A Conversation about Leadership with Adam Aronson
CompetencyWorks Blog
Effective and values-aligned leadership is an essential ingredient in the creation of a student-centered learning community and leadership transitions sometimes present a challenge for sustaining a competency-based education (CBE) system. Chelsea Opportunity Academy (COA) recently navigated this successfully. CompetencyWorks Director Laurie Gagnon sat down for a conversation with incoming COA Principal Adam Aronson this summer just as he was about to officially step into his new role.
Laurie: Let’s start at the beginning—how did you first get involved with the school? What excited you about the role, and what surprises or powerful moments have you experienced along the way?
Adam: To give a bit of context, I’ve been in education full-time for about 12 years. Six of those years have been at Chelsea Opportunity Academy. I started in Chelsea at 22-years old as a special education teacher. Early on, I developed a deep interest in supporting students who were at risk of dropping out of high school. I worked with all students, of course, but I had a particular passion for that group.
After some time, I became a dean, working closely with Ron (the founding principal), and focusing even more on these students. But by my final year in that role, I felt burnt out. I had worked incredibly hard, but I was feeling a bit defeated. I wasn’t sure what that meant for my career or for me personally.
Ron came to me and asked if I wanted to be part of the team that would design a grant proposal to create a new high school model through the Barr Engage New England initiative. It was an opportunity to do something different for the students I was passionate about. I jumped right in, and I’ve been incredibly fortunate to be part of it.
Laurie: That’s amazing. Do you know I was one of the people who helped push this idea forward? I was with the Center for Collaborative Education’s Quality Performance Assessment (QPA) program at the time, and Chelsea had been a good partner with us. We thought, “Wouldn’t it be cool to help design a new school that embedded QPA practices from the start?”
Adam: Wow, great work, because here we are now, and the school is entirely based on performance assessments! What I find so interesting about stepping into the principal role is that I’m constantly learning new things about how the school came together. Every conversation reveals more about the origin.
For instance, you mentioned how the idea percolated, and when you talk to our district’s attendance officer, he’d tell you that the discussions about dropout data with DESE (the MA Department of Elementary and Secondary Education) had been happening for years. There was an original pilot team working on this, even before Chelsea Opportunity Academy (COA) existed. It truly has taken a village to make this school what it is.
It’s been such a complex process involving different people, ideas, and motivations. One amazing thing is that every person I’ve talked to has seen their idea remain present in the school’s foundation. The vision has always been clear: COA would be a school for over-age and under-credited students at risk of dropping out, with a focus on competency-based, performance assessments, and an asynchronous model. That throughline has been consistent from the start, which is really special to see.
Laurie: How has the transition been for you? You’ve known about this leadership change for almost a year. What have been some of the highlights during this period of preparation?
Adam: The best part of this past year has been the gradual transition into leadership. I’ve been fortunate to work closely with Ron, who has a leadership philosophy centered around teaching and sharing. Over the past six years, he’s been generous in letting me take on more of the technical aspects of the role, which has been invaluable. I’m walking into the principal role with a solid understanding of things like budgeting, hiring, and managing our data systems.
However, this year has also been about reflecting on what it truly means to be a principal. It’s not just about being a good leader, but being the kind of leader I think our school deserves. That’s a personal, evolving journey, and I’m sure it will change over time. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what qualities I value in leaders I’ve worked with, as well as areas where I want to grow. It will be interesting to revisit these thoughts in five years to see how they’ve evolved.
Laurie: That’s great! As you begin this journey, what are the key ideas you’re bringing into the start of your leadership?
Adam: After many conversations with staff, students, families, and outside stakeholders, a key question we are all asking is, “Are we alternative enough?” The exact verbiage of this quote came from a good friend of the school, Joe Petner, and it’s a question we need to constantly consider. A strong alternative school should continually assess whether it’s meeting the diverse needs of its students.
We have this unique, competency-based, asynchronous, multilingual model at COA, but are there other elements we could incorporate? Could we offer more courses or more innovative work-to-credit programs? Could we improve our scheduling, expand online or remote learning options, or deepen our use of blended learning? Ultimately, we’re focused on adapting our model to increase graduation rates and ensure our students are set up for post-secondary success.
