Lights, Cameras, Civics: Mountain Middle’s Bold Experiment

At Mountain Middle School in Durango, the line between education and action is deliberately blurred. On Civic Culture Day recently, students put down their textbooks and picked up tools: rakes, paintbrushes, even microphones. This wasn’t just another school event. It was a full-scale exercise in civic engagement, where over 300 students, grades 4 through 8, fanned out across the community to serve, contribute and reflect.

This isn’t your standard educational experience. And that’s partly why cameras rolled. A documentary team, in partnership with Sphere Education Initiatives, captured something powerful happening at Mountain Middle: a community-minded, student-driven approach to civics that marries education with community service.

And at the heart of this effort? Nancy Wickham. A recent finalist for the Colorado League of Charter Schools Hall of Fame Educator of the Year, Wickham is instrumental in shaping the school’s civic programming and inspiring students to connect the principles of liberty with action, reflection and dialogue.

“Nancy breathes life into the classroom,” Mountain Middle School Executive Director Shane Voss said. “She’s not just teaching civics; she’s living it. And our students are, too.”

It’s a tall order, bringing lessons of civil discourse and democracy to young minds, but the school goes all in. Voss credits the transformative power of professional development for that. 

Wickham, supported by the school, has attended multiple training programs hosted by Sphere Education Initiatives, a nonprofit focused on fostering civil discourse and cultivating civic-culture in schools. Now, she’s not only applying those skills in her classroom, but is also attracting a national audience as filmmakers help share the story of this charter school.

"What makes Nancy exceptional as an educator is her focus on bringing civics to life for her students. She combines serious academic rigor with practical civic learning experiences that empower her students to become leaders in their community,” Allan Carey, director of Sphere Education Initiatives said. 

Mountain Middle thrives because of the freedom that charter schools can offer. The ability to rethink traditional education models is evident in its success: students engage in community work, internships and hands-on projects while maintaining some of the highest math and ELA scores in Colorado. 

The secret? 

“We don’t see academic excellence and experiential learning as a tradeoff,” Voss said. “They reinforce each other.”

This approach resonates through the Civic Culture Day project, which doesn’t relegate service-learning to the corners of the curriculum. Instead, it’s central. From partnerships with nonprofits to a reflective panel where students exchanged ideas with the Mayor of Durango and other civic leaders, the day showcased what modern civics education should strive for: students not only learning about democracy but living it.

Sphere’s forthcoming documentary isn’t just a tribute to a single day or a single school; it’s a call to action. Premiering next summer to coincide with America’s 250th anniversary, it’s set to ignite a broader conversation about the future of civics, youth engagement and education itself. This documentary celebrates educators and the inextricable role they play in shaping students and the broader culture to leverage the principles of the Declaration of Independence to advance a freer, stronger civil society, for the next generation. 

Mountain Middle is proof of what’s possible when innovation meets purpose. Here, education is about doing. It’s about showing kids how their actions, no matter how seemingly small, can ripple through a community and beyond. Wickham, Voss and their team have tapped into something essential: curiosity, connection and the will to serve.

When the credits roll on the documentary, it won’t just celebrate Mountain Middle School. It will reflect a vision of what all schools could be.