Last week I wrote about the growing divide between homeschooling and public education in rural Colorado. Families are choosing to homeschool for many different reasons, and our rural school districts are seeing enrollment decline as a result. That trend has financial consequences for schools, but I believe it also presents us with an extraordinary opportunity.
As I continued thinking about last week’s column, I realized I had been asking the wrong question.
The question isn’t, “How do we get homeschool students back into the public schools?”
The better question is much larger.
What Should an Eads High School Diploma Actually Represent in 2035?
As a former teacher, assistant principal and high school principal, I spent years making sure students earned the credits required for graduation. We tracked English credits, math credits, science credits, social studies credits, electives, attendance, and transcripts. That is the system I worked with, and I believe it served generations of students well.
But I also believe the world has changed faster than our educational system. That is why we are seeing a huge shift to a more flexible homeschool model for many.
Artificial intelligence is changing nearly every profession. Technology is transforming agriculture, healthcare, manufacturing, journalism, banking, engineering and business ownership—among most other industries. Many of the jobs today’s freshmen students will someday hold haven’t even been invented yet.
If the world has fundamentally changed, shouldn’t education change with it?
I believe the answer is yes.
The Industrial Model Served Us Well
Our modern educational system did not happen by accident. During and after the Industrial Revolution, America faced a tremendous challenge. How do you educate millions of children? The answer was brilliant for its time. Bring students together into one building. Hire expert teachers. Divide knowledge into subjects. Teach English in one classroom. Mathematics in another. Science and History in another. Move students through the day with bells and schedules. Graduate them with a diploma showing they had completed the required courses.
It was one of the greatest educational innovations in history because knowledge lived almost exclusively inside books and inside teachers. Students had to come to school because that was where the knowledge was. For over one hundred years that model prepared generations of Americans to build farms, businesses, factories, hospitals, banks, schools and communities.
It deserves our respect. But it was designed for an industrial economy.
Our children are entering something entirely different. Today, information is everywhere. Students can learn from college professors online. They can communicate with experts across the globe. They can earn industry certifications before graduating. They can apprentice with local businesses. They can create businesses from a laptop. Artificial intelligence can explain algebra, review essays, translate languages, generate computer code, and answer questions in seconds.
Knowledge is no longer confined to one classroom.
Yet we continue asking students to move through essentially the same educational structure their great-grandparents experienced.
The subjects themselves are not outdated. The organizational model is.
Please don’t misunderstand what I am proposing. Reading still matters. Writing still matters. Mathematics still matters. Science, History, Art, Physical Education, Vocational Education all still matter.
In fact, I would argue they matter more than ever.
The question isn’t what students should learn. The question is how they demonstrate that learning.
When children are young, they absolutely need direct instruction. Elementary school should remain focused on helping every child become a confident reader, writer, communicator, mathematician, and curious learner. Those foundational years are irreplaceable.
But perhaps we should rethink what happens after that.
If elementary school builds academic foundations, perhaps middle school should become the place where we intentionally build character. Many middle schools are already doing meaningful work in this area, led by the same dedicated teachers who understand that these years shape far more than academic success. The goal is not to dismiss what educators are already accomplishing, but to build upon it with even greater intention.
These are the years when young people begin asking difficult questions. Who am I? What do I believe? What kind of adult do I hope to become? Imagine a middle school curriculum intentionally designed around those questions.
Students could read the great classics—not simply to analyze literature, but to discuss courage, integrity, sacrifice, perseverance, justice, kindness, humility and leadership. History would become more than memorizing names and dates. It would become the study of human choices. Why did civilizations succeed? Why did they fail? How fragile is freedom? What responsibilities come with citizenship? Science would become experimentation and discovery. Students would build, test, fail, revise and discover. Mathematics would continue developing logical thinking while connecting numbers to agriculture, engineering, construction, finance, medicine and everyday life.
Most importantly, middle school would intentionally develop the qualities employers consistently tell us they cannot teach. Punctuality. Dependability. Respect. Initiative. Integrity. Professionalism. Teamwork. Communication. Perseverance. Showing up. Doing difficult things. Keeping your word. These aren’t “soft skills.” They are life skills.
By the time students enter high school, they should possess strong academic foundations and developing character. Now they’re ready for something different.
Today, an Eads diploma largely represents accumulated credits.
Four years of English.
Three years of math.
Three years of science.
Three years of social studies.
Physical education.
Art.
Speech.
Computer applications.
Complete the checklist. Receive the diploma. But imagine if that diploma represented something much larger.
Imagine it said: “This graduate is prepared for adulthood.”
That graduate has mastered rigorous academic standards, completed approximately numerous hours of concurrent college credit, earned five to ten workforce certifications, completed apprenticeships or internships, served the community, mastered personal finance, developed professional habits, and built a portfolio demonstrating real accomplishments.
