UK Center for Next Generation Leadership

10/23/2026

Our very first UK Next Gen newsletter is coming, and we are so glad to share it with you. Inside: a Kentucky Teacher of the Year whose 7th graders defend their home budgets to real realtors, a student-built hive in Clark County that gives free honey back to the community, and updates from NxGLA, SFMI, Scholars, and ChangeMakers.

Join the UK Next Gen community. Sign up, and these stories will find you every quarter.

Sign-up here!: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfUEjuAdmO7nHOAGh-mP_YwGyLXhxzUHzilextFieJG2JU7XQ/viewform


10/22/2026

On Monday, November 2, Dr. Lu Young, Next Gen’s Chief Leadership Officer takes part in the University of Kentucky College of Education’s inaugural Martha McCarthy Forum on Policy in Practice, where she’ll speak to her work as Chair of the Kentucky Board of Education.

The virtual panel digs into Kentucky’s changing assessment and accountability landscape, moderated by Brigitte Blom of the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence, alongside Kentucky Commissioner of Education Robbie Fletcher, former Commissioner Gene Wilhoit, and the University of Louisville’s Regina Umpstead Pratel.

Tune in Monday, Nov. 2, 2-3:30 p.m. ET.

Interested in joining the conversation? Register here: https://uky.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9Zfv7hA0lUb55nU

Martha McCarthy Forum on Policy in Practice RSVP

10/22/2026

More from this month's feature story: what does it look like when a whole district actually owns its vision, instead of just adopting one?

In this clip, Clark County's Kelly Fithen and Alyson Hill break down why The Portrait of a Clark County Learner has worked. The two say that real feedback from staff, students, and community members, and a slow, intentional rollout instead of a one-and-done launch has made the difference. UK Next Gen has coached this district, bringing outside knowledge without imposing outside answers.

Haven't read the full story yet? Click the link to read the article and watch the recap video to see how Clark County built this vision alongside their UK Next Gen partners.



https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/more-than-poster-wall-what-happens-when-whole-community-owns-uufpe/

10/12/2026

More from this month's feature story: what does it look like when a whole district actually owns its vision, instead of just adopting one?

In this clip, UK Next Gen's Susan Dugle and Julie Webb break down why Clark County Public Schools has made their Portrait of a Clark County Learner stick: consistent leadership, real investment of time and resources, and a strategic plan that kept the vision in front of people long after it launched.

Haven't read the full story yet? Click the link to read the article and watch the recap video to see how Clark County built this vision alongside their UK Next Gen partners.


https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/more-than-poster-wall-what-happens-when-whole-community-owns-uufpe/

10/05/2026

Meet a Kentucky district where one shared framework shows up everywhere: in classroom instruction, on the front page of the athletic handbook, and in a student-led effort to protect local bee populations.

This month, UK Next Gen is highlighting Clark County Public Schools and how they implement their Portrait of a Clark County Learner: a vision the community built together and has kept choosing for three years running.

Read the article and watch the recap video below to see how it all came together!

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/more-than-poster-wall-what-happens-when-whole-community-owns-uufpe/

Over the past year, Clark County Public Schools have been dominating local headlines across Central Kentucky. “Growing Greatness: Clark County Public Schools show substantial growth in Kentucky Summative Assessments.

10/01/2026

Ten pillars. One framework. Built for the Kentucky districts doing this work.

The Next Gen Ten is how UK Next Gen describes what a next-generation learning system actually looks like. From Portrait of a Learner competencies to a culture of shared leadership to reciprocal community commitment.

These aren't aspirational labels. They're the categories we use to ask hard questions: Where is your district strong? Where is the gap? What does the next step look like?

Tag a colleague who'd want to dig into this framework with their team.

09/29/2026

Portrait of a Learner. Learner Agency. Whole Child Design.

Those are three of the ten pillars in UK Next Gen's framework for next-generation learning, and they all start with the same question: What do we want students to know, do, and be?

That question sounds simple. Getting to a real answer: one that reflects community values (not just state standards) takes time, listening, and the willingness to keep asking.

Next Gen has supported that process in districts across Kentucky. The result is locally owned frameworks that communities can actually stand behind.

Is your district committed to this work? Share your school or district's progress below, and let's celebrate the impact of this work together.

09/23/2026

What changes when a district stops treating its Portrait of a Learner as a new initiative and starts treating it as a lens: the organizing frame through which everything already in place begins to cohere?

On September 11, the Kentucky CAO/Learning Leaders' Network convened instructional leaders from across the commonwealth to sit with that question together. Clark County Schools shared their multi-year Portrait of a Learner journey not as a highlight reel, but rather as an honest account of what community-defined, systems-level implementation actually requires.

That account included a deliberate pause. Midway through Year 2, building walkthroughs and student conversations revealed uneven uptake. The team made a principled call to slow down. To revisit, deepen, and build new structures before moving forward. Two years of that patient groundwork later, the challenge for staff this year is simply to live it.

That's what it looks like when a system builds for coherence rather than compliance. The Kentucky CAO/Learning Leaders' Network is an open community of practice for district instructional leaders across the state, and this is the kind of peer-to-peer work it exists to support.

If this is the conversation your district has been looking for, reach out to Carmen Coleman ([email protected]) or Susan Dugle ([email protected]) at UK Next Gen.

Clark County Public Schools

09/22/2026

Justin Bathon's travels surfaced something worth sitting with: some countries are doubling down on standardized, top-down systems, while others are moving toward deeper learning and broader competencies. He says Kentucky is swimming upstream, in the best sense.

Rather than leaning on charter networks the way other states have, Kentucky has tried something harder: moving the core of the public system itself.

What would it take for your own district to make that shift, without carving out a separate track to do it?

Read how he connects that to what's happening in Kentucky classrooms today:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/where-kentucky-stands-global-shift-toward-deeper-learning-flcse/?trackingId=EdNJ2WDbmFEnTB4RHwnaSA%3D%3D

In April of 1990, Kentucky decided to rebuild its entire public education system. The Kentucky Education Reform Act (KERA) signed by Governor Wallace Wilkinson aimed to fundamentally change Kentucky’s education system so that every student had access to a high-quality education and was held to hig...

09/21/2026

Day 2 of the UK Next Gen Leadership Academy centered on a question that sounds simple and isn’t: what makes teaching joyful, and what gets in the way?

Two practitioners from Shelby County High School , Casey Page and Bobby Caranna, shared what happened when they began rethinking what teaching could look like.

Casey Page, the 2024 National High School PE Teacher of the Year, built his program around a simple goal: get students moving outside the classroom for the rest of their lives. He earned his commercial driver’s license so he could take students to disc golf courses, hiking trails, rock climbing walls, and ski slopes, making those experiences part of the actual class.

Bobby Caranna created a two-credit multimedia English and journalism course where students wrote research papers, produced documentaries, and designed projects of their own. Her role became less about having all the answers and more about asking the right questions.

Both were good teachers before they became vibrant ones. The shift came through reflection, feedback, and the freedom to rethink what wasn’t working. Administrators who said yes more than no, colleagues willing to offer honest feedback, and a district willing to encourage educators to think bigger all helped create the conditions for that growth.

We want to give a big thanks to Casey and Bobby for sharing their experience with the Next Gen Leadership Academy!

Shelby County Public Schools