Rindge Memorial School’s Destination Imagination team is going to Kansas City in May to cap off a season whose success has startled the team’s coach, Jen McCall.

After coming in second place at the state tournament in mid-March, the team will be participating at the global finals in late May.

“The group of kids that I have this year, none of them have ever done DI before,” McCall said. “Every step of the way I’ve had to explain to them what it’s like and what to expect at their tournaments. I honestly wasn’t expecting to come in second place, so that was a little bit of a surprise. I hadn’t thought this far ahead. The kids, needless to say, are extremely excited. It’s pretty neat.”

Destination Imagination is a global program designed to engage children creatively, while being entirely student-driven, with no adult interference allowed. Students work collaboratively to solve a challenge in an innovative way, with the challenge being intentionally open-ended to inspire participants to take ownership of their solution.

Last year, McCall said that they took a year off from DI due to the COVID-19 pandemic that made it difficult to make the program work. Even this year, there are still precautions in place that have made it stranger than McCall’s prior years of coaching. Students performed to an audience of just the appraisers at the state tournament, as no spectators were allowed.

“They haven’t really presented in front of an audience,” she said, but going to the global finals in May, the team will be able to do that.

Since they weren’t expecting to go, McCall said that getting the funds and scheduling together with the team’s families and the district was a scramble, but she said it will be worth it.

“It’s pretty amazing when you go,” she said. “The kids are meeting other kids from Texas, California, Brazil, China. It’s really kind of interesting, and it’s eye-opening.”

The tournament takes place over the course of five days, from May 20 to 25. Because the team does not know when they will be presenting, McCall said that they intend to fly down and be there for the full duration of the tournament.

The students, McCall said, are already hard at work on making sure their skit is in good shape for the tournament.

“Their goal when they go to globals is to just present and do their best,” she said. “They’ve had to work. They’ve already started planning: ‘Let’s work on this piece, let’s try to make that better.’ They’re already starting to plan ahead, which is great.”

These kinds of skills are what McCall said Destination Imagination instills in students. She said that she especially enjoys witnessing the creativity involved, and working with a small group.

“It’s definitely a lot of lessons,” she said. “It’s neat to watch, they’re a good group of kids.”