Episode 23: Can a Comprehensive High School Be Learner-Centered? with Melissa Agudelo

By loading this video, you agree to the privacy policy of Youtube.

Episode Summary:

Melissa Agudelo, Co-Principal of Lincoln High School in San Diego, shares about her experiences and insights as an educator and leader aimed at putting learners at the center by design.

Melissa shares how she got into education through Teach for America in the 1990s and the impact of seeing disaggregated student data under No Child Left Behind, which made her question traditional approaches to teaching focused heavily on curriculum coverage versus relationships and relevance.

She discusses her transformative experience teaching at High Tech High with project-based learning, but also her realization that those approaches weren’t reaching all students, prompting her move to lead schools focused explicitly on serving learners furthest from opportunity.

Key topics covered include:

  • 🙏 Implementing restorative practices rather than zero-tolerance discipline
  • 🤝 The importance of advisory structures to build relationships
  • 🎯 Collaborative teacher development of projects and portfolio assessments
  • 🖼️ Iteratively developing a learner-centered culture and portrait of a graduate focused on broader competencies rather than content mastery
  • 👨‍🎓 Melissa’s vision for an education system that privileges authentic learning over grades and curriculum

Related Resources:

  • Hispanic Heritage: Lincoln High School principal on a mission (KPBS).
    Melissa was featured by San Diego’s PBS affiliate during Hispanic Heritage month where she shares where her core motivations as a learner-centered educator were born from.
  • Toolkit: The Foundations of Restorative Justice (Learning for Justice).
    Learn more about the foundations of restorative justice practices in schools, including relationship building, culturally sustaining pedagogy, and community involvement.
  • Melissa Agudelo Spoken Word on Leadership (Big Picture Learning).
    Recipient of the 2020 BPL Seymour Sarason School Leader of the Year Award, Melissa shares her view on leadership, the good and the bad, through spoken word. Presented at the 2020 BPL Leadership Conference.

How About Another?

It’s Your Journey

Explore More Topics

Blog
The Learning Experience Design Cycle: A Compass for Designing Deeper Learning
As an English teacher co-leading an interdisciplinary project with a science teacher, I had the privilege of working alongside high school seniors as they explored what it truly means to survive. We called it the Science of Survival. Over the course of the project, learners read stories of survival in fiction and nonfiction, interviewed…
Blog
Reading, Writing, and Rising: Centering Literacy in Learner-Centered Education
By Stephanie Buelow and Charlotte Frambaugh Kritzer, Professors of Literacy at the University of Hawaii at Manoa Literacy is the cornerstone of a learner-centered education—it unlocks the ability to think critically, communicate effectively, and engage meaningfully in a rapidly changing world. Few leaders embody this understanding as powerfully as Dr. Lori Gonzalez. A visionary…
Blog
Debunking the Math Myth: How Learner-Centered Classrooms Deepen Understanding
In a learner-centered classroom, math is about more than numbers and formulas—it’s about curiosity, exploration, and making sense of the world.  Picture this: It’s 10:00am in Ms. Kim’s 3rd grade classroom and students are gathered on the rug around a chart. Two students have just finished sharing their strategies with the whole class on…