Gold!

My KnowledgeWorks Foundation colleagues and I have been honored with a national communications award from the Council on Foundations for our storytelling project, Every Student Deserves a Legacy (published last fall). While our work from 2006 & 2007 earned silver awards, this one, which took a look at the personal stories of people doing the day to day work urban high school reform over a four year period, got the gold. You can download or request a copy of my short book about the efforts at Brookhaven High School in Columbus here.

Here are some of the judge’s comments:

“The reports are well written, informative and reveal the compassion and dedication of the educators. Fantastic insights… The visuals balance the text. The handwritten quotes or stories bring the reader in to the human side of the story. Excellent initiative and strategy. The organization is connected to its audience and clearly cares about the future of each student.”

“This material is outstanding. Beautifully written, simply designed, relevant and compelling content… Great use of spot color, big b&w photos, clean. This is impressive. If I lived in Ohio, I would support it.”

“Great stories highlighting individual teachers. Interesting to have multiple freelance writers and their take on the story.”

I am currently working on a new storytelling project with KnowledgeWorks about a young and innovative early college high school. Please visit Metro School Stories, subscribe to its feed or follow us on Twitter @MetroStories.