Our First Year at KIPP North Philadelphia

Last week we wrapped up our first year at KIPP North Philadelphia Academy. It was a great year and I'm so proud of our everyone who worked together to make this year so successful. Starting a new school from scratch takes a tremendous amount of work, trust, and teamwork from everyone involved, which makes the feeling of pride at the end all the richer.

The central idea why we founded KIPP North Philadelphia is that the kids and families of North Philadelphia have incredible potential and great schools can be a part of unlocking that. However, decades of economic disinvestment, racism, and government mismanagement, among other factors, have left a community that has some of the highest levels of violence and poverty in the city and some of the lowest educational outcomes.

We know that schools are negatively impacted by these forces too and that great schools aren't by themselves enough to change all the factors; it's also true that great schools and great teachers can have a profound impact on students and a community. And we know that families hunger to know that their children are in schools that are safe, joyful, and full of learning; and that they will do just about anything to provide a great education for their children.

That demand for great school is out there and at KIPP Philadelphia our job is to create those schools that any parent would love to have their child attend. How we go about that is nothing special actually; we don't think that there is any special sauce or magic pixie dust that leads to great schools. We have no magical curriculum or super cool personalized technology that guarantees every kid is on grade level. Our approach isn't much different than what many other schools have done for a long time. I firmly believe that if you bring together talented teachers/staff united around a common vision, work hard to establish deep partnerships with families, and then create classrooms that are both fun and focused, you'll get great results. 

KIPP North Philadelphia is located at 16th and Cumberland. A public school has stood at this address since 1891 (that's the original building in the photo) and except for a few years after the School District of Philadelphia closed down Stanton Elementary in 2013, generations of students from this part of North Philadelphia have attended school here. As we wrote the charter application for this school, we knew it was essential that if we could create a great school that it be with, and for, the families of this part of North Philadelphia. We wrote language into our charter application reserving at least 50% of our enrollment for students from the surrounding neighborhood. Both in our founding classes of kindergarten and 1st grade students this year, and our incoming students for the 2019-20 school year we are basically at 100% of students from this part of North Philadelphia. Having a school in this location mattered to so any members of the community - so many family members of our students told us stories about attending school in this building years ago, a relative who used to work in the building, or fond memories of attending a performance in the school auditorium.

Last spring, we recruited for students at community centers, libraries, pre-k centers, as well as going door to door. We hosted Open Houses and gave families tours of our original elementary school so they could see what kind of school we were aiming to create. Next, our teachers did 45-60 min long home visits for all 200 of our founding students in August so they could get to know our students and families before school even started, laying the foundation for strong partnerships that would continue throughout the year in regular communication - a quick conversation at drop off, a text about a great day, a phone call about some struggles, and more. And when we had report card conferences three times throughout the year, we had about 90% of families attend on that day and nearly 100% within a week after. All this happened because our families at KIPP North are like wonderful parents anywhere - they want what is best for their child and when a school shows them trust and builds real relationships - they will be there as partners.

Our teachers and staff are wonderful. I was lucky enough to bring together a team with a wide-range of skills and backgrounds, many of whom had deep experience living or working in North Philadelphia especially and similar settings in general. As a founding team, they did crazy stuff like unload an 18-wheeler full of classroom furniture and work together to haul it upstairs to the 3rd floor.

They spent hours traveling around North Philadelphia doing those aforementioned home visits as they also planned their first week's lessons and set up their classrooms. And that was just the first two weeks! Then they did the hard work each day of creating classroom communities, teaching purposeful lessons, and adjusting course when a plan wasn't working. They worked together to create classrooms and a school that was centered on knowing kids as individuals and doing whatever was needed to support and/or challenge each of them to the fullest.







With all that being said, what did we accomplish together this year? How do we know this was a successful year?

• We had a 97% student retention rate, with most of the students who left this year doing so due to family and logistical reasons (i.e. family wanting to have all their kids at one school and a spot opened up for their son who was at KIPP North).
• Over 90% of teachers/staff members coming back next year, including 100% of our core staff.
• Kids created amazing pieces of art, put on plays, performed musical pieces in front of a packed auditorium, and many other creative moments. 
  

