What’s the best measure of customer satisfaction?  At our school, it’s the fact that our Eagles want to be here. To us, being a great school isn’t about standardized test scores, perfect SAT’s or straight A’s, but simply having a place where Eagles love to gather, share and learn.

At Acton, we run on an (almost) year round schedule, with five to seven week sprints, followed by a week off from school.  The Guides aren’t on vacation this week, but hard at work  preparing the next sequence of experiences and adventures.  So I thought I’d use these next few days to record some “lessons learned” from the first session, to help others who might be considering opening a school like ours.

We’ve succeeded in creating a sense of excitement and belonging.  There was great energy as we asked students questions about themselves, their hero’s journey and how they would change the world.  Eagles drafted and ratified their own “rules of engagement” and governance system. We’ve worked hard AND had a lot of fun.

Once you’ve got a place where young people want to belong, you have the magic raw materials of energy and commitment that will lead to excellence and transformational learning.   Without this, it’s just another institution run by grown ups.