Purpose Education in Action: Introducing EMA’s Founding School Partner and East Coast Education Hub

It all began in 2023, when EMA partner BYkids asked for help with a specific kind of capacity support. With a rich archive of student-directed short films, BYkids was seeking new ways to bring those stories into classrooms and thoughtfully integrate them into school curriculum. Based on their years of experience as classroom educators, EMA Executive Director Bill Meyer and EMA Director of Education David Grace knew the best strategy was to go directly to the source: teachers and students. They assembled a small group of educators, students, and EMA team members to form the first Community of Learners (CoL) cohort to begin exploring curriculum integration ideas and pathways. “For a lot of students, education is done to them, not for them,” David noted. “Every day, they go to ‘play school,’ but they don’t have agency over what education looks like or why it matters.”

As a full-time history teacher at Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School (LSRHS), David took the lead in putting this idea into practice and immediately began integrating BYkids films into his curriculum and sharing them with his students. This single decision sparked a dynamic partnership between EMA and LSRHS, ultimately leading to students telling their own stories through film, the expansion of classroom curriculum built on David’s course using BYkids films, the development of open-source BYkids integration guides, and a professional development program for teachers focused on purpose education.

How do we put purpose education into practice in schools today? According to David, teachers are the key protagonists. Reflecting on his twenty years in the classroom, he noted, “We’re always encouraging students to collaborate, but we don’t collaborate enough ourselves. Most teachers are isolated in their classrooms, with very little time to meet with one another because there’s always an infinity of needs to address.”

At a time when student attendance and engagement are declining nationwide, and teachers are overwhelmed by growing demands, EMA steadily built and designed the CoL as a space for educators to collaborate regularly, connect with like-minded peers, and exchange lessons and lived experiences. EMA handles the logistics and technical support so teachers can simply show up, engage deeply, and feel part of a genuine community.

In 2024, following the initial phase of EMA’s partnership with LSRHS, EMA welcomed a new partner, Filmbuilding, and the opportunities for purpose-driven learning through visual storytelling continued to grow.

Around that time, David’s colleague at LSRHS, Lori Hodin, had been working closely with students in Boston’s METCO program, a voluntary busing program that enables students to attend local schools outside Boston city boundaries. Many of the students involved, primarily students of color, shared with Lori that they struggled to feel a sense of belonging or acceptance at LSRHS. Lori brought this issue to David, who recognized the perfect opportunity to invite Filmbuilding to collaborate with these students to co-create short films, initiating what became the Belonging project.

During this weeks-long project, students from the METCO program and students attending LSRHS were divided into four groups, and each produced a film exploring what “belonging” meant to them. EMA sponsored a public screening of the completed films in Boston, followed by a Q&A with the student filmmakers and featuring a behind-the-scenes documentary called Belong-In directed by LSRHS student Moses Sibley, capturing both the process and the student experience of the project. 

The powerful impact of the project led to further collaborations with Filmbuilding the following semester, designed to cultivate collaboration and build community far beyond the school’s walls. In two virtual filmmaking workshops, LSRHS students collaborated with students in both Ghana and South Africa to co-create a series of short films on the theme of Unity in Diversity. 

After the successful completion of these purpose storytelling projects at Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School, EMA’s partnership with LSRHS was formalized in October of 2025. Now, as an EMA Founding School Partner, LSRHS faculty and students have priority, fee-free access to EMA educational offerings—ranging from professional development workshops for teachers to support with coordinating student programming and showcases. 

Today, EMA’s partnership with LSRHS stands as a powerful example of what’s possible when storytelling, purpose, and collaboration are placed at the center of education, with LSRHS as the primary launch pad for building out EMA’s purpose-driven programming for both students and teachers.