Sparking Synergy creates connections across the educational ecosystem

The third annual Sparking Synergy made major waves, bringing together educators, community organizations, local businesses and Arizona State University departments to collaborate on innovating the K-12 educational ecosystem for the future. 

Sparking Synergy provided an amazing opportunity to network, get hands-on experiences with emerging classroom technology, engage with the local educator community and hear keynote speakers discuss the newest in education innovation. 

In preparation for this event, Sun Devils such as Kim Reynolds, a senior program manager for youth entrepreneurship within ASU’s J. Oren Edson Entrepreneurship and Innovation Institute, were intent on providing a uniquely collaborative experience. 

“Our theme this year is Amplify,” Reynolds explained. “It is a gathering of K-12 programs across ASU to come together to be able to network, to collaborate, to find opportunities to support each other, amplify the work that each other is doing and really to make us aware of what's going on.” 

“Sometimes we get so busy in our work, we don't realize that there are more than 80 different K-12 programs at ASU,” Reynolds continued. “We don't always have to reinvent the wheel. Once we know what's out there, we know who we can reach out to so that we can amplify the work of others and utilize their programs rather than saying, ‘This is just one more thing that I need to do.’”

Since the first Sparking Synergy, Reynolds and colleagues have worked to create a more efficient and collaborative environment. Taking lessons from earlier events, they wanted to focus on creating a wider outreach with the community and adding more opportunities for hands-on work. 

“We identified a lot of the challenges that we were facing in the K-12 space,” Reynolds said. “Now, a new policy has come out of that. The last time we did a session, we didn't do so much of the workshopping, we didn't identify the problems, but we really tried to figure out how to solve some of them. This time we were trying to bring in more teachers and community members, which is why we did it on a day that is traditionally a day off for a fall break.”

Improvements toward Sparking Synergy continue into next year, as Reynolds looks to make the event more accessible for local educators. 

“The next one in 2026 will actually be during the summer because now we're at the

point where we really want to bring the teachers in,” Reynolds said. “We want to have afternoon workshops and resource fair opportunities available for our K -12 educators to come and find out all the amazing things that ASU does.” 

Making connections with educators has always been a key aspect of the Sparking Synergy events. Reynolds explains how making sure educators have the ability to collaborate effectively can quickly accelerate improvements across the educator environment and reinforce pathways for academic success.

“ASU is a huge institution and sometimes making those connections is very difficult,” Reynolds explained. “Coming through our group last year was a teacher who had been trying to find someone to talk to them. It came to someone's inbox and sat there for months and then went to somebody else's inbox until it finally got to our team. Within 24 hours our work group was able to identify the person that they needed to talk to and get it set up. They had been waiting for months to make that connection. That collaboration and communication is so critical.”

Sparking Synergy not only connects educators, it provides them with powerful information on how they can continue to bolster these connections through a series of keynote speakers and panels. One of these speakers was ASU’s Dr. Quintin Boyce, the associate vice president of outreach with Educational Outreach and Student Services, who spoke on the theme of this year’s Sparking Synergy: amplify.

“To make larger or greater, to increase the strength or amount, especially to make it louder,” Boyce explained. “That's what it means to amplify. Think about the work you do. Think about the purpose of what you do. Look at the collective. We have an incredible amount of intellectual horsepower in this room. So the ability to amplify that is pretty special if you take advantage of it.”

While there is plenty to amplify in the expansive ecosystem of ASU outreach, Boyce exemplified Access ASU as one of many programs that if amplified amongst educators could create serious impact in the lives of students looking to enroll in college.

“Whether you're working directly in the educator space, or you're working with the system, or you're working in partnership, we all collectively have a love for K-12,” Boyce said. “But I think about the team that I get the privilege of being a part of. Access ASU. At the beginning of the day they were all about enrolling the full demographic of Arizona to Arizona State University. Making sure they come, they arrive, they persist, they graduate and then they launch. And while every kid won't go to college, at the very minimum, every kid should have that opportunity.” 

Access ASU is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to connections being made at Sparking Synergy. Reynolds spoke to how there are many problems facing educators today and ASU is dedicated to helping tackle them head on.

“We are responsible for the well-being of the communities that we serve, and we take that

to heart,” Reynolds said. “If we are not able to meet the needs of the community, or if they don't know where to go to talk to us about the K-12 space and how to find K-12 programs, our camps, resources, curriculum, training or our professional development opportunities for educators, it's a problem. This is a labor of love by the group of us that do this. We do this as a work group in addition to our regular duties. And, we've all been together for three years doing it because we believe in it. We believe it is incredibly impactful.” 

As Reynolds and the many ASU staff that work to support this effort have demonstrated, the most impactful way to help is to get involved. Luckily, for those looking to join this effort, there are a lot of ways to do that.

“So if you are at ASU, number one, you can reach out to me,” Reynolds said. “My email is [email protected]. You can also go into Slack and join our group, which is the ASU K-12 education ecosystem. 

“If you have a K -12 program, again, reach out to me because we've built what we call a Rolodex that is accessible for everybody across ASU. We can send the link, but you can also put in your program information.”

Keep an eye out for news on the 2026 Sparking Synergy event to get further involved.  

Photography by: Macy Kimpland