38 | FRONTDOORS MAGAZINE BUILDING THE FOUNDATION In Phoenix, flexibility starts at preschool. Phoenix Elementary School District #1 has been around longer than Arizona itself. Founded in 1871, before statehood, it’s the oldest public school district in the state, with 15 schools serving preschool through eighth grade in the heart of downtown Phoenix. Deborah Gonzalez, who became superintendent in 2024 after serving nearly four years as the district’s chief academic officer, is using that long-established institution to test something decidedly forward-looking. With nearly 40 years in education — from Washington State to Phoenix Union to ASU Preparatory Academies — she brings both deep experience and a fresh perspective. When an email about Permission Granted landed in her inbox, she didn’t file it away. She read it carefully, then brought it to her cabinet. “I thought, oh, that’s really interesting,” she said. “How does this play into what we’re trying to do?” It turned out the answer was: quite a lot. The district had already launched a five-month “reimagine” process with more than 250 community stakeholders. Permission Granted gave that work a policy backbone. NEXT DOORS Students in Phoenix Elementary School District #1 engage in hands-on, real-world learning through initiatives like the Edison Zoo School and Garfield Elementary’s award-winning garden program.

CAREERS START IN KINDERGARTEN The shift isn’t limited to high schools. In Phoenix Elementary School District #1 Gonzalez is using Permission Granted to back a “reimagine” process for her 15 schools. At the Edison Zoo School, a K-4 program built in partnership with the Phoenix Zoo, students aren’t just learning about orangutans; they’re designing enrichment activities for them and working alongside primatologists. At Garfield Elementary, a nationally recognized garden program teaches entrepreneurship, culinary arts and nutrition. “Think about a fourth grader being engaged at that level,” Gonzalez said. “Truly hands-on, minds-on, practical learning.” With 81 percent of her students from low-income families, Gonzalez views this as an equity issue. “If we relegate our programming to drill and repetition, our students become disenfranchised. And we can’t afford for whole groups of students to become disenfranchised with learning,” she said. “Those are the kinds of things that, if we aren’t providing them, we’re just going to continue to create a greater and greater divide between the students that have and the students who don’t.” ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE What makes Permission Granted different from most education reform efforts is what it doesn’t ask for: no new legislation, no new funding, no reinvention of the wheel. Instead, it asks educators to take a closer look at the flexibility already built into the system. “The most durable kind of change is the kind that doesn’t depend on a single policy or a single program,” Burke said. “What’s really different about this is that it’s about recognizing that Arizona already has the conditions: flexibility in policy, strong educator leadership and a shared vision for student success. The risk isn’t that those conditions go away. The risk is that we don’t fully use them.” In practice, that looks like a preschooler in downtown Phoenix designing a toy for an orangutan, or a high school student who arrives at EVIT with a 2.1 GPA and leaves with a cosmetology license, a career pathway and a plan to fund what comes next. The evidence is already accumulating in Arizona classrooms. Permission Granted is simply making sure the rest of the state gets to see it. “At the end of the day,” Wilson said, “many of the barriers are self-imposed. They can be broken down if we’re just willing to be creative and innovative and persistent. In Arizona’s K-12 public education, all things are possible — if we’re willing to look for solutions.” Learn more at permissiongrantedaz.org and arizonafuture.org . FRONTDOORS MAGAZINE | 39