Innovative Public Schools
3DE
Entrepreneur: Shayna Gaspard, Niambi Sampson
Nonprofit | Visit the Site
3DE is an Atlanta-based organization that was spun out of Junior Achievement. 3DE is an experiential-learning high-school model focused on connecting students to the real world through business leaders, business cases and career readiness. The research-backed model provides scope and sequence from grade 9 to 12, supporting students to build out their skillset inside and outside the classroom over four years. 3DE serves students in grades 9-12 at six high schools in Georgia today. Plans to scale beyond Georgia are under way, with hopes to reach 25 states in 10 years.
Accel Day and Evening School
Entrepreneur: Jeremiah Newell
Nonprofit | Founded: 2017 | Visit the Site
Accel Academy launched two schools, a middle school and a high school, in Mobile, Alabama. The two schools intend to eventually serve 800 students in grades 6-12. ACCEL Academy offers a highly interactive, hands on curriculum with a focus on personalized college and career-ready pathways, targeted interventions for all students, and the development of social and emotional skills and mindsets that endure through adulthood.
Achieve Middle School
Entrepreneur: Dominique Lee
Nonprofit | Founded: 2020 | Visit the Site
Achieve Community Charter School is a public school that launched in Newark, NJ in Fall 2020. The school intends to serve 320 students at full enrollment across grades 5-8. The vision of the Achieve Community Charter School is to provide a Pre K-12 continuum that fosters the individual needs of students as they develop the skills, character, and values that will prepare them for college and empower them to use their unique perspective as an asset to shape our country’s future.
Achievement First Accelerate
Entrepreneur: Paige MacLean, Dacia Toll
Nonprofit | Visit the Site
Achievement First (AF) is a growing network of 36 non-profit, high performing K-12 public charter schools spanning New York, Rhode Island and Connecticut. The AF Accelerate model is a comprehensive set of instructional materials, scope and sequences, unit plans and assessments for elementary and middle school Math & ELA.
Achievers Early College Prep
Entrepreneur: Osen Osagie, Efe Odeleye
Nonprofit | Founded: 2017 | Visit the Site
Achievers Early College Prep launched two public schools, a middle school and a high school, in Trenton, New Jersey. The two schools intend to serve 600 students at full enrollment in grades 6-12. The mission of Achievers is to offer a rigorous academic and personal efficacy program that leads to a college degree. Achievers will use a STEAM curriculum to promote academic success for all learners, ensuring that students access post-secondary education dually with high school coursework and acquire mindsets and habits that prepare them for careers and life-long problem-solving.
Alabama Aerospace and Aviation High School
Entrepreneur: Ruben Morris
Nonprofit | Founded: 2021 | Visit the Site
Alabama Aerospace and Aviation High School is a public school that will launch in Tarrant, Alabama in Fall 2022. The school intends to serve 600 students at full enrollment across grades 9-11. At AAHS, we’re educating and inspiring the aviation and aerospace leaders of tomorrow. As a new aviation-focused public charter school, we offer a future-building, career and college-focused education that will change the lives of our students, who will then change the world. In addition to hands-on, experiential instruction, we provide clearly-defined pathways for our diverse student body to enter aviation and aerospace careers.
AppleTree
Entrepreneur: Chavaughn Brown, Anne Malone
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Appletree is committed to closing the achievement gap before children get to Kindergarten. Through its early learning model, Every Child Ready (ECR), AppleTree provides three- and four-year-old students with social, emotional and cognitive foundation. The model supports schools with curriculum, professional learning and assessments and an overall opportunity to expand into pre-K. Today, ECR is delivered to 22 charter schools in Washington, D.C. and New York City.
ASU Prep Digital
Entrepreneur: Amy McGrath, Michael Crow
Nonprofit | Visit the Site
ASU Prep Digital is part of Arizona State University’s broader efforts to support PreK-12 education within and outside Arizona. ASU Prep Digital currently offers a range of online high school and university courses, and was funded to pilot a holistic high school STEM model for 9th and 10th grade students in 2019-20. This new approach includes five blended science and math courses, a student and teacher-facing digital platform, instructional coaching, and college and career planning.
Atlas Public Schools
Entrepreneur: Colby Heckendorn, Genevieve Backer
Nonprofit | Founded: 2020 | Visit the Site
Atlas is a public school that launched in St. Louis, MO in Fall 2021. The school intends to serve 468 students at full enrollment across kindergarten through fifth grade. The team at Atlas works intentionally to instill a love of learning in their kids while empowering them to build a healthy future for themselves, our community, and the world. Atlas’ integrated approach to teaching helps students make real-world connections and ignites their imaginations, so they are stimulated to discover meaningful passions of their own. Students at Atlas are academically exceptional and have the habits, skills, and mindsets needed to thrive.
Bard High School Early Colleges
Entrepreneur: Clara Haskell Botstein, Stephen Tremaine
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The Bard Early Colleges offer public school students a tuition-free, liberal arts college education as part of their four-year public high school program. In freestanding satellite campuses of Bard College that also serve as public high schools, students are taught by college faculty in undergraduate seminars and receive up to 60 college credits and an Associate in Arts (A.A.) degree from Bard College alongside a high school diploma.
Becoming Collegiate Academy
Entrepreneur: Cameron Frazier
Nonprofit | Founded: 2020 | Visit the Site
Becoming Collegiate Academy is a public school that will launch in Jacksonville, Florida in Fall 2021. The school intends to serve 654 students at full enrollment across grades kindergarten-5th grade. Inspired by the transformative work of History Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Becoming seeks to immerse students in a nurturing and intellectually stimulating environment that connects with the history of their community and inspires them to carry the relentless spirit forward. We achieve excellence through our unique focus on love, rigorous academics, increased literacy instruction and enriching extra-curricular options such as our House System.
BELIEVE Schools
Entrepreneur: Kimberly Neal-Brannum
Nonprofit | Founded: 2020 | Visit the Site
BELIEVE Circle City High School is an early college and career preparatory high school that launched in Indianapolis, IN in the Fall of 2020. The school intends to serve approx. 400 students at full enrollment across grades 9-12. BELIEVE will focus on fostering the academic acceleration, autonomy, and agency needed to be a contributing member of our evolving society. BELIEVE strives to create a community of change agents by developing our students’ and staff’s identity, sense of purpose, and social and emotional well-being.