The other big area we’re thinking about is instruction. Our asynchronous, competency-based curriculum is working, but managing it in a classroom with students on 15 different assignments is a challenge, especially when we want to foster collaboration. We’re exploring how to create those sacred, synchronous moments where students can collaborate meaningfully. It’s a big focus for our team over the next few years.
Laurie: In five years, when we have this conversation again, what do you hope we’ll be talking about?
Adam: In five years, I hope we are still discussing the questions that my students, staff, and families are raising. I also hope to reflect on how we’ve shaped instruction, adapted our model to meet student needs. And personally – I hope to reflect on what I’ve learned about myself – I know I don’t know much yet, since I’m just starting out as principal. My goal is to be a vessel for the ideas and feedback of my staff, students, and families. I want to help build the teams needed to meet those needs, based on their input and the data we gather.
Laurie: That’s great! I actually have one more question. How do you see COA engaging with the world around it, contributing, and learning from others?
Adam: This is where I lean on those who know more than I do. I don’t have a strong lens on what’s common practice in most competency-based education (CBE) schools, whether globally, nationally, or even statewide. What I do know is that we have something special here at COA. We have a very supportive relationship with our central office team, our community decision-makers, and even our city council and school committee. I’m not sure how common that is, but it feels like when we have big, innovative ideas, we’re able to work with a team of thought partners. That support allows us to do amazing things for our kids.
I believe our external stakeholders (friends at Barr Foundation, Springpoint Schools, our School Committee, our Central Office, Chelsea Teachers’ Union, the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education) enable us to push the boundaries on questions like, “Are we alternative enough?” I’m not sure that’s the case everywhere, but I think there’s something special about the way our community works together that helps us keep evolving.
Laurie: I think that’s really interesting. There’s something special about that relationship, and it makes me think about other areas in the district. While student-centered practices might look different in a mainstream K-12 setting, there could be elements that would serve all students better. It’s worth considering how the same stakeholders who support COA think about these values in relation to the rest of the district. How does their support for COA influence their approach to mainstream education? That’s an intriguing question to explore in the future.
Adam: I wonder about our approach to building relationships between students and staff. There’s something magical about it, and it’s not just because of our small scale, although that helps. It’s the systems and structures we’ve created that allow a student with a highly traumatic educational experience to feel differently about school within a week. That feels special to me, and maybe that’s naive because I’ve only worked in Chelsea, but it seems unique.
Laurie: I think that’s a really valuable point. And it leads into the broader need for networks where people can share and learn from each other. Aurora, for instance, plays a role in supporting the broader competency-based education (CBE) field. But where are the deeper, more granular communities of practice where people can connect and learn from one another, even if their systems are different? I think there’s a lot of potential for COA to contribute to that space.
Adam: I agree. I feel pretty strongly that the idea of “they’re different, so we can’t learn from them” isn’t accurate. Everything in our school has been adapted from other schools with different contexts. Sure, some are more similar, like how our learning management system came from Bronx Arena, but other aspects, like our outdoor experience model, came from a traditional public school. Our curriculum choices were inspired by non-school environments. There’s just so much out there to learn from if you get creative, make adjustments, and adapt.
Laurie: I think that’s one of the big skill sets we need to infuse into our system. There’s not always a clear answer, but if you listen to your community, know your students, and learn from what others are doing – through the lens of your own context – you can find what works. That’s how we actually scale change. But it’s not the traditional concept of scaling, right? I’ve been talking about implementation with integrity, rather than implementation with strict fidelity, for a long time. It hasn’t quite caught on yet! It’s not a checklist. It’s about following a process with integrity to your learners and your community, while also taking from the evidence base and continuing to adapt as we learn more about how humans learn.
Adam: Right, 100%. That makes perfect sense.
Laurie: Is there anything else you would like to add before we close out?
Adam: Just how grateful I am to the dozens of people who’ve made this transition smooth for our COA community. Every single person, from students to parents to staff, central office, and community members, has been so warm, kind, and supportive. This wasn’t a one-to-one exchange; everyone chipped in to help. That’s been really amazing to experience.