Delaware charter school wins $10 million grant

Design Lab High School is one of ten schools nationwide to get the major funding award from the XQ Institute.

 

In its grand vision to reinvent what a high school education looks like, XQ Institute and the nonprofit Emerson Collective are putting major money behind that effort. And Delaware’s Design-Lab High School is one of the beneficiaries.

Design-Lab was one of ten schools nationwide to be named a Super School and receive the funding grant out of more than 700 schools that applied. Other winners include a Louisiana school that will educate students on a floating barge in the middle of a wetland. Another winner was Rise High School in Los Angeles, which will focus on educating homeless students and foster children with mobile resources on a bus that will travel between several locations.

Following the announcement Wednesday in Washington, D.C., Design-Lab CEO Christa Alvarez said the school uses design thinking to educate their students.

“Design thinking is an opportunity for every student to create their best life,” Alvarez said. “It’s taking the method used by professional designers…and using the way they think through problems, applying it to every area of their life to create the most amazing life in any career and any vocation.”

Long-time Delaware educator Dr. Jill Biden spoke via video before the announcement of Design-Lab’s win to congratulate the ten winning schools and the 700 other schools that applied. “We need all of you- teachers, administrators, parents and of course, students- we need your ideas, we need your passion, determination and commitment to ensure everyone has the opportunity they deserve to realize their full potential,” Biden said.

Design-Lab founder, Dr. Martin Rayala, said he wanted to make the school a place for students from all walks of life. “I didn’t want some kind of a boutique school that was just for selected students,” Rayala said. “I wanted a proof of concept for a method of education using the design thinking model.”

Design-Lab High is a public Delaware charter school located on Stanton-Christian Rd. in Newark. The school opened in August 2015.