“Our school vision keeps us cinched to our purpose - our why. It drives everything we do and helps us back on our path in times of strain or turmoil.”

Visioning Onward: A Guide for All Schools By Christine Mason, Paul Liabenow, Melissa Patschke

"From the very beginning of his tenure, Brengard championed a school redesign that would better prepare students for the real world.”

HQ PBL Case Study: Katherine Smith School

"At the building level, Aaron Brengard, principal of Katherine Smith School, in San Jose, CA regularly shares community problem solving, collaboration, and academic achievement that occurs as a result of the school-wide shift to project-based learning." 

Book: All Together Now: How to Engage Your Stakeholders in Reimagining School By Suzie Boss

"When it comes to discipline, Brengard said, the school tries to follow a restorative model."

How’s Your School Culture? ESSA Says It’s Important, but Only 1 in 3 Students Nationwide Think It’s Good by Kate Stringer

“If you are not taking the temperature every year, you can miss some important needs. I would not know how to run a school without authentic student voices every year.”

State board’s next challenge: how to measure school climate, the heartbeat of a school by John Fensterwald

“We have a moving target,” Brengard said. “But things like collaboration — I know for a fact we’re going to have to work together.” Projects in Katherine Smith classrooms ask students to do more than sit at group tables. They have to build off each other’s ideas, create things together and give each other feedback. “I know that kids are going to need that no matter what happens to jobs and careers in our lives.”

A focus on PBL has contributed to transformation in high-poverty Katherine Smith Elementary School by Tara García Mathewson

“Something happened for us when we realized we are not preparing students for a real world some time in the future. The real world was right in front of them now."

“Principal Aaron Brengard helped us imagine how PBL can transform summer learning experiences, and then a whole school.”

Setting the Standard for Project Based Learning By John Larmer, John Mergendoller, and Suzie Boss

"Principal Aaron Brengard recognized a need for a dramatic change in what learning looked like at Katherine Smith and for him Project Based Learning (PBL) was part fo the solution."