EL Education, originally called Expeditionary Learning, supports a network of 150 pre-K-12 public schools in 30 states and has launched an open source K-8 English language arts curriculum that has been downloaded more than 10 million times across 45 states. EL Education advocates a three-dimensional view of student achievement that puts character side-by-side with mastery of rigorous content and high quality work. That means teachers and school leaders must model a school-wide culture of respect and compassion, and prioritize social and emotional learning and supportive classroom environments, along with fostering high-quality academic learning. This case study discusses Detroit Public Schools Community District (DPSCD), which began using the EL Education language arts curriculum in 2018 in all of its K-8 classrooms.