Big Picture Company Timeline

February 1995 - Dennis Littky and Elliot Washor found The Big Picture Company, Inc., an independent non-profit educational reform organization.

January 1996 - “Breaking Ranks in the Ocean State”, a program to help other schools in Rhode Island look at education from an innovative perspective, is started by Big Picture. This program led to the first principal training center in Rhode Island.

September 1996 - The Met high school program is developed and opens its doors to 52 students in a third floor wing of the Shepard Building in downtown Providence.

May 1998 - Big Picture hosts the first Rhode Island Family Engagement Network Conference “Urgent Message: Families are Critical to School Reform.”

January 1999 - The Aspiring Principals Program (now the Principal Residency Network) is founded by Dennis Littky, Elliot Washor, Roland Barth, Jay Casbon and Farrell Allen.

September 1999 - The Peace Street campus of The Met, a new, state-of-the-art high school designed by Big Picture and Met staff and students, opens its doors, bringing the total Met student population for both campuses to 220.

February 2000 - The Met receives a three year grant from the Mott Foundation to support its Family and Community Engagement initiatives.

May 2000 - The Big Picture’s “Learning Journeys” video is completed, following four Met students from their freshman year through graduation and entrance to college.

May 2000 - The Wallace-Reader’s Digest Funds grants $1.3 million to Big Picture to support leadership training through the Aspiring Principals Program (now the Principal Residency Network).

June 2000 - The Met graduates its first senior class with 100% of the graduates accepted to college.

June 2000 - Big Picture is awarded a $4.1 million grant from The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to generate and sustain small high schools based on the Met design throughout the country.

June 2000 - The Met and Big Picture begin to support students as they transition from the Met to college and/or the work world, beginning our School/College Partnership - Preparation and Transition initiatives.

June 2000 - The Met and Big Picture receive a $1.2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education to design and implement The Met’s FamilyNet program.

September 2000 - With the support of CVS, Big Picture opens the CVS Highlander Charter School in Providence. This is the first school chartered to a non-profit organization in Rhode Island.

May 2001 - Big Picture releases “The Learning Cycle” video.

June 2001 - The Met graduates its second senior class with 98% of the graduates accepted to college.

June 2001 - Big Picture receives a grant from the Annie E. Casey Foundation to implement the Met’s Community Engagement initiative.

August 2001 - Cally Wolk receives the Emmy Award for Big Picture’s local public service announcements.

October 2001 - Construction begins on four new Met schools located on a central campus on Public Street in South Providence, including a performance center, fitness center, culinary kitchen, technology center, and school-based health center.

November 2001 - One Kid at a Time , a book about The Met by Harvard researcher (and later, Met advisor) Eliot Levine, is published by Teacher’s College Press.

April 2002 - Big Picture receives a grant from the Noyce Foundation to study the process of generating and sustaining Big Picture Schools around the country.

August 2002 - Big Picture hosts its first annual summer conference ("The Big Bang"), bringing the entire national network together in Rhode Island to launch the new school year.

September 2002 - Big Picture Schools open their doors to students in El Dorado, CA; Oakland, CA and Federal Way, WA.

September 2002 - Co-founder, Dennis Littky, is awarded the Harold W. McGraw Jr. Prize in Education.

October 2002 - Doors are opened to students at the four new schools of The Met Center on Public Street in South Providence.

August 2003 - Big Picture receives a $10 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to generate and sustain 35 more Big Picture Schools by 2008.

August 2003 - Big Picture receives a $1.9 million grant to serve as coordinator of the Alternative High School Initiative, a group of six youth development organizations that will generate and sustain a total of 122 schools over five years.

September 2003 - New Big Picture Schools open their doors to students in Detroit, MI; Sacramento, CA; Denver, CO; Chicago, IL (2 schools)

September 2004 - New Big Picture Schools open their doors to students in Mapleton, CO; Indianapolis, IN (2 schools); San Diego, CA and Santa Monica, CA (K – 8).

September 2004 - The Big Picture: Education is Everyone’s Business by Dennis Littky with Samantha Grabelle, is published by the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD). The book was distributed as member benefit to 96,000 ASCD-member educators in the United States and throughout the world.

June 2005 - The Big Picture: Education is Everyone’s Business by Dennis Littky with Samantha Grabelle receives top honors as the winner of the Association of Educational Publishers' (AEP) Excellence in Educational Publishing 2005 Distinguished Achievement Award.