Innovation in education has been widely mentioned in educational discourses, pedagogical planning, and public policies, often presented as a solution to boost learning and improve the quality of teaching. However, there is still no clear and consensual definition of what it means to innovate in the educational context, and the excessive emphasis on programs and rhetoric often overlooks essential elements of the teaching-learning process. Issues such as fair compensation for teachers, exclusive dedication to a single school, adequate time for pedagogical planning, continuous professional development, appropriate physical infrastructure, as well as public policies that ensure active listening to school communities, are frequently sidelined. This thesis presents an empirical study conducted at the State Technical School Professor Agamemnon Magalhães (ETEPAM), an institution internationally recognized as one of the 10 best schools in the world in 2022 in the Innovation category of the World s Best School Prize. The objective of the research is to analyze the strategies and institutional procedures adopted by ETEPAM after receiving the award, examining the school community s conceptions of innovation, youth protagonism, and practices of democratic management. Educational innovation is understood here as a set of strategies and institutional processes intentionally developed and agreed upon by the school community, aimed at modifying practices to address educational challenges and ensure the learning of all students. Through a qualitative case study, which included participant observation, document analysis, semi-structured interviews, and questionnaires, the research sought to understand how innovative pedagogical practices developed under democratic management can be encouraged within the school culture. The results show that, following the award, ETEPAM began to implement a series of institutional actions involving administrators, teachers, staff, and students in the pursuit of innovation. These practices are related to the integration of General Basic Education with Vocational and Technical Education, partnerships with universities, technological initiation projects with companies, the adoption of active methodologies in pedagogical practices, and the resolution of real problems in everyday school life. This demonstrates that innovation must, above all, be a collective and contextualized process that emerges from the real needs of the school community and is sustained by a culture of trust, active listening, autonomy, and shared commitment.