Portrait of a Graduate Informing Student Pathways

Presenters: Emily Leute & Jeanie Phillips

Thursday, 1:45 PM - 2:30 PM, MacDonough

A Portrait of a Graduate (PoG) is a vision that articulates the collective hopes and dreams that a community has for its students; and the skills and attributes that all students need in order to be prepared for college, career, and life. The process meaningfully engages a diverse team that represents all community partners, ensuring an equitable and representative process that unites the community. Actualized PoGs provide a guiding document outlining expectations for every student while opening flexible pathways for individual students to achieve these goals. Our team is working collaboratively with educators from across the state to think about how the PoG supports and informs instruction as well as providing context and direction for student goals. In this session, we will share examples of how portraits can drive flexibility, individuality, and creativity in students’ personalized learning plans to elevate student agency. We will discuss strategies for ongoing shifts toward equitable engagement and share tools for implementation. Ultimately, portraits are the North Stars for schools and districts illuminating a community’s aspirational expectations for students while providing freedom for those learners to navigate their own pathway.