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LOS OLIVOS, Calif. – Kalyan “Kal” Balaven, Head of School at Dunn School in Los Olivos, has been named to the inaugural class of The 100, a national recognition honoring 100 educators advancing innovation across U.S. independent schools.
The 2026 cohort was selected by an independent panel of education leaders and thinkers, including Stanford Graduate School of Education Senior Lecturer Denise Pope, curriculum expert and Understanding by Design co-creator Jay McTighe, former Global Online Academy Chief Program Officer Eric Hudson, and other nationally recognized educators and school leaders.
The 100 recognizes educators whose work is creating meaningful impact in three areas: curriculum innovation, artificial intelligence and emerging technology, and leadership and systems change.
Balaven’s recognition comes as Dunn has emerged as a testing ground for a distinctly human-centered approach to education in the age of artificial intelligence—one that seeks to embrace the possibilities of new technology without allowing technology to replace the experiences, relationships, reflection and intellectual struggle at the heart of learning.
“This recognition belongs as much to Dunn as it does to me,” Balaven said. “We have been asking a fundamental question here: How do you prepare young people for a world transformed by artificial intelligence without surrendering the very things that make education human? Our answer has not been to run from AI or race blindly toward it. It has been to become much more intentional about what only human beings can do.”
Central to that approach is Balaven’s application of David Kolb’s experiential learning cycle—experience, reflection, conceptual understanding, and experimentation—to the emerging challenge of AI in schools.
In his recent writing on AI and education, Balaven has argued that the central question is not simply whether students should or should not use artificial intelligence, but whether schools are designing learning that still requires students to think.
“AI can short-circuit the learning cycle, but used differently, it can accelerate it,” Balaven has written. “The smarter our machines become, the more intentionally human our schools will need to be.”
That philosophy has helped shape Dunn’s approach to AI. Rather than treating the technology as either a threat to traditional schooling or a substitute for teaching and learning, Dunn has focused on protecting the experiences that require students to wrestle with ideas, reflect, create, revise, collaborate, and apply their learning in authentic settings.
Balaven expanded on that philosophy in his 2025 book, Speaking Truth, Teaching Humanity: What I Learned from Mr. Lindsey to Teach and Lead in the Age of A.I. Part memoir and part practical guide for educators, the book examines how schools can preserve voice, dignity, belonging, moral courage and authentic human connection as artificial intelligence transforms education.
“In the age of artificial intelligence, authentic humanity matters more than ever,” Balaven writes in the book.
The national recognition also comes as Dunn expands its role in educator development through Human-Centered Innovation in Education, an initiative being built at the Los Olivos campus to bring educators together around some of the most consequential questions facing schools.
Beginning with programs piloted at Dunn and expanding through work launched in 2026, the initiative is creating professional learning opportunities in areas including teaching and learning in the age of AI, moral courage and civil discourse, neurodiversity, human flourishing and belonging, future school leadership, and interdisciplinary innovation.
“We don’t want Dunn simply to respond to the future of education,” Balaven said. “We want this little school in the Santa Ynez Valley to be one of the places where educators come together to help build it. Human-Centered Innovation in Education grows out of a simple idea: innovation should not be measured by how much technology we can put into schools, but by whether we are helping human beings learn, flourish and become more fully themselves.”
That work builds upon several initiatives developed during Balaven’s tenure at Dunn.
Among them is the Santa Barbara Inclusion Lab, founded as a collaboration between public and independent schools to share professional learning and resources across institutional boundaries. Dunn has also developed partnerships with organizations including the California Teacher Development Collaborative and Moral Courage to bring professional development opportunities to educators throughout the region and beyond.
This past summer, more than 50 public and independent school educators gathered at Dunn for a multi-day Moral Courage program focused on equipping educators to engage difference, disagreement, and difficult conversations while strengthening belonging in their schools. The gathering served as one of several proof-of-concept programs for Dunn’s growing educator-development work.
The broader vision, Balaven said, is for Dunn to serve not only the students enrolled at the school, but also the profession of education.
“There is extraordinary wisdom inside schools, but too often it stays inside individual classrooms or individual campuses,” Balaven said. “If we can create a place where educators from public and independent schools can learn from one another, experiment together and bring what works back to their communities, then a school our size can have an impact far beyond our enrollment.”
Learning management software company Toddle created The 100 around a similar premise: That innovative work occurring inside schools should become more visible so successful ideas can travel across the profession. Members of the inaugural cohort are scheduled to convene at The 100 Summit in December 2026 to share their work and learn from other educators selected for the recognition.
For Dunn, Balaven’s selection places a national spotlight on educational work taking place in the Santa Ynez Valley.
“Kal’s recognition is a reflection of something we see every day at Dunn: innovation here is not innovation for its own sake,” said Marissa May Carroll, Dunn School’s Associate Head of School. “It is grounded in students, teachers, and the relationships between them. What is particularly exciting about this recognition is that it brings national attention to ideas being developed right here in our community that can ultimately benefit educators and students well beyond Dunn.”
ABOUT KALYAN BALAVEN
Kalyan “Kal” Balaven is Head of School at Dunn School in Los Olivos, California, and an educator and school leader with more than two decades of experience in public charter and independent schools. He is the author of Speaking Truth, Teaching Humanity: What I Learned from Mr. Lindsey to Teach and Lead in the Age of A.I. His work focuses on progressive and experiential education, artificial intelligence and the future of learning, belonging, moral courage, whole-student education and school leadership.
ABOUT DUNN SCHOOL
Founded in 1957, Dunn School is a college-preparatory boarding and day school serving students in grades 6–12 in Los Olivos, California. Dunn’s educational philosophy centers on educating the whole student through close relationships with teachers, experiential learning, academic challenge, leadership, outdoor education and a community in which students are seen, heard and known.
ABOUT THE 100
The 100 is an annual national recognition of 100 educators advancing innovation across U.S. independent schools. Educators are selected by an independent panel of school leaders and education thinkers for standout work in curriculum innovation, AI and emerging technology, and leadership and systems change. The 2026 class is the inaugural cohort of The 100.
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