Dartmouth Launches K-12 Community Partnership

Dartmouth Engineering Professor Rafe Steinhauer delivers the keynote address at the "Ready, Set, TEACH!" event in Oopik Auditorium. (Photo by Holly Roy)

More than 60 educators from 15 K-12 public schools throughout the Upper Valley of New Hampshire and Vermont participated in the "Ready, Set, TEACH!" program at the Class of 1978 Life Sciences Center, which introduced the objectives behind the partnership. 

"We're excited to have this opportunity to welcome all these teachers to Dartmouth, and we hope it will be the start of long-term relationships that will be mutually beneficial," Holly Roy, organizer of the program and assistant director for outreach and alliances in the Grant Proposal Support Initiative office, aka GrantGPS, told the audience assembled in Oopik Auditorium. 

Karen DuBois, director of academics, engagement, and opportunity for the Lebanon, NH, School District (SAU #88), who is also working with the community partnership, then introduced Steinhauer whose academic work explores "how these human-centered design principles can reshape education, really at every level, from our individual curriculum and instruction and pedagogy all the way through systems-level change," DuBois said.

The UVEDC offers a unique model, Steinhauer said, whereby teams of teachers and administrators from outside Dartmouth "learn some methods of design thinking and systems thinking, and work in a shoulder-to-shoulder partnership with Dartmouth students on school improvement projects."

To date, the UVEDC has completed 10 projects in nine school districts, and 30 teachers and administrators have participated. Among the projects, Steinhauer said, was a push to increase playtime for kindergarten students in the Hartland, Vt., elementary school, given the robust literature on "play in early childhood education." In the next two years, the UVEDC will grapple with the advent of AI in classrooms, Steinhauer said.

Amritha Anup Th'23, a Dartmouth engineering PhD student in the Hixon Lab, presents information about regenerative medicine and biomaterials at a workshop for Upper Valley educators, part of the new partnership with Dartmouth. (Photo by Sophia Scull '25)

Discussion on how to broaden the relationship between Dartmouth and Upper Valley schools began a few years ago, Roy said. 

She previously worked in the President's Office, before transitioning to GrantGPS in 2023 and taking on her new role in outreach and alliances this spring. GrantGPS supports Dartmouth faculty with their research and helps secure federal funding across every discipline. One of the key components that granting organizations look for is how authentically faculty engage with classrooms and students outside academia, she said. 

This important element spurred her to put out the word campus-wide. "'Who's interested in sharing knowledge and strategies with our K-12 partners here in the Upper Valley?' People responded," Roy said.

The hope is that the partnership will be mutually advantageous for Upper Valley teachers and students and Dartmouth faculty, Roy said. 

"Moving more into outreach—not just K-12 educators, but nonprofits and adult education through the public libraries—helps as our faculty connect to our neighbors and get their work outside of academia so it has a broader impact," Roy said.

Organizers anticipate that this summer's Ready, Set, TEACH workshops will be the first of other programs to come, although what they might look like is yet to be determined, DuBois said. One of the team's first jobs is to analyze the participant feedback from the Aug. 12 event with the long-term aim of better meeting community needs and forming closer connections between Dartmouth and Upper Valley schools and students, DuBois said.

"Envisioning what comes next will be what comes next," DuBois said. 

Bacon said the organizers are grateful to President Sian Leah Beilock and the staff of the Office of the President, as well as the Dartmouth Center for Social Impact, Steinhauer, and the Hood Museum of Art, for their interest and backing of the partnership.

"With the support of all of these different offices, as well as partners who would like to join this initiative, we can do extraordinary things together," Bacon said.