Sapientis

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Sapientis is a non-profit organization founded in 2002 that works to improve the quality of public education in Puerto Rico. The organization, founded by two Harvard University grad students – Kristin Ehrgood and Vadim Nikitine – designs and implements programs built on a leadership model developed at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government by renowned leadership expert Dr. Ronald Heifetz. This model has been developed over 20 years and implemented in approximately 85 countries around the globe.

Sapientis was founded on the principle that poverty, crime, sagging economic growth and other ills can best be addressed with a strong public education system. Sapientis’ unique approach to strengthening public education stresses leadership as a verb, not a noun. Its programs are built on the idea that all people are capable of, and required to, exercise leadership, rather than waiting on a “leader” to act.

The organization, based in San Juan, Puerto Rico, believes that every sector in society has a role to play in education reform. This theory of change says that true and lasting progress is best generated when groups are exercising leadership, rather than when one person, such as a CEO, is generating the progress. An analogy is the Civil Rights movement in the American South in the 1960s. Pressure for change and acts of leadership came from all sectors: Formal authority (President Johnson, Congress, the Courts), the media, from persons of authority within the black community (Rev. Martin Luther King), the general white and black populations, governors who forced schools to integrate and more.

As such, Sapientis runs a series of programs that target each sector. Schools on the Move, known in Spanish as Adelanto Escolar, works with the entire school community – parents, teachers, directors, students. Schools on the Move trains educators and members of the community in the leadership model and helps them diagnose problems that may be hindering academic progress.

Front-line Educators, or Educadores a la Vanguardia, is a program that trains professional educators in the leadership model so that it can be implemented in their schools. Youth Leadership, or Jóvenes en Acción, trains groups of 9th and 10th graders in leadership and gives them the skills to support the teachers and directors in Schools on the Move as they implement the leadership model.

Get Involved, or Involucrate, is a program aimed at helping private sector companies get involved in schools. Mobilization for Education (Movilización pro Educación), works to involve the general public and increase the level of consciousness about problems facing public education in Puerto Rico.

Additionally, the organization offers ADAPTA, a leadership seminar for private companies, non-profit organizations and other groups. ADAPTA unleashes Sapientis’ theory of change in the open market and create greater understanding of the leadership model.

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