• They learned a ton! We measure this in a variety of ways at KIPP North, but one way is through the NWEA MAP assessment which is a standardized assessment that is used by thousands of district, private, and charter schools all over the country. 
• It gives us information about student growth by comparing an initial assessment a the start of the year to the an end of year test. Each student has a variable goal based on their starting point and our aim is to have as many students hit their growth goal as possible.
• The MAP assessment also compares student achievement level to students all across the country. This allows us to see things like how many students are at the 50th percentile, which is a good measure for saying they are "on grade level"

The graph below shows that for all tested subjects/grades, students at KIPP North hit their growth goals at way above the 50% mark that is typical across the county. In total, 82% of students hit their growth goal for the year!

As a results of all the growth that students made, the percent of students at or above grade level increased dramatically. At the start of the year, only about 20% students at KIPP North were working on grade level, i.e. at a start of kindergarten math level or start of 1st grade reading level. By the end of the year, that number had more than doubled, with gains in math being particularly impressive. The average student at KIPP North is now going on to the next grade on or above grade level.

We had a great first year and I can't wait to see what next year brings! 

Be About It

Don’t talk about it. Be about it.

When I think about what drew me to KIPP 14 years ago and what keeps me excited about the work every day, it’s working with people who exemplify this saying. From teachers to principals to central office leaders, everyone knows the urgency of our mission. The challenges of poverty, racism, school funding, generational lack of investment in neighborhoods, and on and on and on, are real. They impact our kids and families and the work schools do…deeply and profoundly. At KIPP Philadelphia, we don’t ignore them or pretend they don’t exist. Just the opposite- we’re drawn to this work because we see great schools as one lever for disrupting those patterns of inequity and the artificial ceiling on what is possible for Black children in North and West Philadelphia.

But we can’t just talk about it. We need to be about it.

We approach how we build and run schools with an understanding that we must tackle these challenges. 

• It’s why we work hard to find great teachers and leaders who look like our students because we know that matters. I'm proud of the fact that both regionally and at my school (KIPP North Philadelphia), the number of staff members of color is about 50% and we’re committed to continuing to raise it. 
• It’s why we make staffing decisions like KIPP North Philadelphia having a social worker on staff in our founding year even though we only have 200 students right now. We must be ready to support our kids and families who have needs.
• It’s why we work so hard to build strong partnerships with our students’ families through home visits, robust family/teacher conferences, and families having the cell phone numbers of every staff member. 
• It’s why we located KIPP North Philadelphia in a neighborhood that is particularly underserved (the zip code we’re located in has the 3rd highest poverty rate in the city) and especially in need of high quality elementary school options. Because we not only wanted our school to be located in a community that most needs a great school, but to educated students from that neighborhood, we give preference in our lottery to students who live in the area around the school. We worked hard to recruit students by going door to door and establishing partnerships with local daycare centers. As a result, nearly 100% of our kindergarten students are from the surrounding neighborhood. 
• It’s why we pay so much care to how we hire teachers and staff members for our schools because nothing magical happens for kids without great teachers in front of them. 

This picture is from our regional leadership retreat this week and includes the principals of our schools and the senior leaders in our central office. It’s a group full of diverse, talented, and experienced educators – in fact all our principals worked as teachers in one of our schools before moving into a leadership role. And it’s a group that isn’t just talented but one where everyone shares a deep and personal connection to this work – to Philadelphia, to the power of education to transform lives, and the impact of great schools. Over two days, we dug deeply into our current performance, our aspirations for what our schools can be in the future, and planned for how to get there- and had some fun too. It wasn’t just talk though – it was about how we can make our schools better next week, how we can chart a stronger path for the next 2-3 years, and how we as leaders can be better at our jobs right now.

Even after 14 years, it’s a thrill to get to learn from and with folks who don’t just talk about it, but are about the work so fully.