Salt Lake City’s Innovations Early College High School

"We create a culture, curate content, and hire the right teachers,” says Ken Grover, the founder and principal of Innovations.

Out in Salt Lake City exists a rising school where there is an absence of bells, traditional classes, and unmotivated teens. Grover created Innovations to let students take charge of their own education through online and teacher instruction. All learners have a mentor who helps them establish goals and schedules suited towards their individual pace and interests. Students may come and go whenever they please, so long as they stay for six and a half hours per day between 7 a.m. and 5 p.m. Although the students must follow and complete the Common Core curriculum, they have room to take other classes of unique interest to them that are tailored towards their future professions. The school's location makes it convenient for students to take college classes so that they can get a head start. "Innovations occupies the corner of an airy new building on the South City campus of Salt Lake Community College (SLCC), along with the district’s Career and Technical Center (CTC). The state reported that last year about 1 in 10 Innovations juniors and seniors took community-college classes and more than half took courses through the CTC [...]  Innovations pays tuition for students who take community college classes and pays a fee for CTC enrollees.," writes Joanne Jacobs, author of the article High School of the Future.

"Last year, Innovations had its first student—a Latino male—graduate with an associate degree as well as a high school diploma. This year, five to seven 12th graders are on that track," Grover says. That is very impressive, especially considering how young the new institution is. Innovations seems like the school that I, along with many of my peers, had always wished existed, but always thought would be impossible to successfully function. It offers such an endless amount of opportunities. Rather than having a strict department limiting a pupil's potential, the pupil's passion and imagination are the limiting factors in his/her education. A crucial point of Innovations is that the student's success relies on the student being motivated to strive towards their best abilities. I am glad to see that the new federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) is promoting personalized institutions like Innovations. These types of blended-learning schools have the potential to create an everlasting impact on many more students.

- Sarah