Learning starts with listening.
Communites shape the questions.
Education becomes a tool for real change.
Who We Are
Our Story
Our story began with a simple realization. Schools are being asked to solve problems they were never designed to solve alone. Communities are facing real challenges around food, water, health, climate, and opportunity while classrooms remain disconnected from the places they serve. We saw educators doing everything they could with limited tools, students eager to matter, and families wanting schools to feel relevant again. RootedChange was created to close that gap by reconnecting learning to real life and restoring schools as centers of care, creativity, and collective problem solving.
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Today, we work alongside teachers, students, families, and local partners to redesign learning from the ground up. Our approach is rooted in listening first, honoring community knowledge, and supporting educators as designers rather than deliverers of content. Together, we turn classrooms into spaces where young people build skills by tackling meaningful issues and where schools become engines for local growth and long term resilience. This is not about fixing education from the outside. It is about building something stronger together from within.
What We Do and How It Works
RootedChange helps schools and communities design learning around the real issues they care about and then turn that learning into visible action. We work alongside teachers, students, families, elders, and local leaders to connect classroom learning to food, water, health, climate resilience, safety, and economic opportunity. Instead of arriving with a prepackaged program, we bring a repeatable approach that helps each community name what matters, build learning experiences rooted in local knowledge, and sustain projects that strengthen the community long after a unit ends.
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Step 1 is Identify What Matters. We begin with listening sessions and community conversations so we understand the actual priorities, strengths, and needs in that place. Teachers and students gather stories, map local assets, and look at challenges through the eyes of the people living them. This ensures the work is grounded in truth, not assumptions, and it gives students a real purpose for learning because the topic comes from their community, not from a generic template.
Step 2 is Design the Learning. Once the focus is clear, we co design Community Learning Experiences that align with standards while staying rooted in culture and local reality. Teachers are supported as designers as they build lessons, assessments, and student roles that make learning active and meaningful. Students help shape the work, contribute ideas, and learn how to collaborate, research, build, write, present, and solve problems in ways that feel connected to the world outside school.
Step 3 is Build and Sustain Impact. Students and community partners work together to create real outcomes, whether that is a prototype, a campaign, a system, a community resource, or a long term initiative that continues beyond the classroom. We support schools in strengthening partnerships, setting up routines for ongoing ownership, and creating pathways for youth leadership and entrepreneurship. The goal is not a one time project, it is a durable relationship between schools and communities where learning becomes a tool for long term resilience and change.
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Our Partners