Now the diploma tells a story.
Perhaps the biggest shift is recognizing there is no longer only one way to demonstrate learning.
A student earning a welding certification reads technical manuals, writes proposals, communicates with customers, prepares safety reports and solves mathematical problems every single day. Those are English and mathematics skills.
A journalism student researches, interviews, writes, edits and presents information.
A future entrepreneur writes business plans, analyzes financial statements and develops marketing campaigns.
A healthcare student studies anatomy, biology, communication and ethics while completing clinical experiences.
The academic standards remain. The demonstrations become far more meaningful. Instead of one pathway, there are one hundred pathways. As varied as our students.
What does a school day look like in this type of educational model? Perhaps this is the biggest change of all. This type of thinking calls for flexible scheduling for public school students and offering opportunities for courses to homeschool students.
For more than a century we have organized education around the schedule. Eight hours. Passing bells. Attendance every period. We have become experts at tracking where students are. Maybe we should become experts at tracking what students are learning.
Imagine Emma. She wants to become a registered nurse. She attends Anatomy on campus. Completes English online. Observes patient care at the local clinic. Takes concurrent enrollment psychology. Volunteers at the senior center. She has been learning all day. She simply hasn’t been sitting in one building all day.
Imagine Caleb. He wants to own a welding business. Government class online. Morning welding certification. Afternoon apprenticeship. Business accounting. Personal finance. Entrepreneurship.
Again…school all day. Just not all in one place.
Imagine Stephen. He is one of Colorado’s top junior golfers preparing for Division I competition. Today’s college recruiting landscape expects athletes to contribute immediately. He studies English at the school in the early morning before meeting a PGA golf coach online for swing instruction and competitive course management. He works with a strength coach, takes a nutrition certification course, concurrent sports psychology course, and a biomechanics class. Later, he reviews video of his golf mechanics and analyzes them with AI. He then completes a math course later in the afternoon/
He isn’t skipping school. He is participating in a school day intentionally designed around rigorous academics and the future he hopes to build.
The same model could serve baseball players, volleyball athletes, swimmers, musicians, artists, entrepreneurs and countless others.
This vision changes teachers’ work as much as students. Teachers become mentors. Learning coaches. Curriculum designers. Career advisors. Assessment specialists. Builders of community partnerships. Some continue teaching traditional classrooms. Others supervise internships. Others facilitate online learning. Others mentor students individually.
Instead of asking, “Was Johnny sitting in third period?” Teachers begin asking, “Is Johnny making meaningful progress toward becoming the adult he hopes to become?”
The Community also becomes the classroom. One of the greatest lessons I learned as a principal is that schools cannot raise children alone. Nor should they. Parents remain a child’s first teachers. Schools provide professional educators, accountability and coordination. Businesses provide apprenticeships. Hospitals provide clinical experiences. Libraries become research centers. Farmers teach agriculture. Retired professionals become mentors. The newspaper teaches journalism. The Deep Space Exploration Society and the Haswell radio telescope introduce students to communications, electronics, satellite technology, space science and amateur radio. Every organization in our community possesses knowledge worth sharing.
The school should become the coordinator of that learning—not its sole provider.
Ironically, recent changes by the Colorado Department of Education are beginning to move in exactly this direction. Districts now have greater flexibility to partner with homeschool families through part-time enrollment, concurrent enrollment, career and technical education, and other specialized opportunities. Rather than asking homeschool families to choose between two separate systems, perhaps we should build one flexible learning community where parents, educators, businesses, and community organizations work together to prepare every child for adulthood. In doing so, schools can also recover some of the enrollment and funding they have been losing, while families gain access to opportunities that neither side could easily provide alone.
Perhaps this is where our conversation about rural education should begin. Not with buildings, schedules, attendance, homeschooling. It begins with one question: What should an Eads High School diploma represent?
If we decide it should represent readiness for adulthood, meaningful skills, strong character, civic responsibility, and purposeful learning, then we must also be willing to redesign the educational system that leads to it.
Artificial intelligence is changing the world our children will inherit. Technology is reshaping every industry. Our responsibility is not to prepare students for the world that existed when I became a teacher or principal. Our responsibility is to prepare them for the world they will actually live in.
A truly flexible educational system asks a different question than schools have traditionally asked. Instead of asking, “Where was the student sitting at 10:30 this morning?” It asks, “Was the student engaged in meaningful learning that moved them closer to becoming the person they hope to become?”
Next week, in the final installment of this series, I’ll explore how Eads’ proposed new school—The Link—could become much more than another school building. It could become the community’s learning hub, connecting students, families, homeschoolers, teachers, employers, colleges, healthcare providers, and community organizations into one educational network. Before we decide what kind of building we want to construct, perhaps we should first decide what kind of future we want that building to help create.
List of Certifications High School Students Could Pursue
