charter sectors are also found in the public sector. The difference? Scale. Public education systems have a mission to educate all children, not just the children who choose our school or who pay tuition or who are the recipients of a scholarship. We do not turn away children when our seats are full.
What we have in public education systems is both the challenge and the opportunity for innovation at a scale that cannot be financially nor systemically matched by any other type of school system. Whether it is a high school student who immigrated to this country, focused on mastering the English language and now is graduating with both a high school diploma and an Associate's degree in the same year, or a student with no muscle function but with full intellectual capacity that uses assistive technology to communicate, or a first generation college student aspiring to pursue a STEM field, the HIDOE proudly takes on the challenge of designing learning approaches to meet these needs and those of each and every one of our keiki.
Within our multiple and varied roles, our charge is to create great teaching and learning environments in all of our schools, in all of our communities, for every child. We accomplish this through:
- reflection on practice,
- change-for-improvement processes, and
- advancements through innovations.
As a people-intensive organization, it is critical for us to continuously reflect upon whether our work is mission-driven, is relevant both for today and for tomorrow, and is being delivered efficiently and effectively. With each generation of students we are faced with new ways of delivering our work due to generational changes, changes in various fields of work, and new advancements in research, technologies and opportunities. Thus, by definition, we are an organization that must be ready for and comfortable with change as we reflect on the effectiveness of our practices. So, an important question for us to consider is how to sustain growth, relevance and impact year after year as an education organization.
We need to continue to deliver our core mission of teaching and learning with a focus on quality, while also investing in new ideas for today and tomorrow. For example, this year as we intently examine ways to improve upon the effective delivery of our special education and English Learner services, we are also investing in innovation grants to help inform and advance the delivery of our core instruction. Without a pipeline of emerging ideas, it is easy for an organization to get caught unprepared for emerging trends, advancements and changes that impact education.
The visual below reflects how we work as a Learning Organization. While continuously investing in our core mission of teaching and learning, we are committed to working within a context where our purposefully designed school models are brought to life with powerful student engagement approaches. Within this structure, there are continuous opportunities for teachers, leaders and staff to try new approaches, test new ideas and engage students in solving real world challenges within that innovation space.
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