Kansas City Girls Preparatory Academy

Girls prep opened its doors in august 2019, to a promising class of 75 fifth grade Girls and their extraordinarily supportive families. Fortunately, the ingenuity of students, families, and the team and board ensured a continued focus on supporting scholars to maximize their potential even during the pandemic. Founding year results include:1) enrollment the school enrolled 75 5th grade students and retained 89% of students at the end of the year. Students represented the full diversity of Kansas City's east side neighborhoods in terms of race/ethnicity, economic status, special education needs, and english language learning needs.2) academics the school was founded to create equitable access to excellent education. As expected, students arrived in 5th grade with literacy and numeracy skills ranging from kindergarten to 4th grade proficiency. Due to teachers' balance of rigor and support, students achieved rapid growth. In just five months of instruction, for example, fully 1/3 of students grew out of the "below basic" performance category in mathematics on standardized assessments. 3) support during the pandemic the school quickly fundraised for and issued chromebooks and wi-fi devices to all students after the start of the pandemic. Instruction continued, and families were supported with weekly meal kits (5 breakfasts and lunches) delivered to their homes for all children under age 18.4) finances the school balanced conservative expense forecasts, tight spending management, and a proactive fundraising strategy to limit costs while earning the distinction of being the first school in Missouri to win grants from the highly selective new schools venture fund. The school also earned support from other selective national funders like the charter school growth fund and the federal department of education. These grants, in combination with an incredibly supportive local philanthropic community, have fully funded the middle school facility and start-up costs.5) team development the school is strongly committed to high quality development for its team in order to maximize student growth. For example, the school is part of two selective, national cohorts of high-performing schools to aid development in its social emotional learning and mathematics instruction. The team works with the nationally recognized experts in literacy special education, and teaching english as a second language. Investments in professional development aligned to researched-based best practices have maximized student growth.