KIPP Minnesota
About Us
KIPP Minnesota was established in 2006 to address disparities that currently exist in our public school system. The purpose of KIPP Minnesota is to build and sustain KIPP schools in Minnesota. KIPP (Knowledge is Power Program) is a national network of over 80 schools located in under-resourced communities in 16 states which provide high quality college preparatory public education to students who have been traditionally underserved in order to empower them to be successful in college and in life. (www.kipp.org) The mission of KIPP Minnesota is to build a family of free open enrollment college preparatory schools that provide high quality education to students who are traditionally educationally underserved. Implicit in our mission is the belief that every child has the right to free high quality education regardless of race, class or economic status. We base our work around five core operating principles which we call the KIPP Five Pillars.
High Expectations: KIPP Stand Academy has clearly defined and measurable high expectations for academic achievement and conduct that make no excuses based on students' backgrounds. Students, parents, teachers, and staff create and reinforce a culture of achievement and support through a range of formal and informal rewards and consequences for academic performance and behavior.
Choice & Commitment: Students, their parents, and the faculty of KIPP Stand Academy choose to participate in the program. No one is assigned or required to attend the school. Everyone must make and uphold a commitment to the school and to each other and put in the time and effort required to achieve success.
More Time: We know that there are no shortcuts when it comes to success in academics and life. With an extended school day, week, and year, students have more time in the classroom both to acquire the academic knowledge and skills that will prepare them for competitive high schools and colleges and to engage in diverse extracurricular experiences.
Power to Lead: At KIPP we believe that great schools require great school leaders. KIPP Stand Academy’s principal has control over the school’s budget and personnel, allowing him/her maximum effectiveness in helping students learn. We also know that great schools require great teachers and leadership in all aspects of the school and work to create an accountable culture in which every member of the team has input and control with the key areas that lead to success.
Focus on Results: KIPP Stand Academy has a relentless focus on high student performance on standardized tests and other objective measures. Just as there are no shortcuts, there are no excuses. Students are expected to achieve a level of academic performance that will enable them to succeed at the nation's best high schools and colleges. KIPP Stand Academy administers all Minnesota state exams and the NWEA MAP assessment, in addition to school-based assessments.We have a staff of 15 amazing a dedicated educators who are committed to proving that free, high quality education is possible for all children. In order to achieve our results, we have a longer day and a longer year. The traditional public school has 180 days with a total of 1200 hours of instruction. KIPP MN schools have 211 days with a total of over 1800 hours of instruction annually. We ask our students and teachers to work harder and longer than most schools. Our teachers work up to 60% longer than teachers in the average local districts. We hire only teachers who have demonstrated results in classrooms with students of color who are under resourced and underserved. We believe smart is what you become, not what you are or are not). We hire only teachers who believe it is the responsibility of the teacher and leadership team to engage all students and meet our students where they are in their academic journey with the full expectation that with effective effort and the right tools, all students can learn.
Our Mission
KIPP Minnesota schools teach our students to develop the academic skills, character and intellectual habits necessary to succeed in competitive high schools, colleges, and the world beyond, and to empower them to make positive change every single day.
The first school in the KIPP Minnesota family is KIPP Stand Academy which currently serves 150 students in fifth and sixth grade. We add a grade each year until the school is fully grown with 360 students in grades 5th-8th. We fulfill our committment to our students by providing excellent, intentional instruction, analyzing and reacting to data, communicating openly, working and innovating as a team, and modeling the eight school values of courage, integrity, self-awareness, grit, pride, fun and achievement. Taking ownership for making positive change every single day is key at KIPP Stand Academy. Students take responsibility for their own learning, their actions, and for helping teammates to ensure that everyone learns and succeeds. All students work hard and take responsibility for maximizing their class time by actively participating in class, thinking critically, and asking and answering questions. For example, older students mentor incoming fifth graders and younger students, taking responsibility for their younger teammates. KIPP Stand Academy supports the effort based learning philosophy and believes that smart is what you become, not what you are. At KIPP Stand Academy, every member of the team models a belief that all students can learn. KIPP Stand Academy creates a consistent and safe space in every realm of our school for students to learn and develop as leaders. Students feel safe to take academic risks and see mistakes as opportunities to learn. Instruction is anchored with high expectations all around – students, parents, and teachers. The school provides rigorous and engaging instruction using data so that kids leverage everything they learn, enjoy learning and love being at school. School culture is anchored with clear rituals and routines that invest students in respectful and positive behavior, give students clear expectations of what success is and build their trust in the school.
Our values:
At KIPP Stand Academy we believe all students and faculty should know who they are, love who they are and be empowered to stand up for themselves. KIPP Stand Academy scholars will understand that no matter what happens in their lives, they always have the power to stand back up when knocked down, to stand up for themselves and to stand for what is right. Resilience allows us all to stand tall when we face adversity. Our resilience is rooted in values, family, and culture and sustained by trust, and education. We use these core supports to keep our students standing strong. Our values empower our students to find a way to meet their own needs. Moreover, KIPP Stand students will understand the power of standing together and develop the skills to understand that they each have a role in keeping others healthy, happy and successful. At KIPP Stand Academy, hard work is crucial, along with the other values of the school. In addition, the school community has a deep commitment to the belief that we are one team and one family and that effective and consistent teamwork is essential to meeting our mission.
By values, we mean specific words, actions and visible daily habits which students cultivate each day. Each value exemplifies a quality necessary to excel in college, develop a good character, and create positive change in the world and in our lives. In order for students to learn to live the values, all faculty members at KIPP Stand Academy must model all values at all times. The values guide all aspects of KIPP Stand Academy, from the culture to the academic program.
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KIPP Stand Academy fosters in its students the academic skills, intellectual habits, integrity and ultimate confidence in their own abilities that allows them to be powerful thinkers about the world around them and their place in it, empowering them with the freedom of opportunity to dictate their own futures.
Results for economically disadvantaged students of color in Minneapolis provide strong evidence that we as a community are not serving all students. The achievement gap between students of color and white students in Minneapolis is the second highest in the country. We believe that every student in Minneapolis has the right to high quality education and has the capacity to perform at high levels when given high expectations and support. A majority of our students reside in North Minneapolis and over 95% of our students are children of color. Over 90% of our students qualify for free or reduced lunch. Our schools specifically seek to close the achievement gap between children of color and white students in Minnesota.
Every day at KIPP students, teachers and school leaders across the country demonstrate that through hard work, children growing up in America’s most under-resourced communities can change their reality and create a better life for them and for us all. We are committed to disproving the widely held assumption that school cannot significantly impact the lives of low-income students.
We believe that KIPP will serve as a catalyst for system reform by proving that all students can learn. By proving what is possible in Minnesota, we serve as an effective model for what teaching and learning together towards a common goal can yield. Our students’ success will have a broad and lasting long term impact on the Twin Cities.
Why We Need a New Website
Our current website does not reflect the spirit of our team or the urgency of our mission. A new website would provide three opportunities we would leverage for significant impact. The first opportunity is that by having a new site that reflects our team’s energy, passion and commitment, we would be able to attract more great teaching candidates from all around the country to come teach for KIPP in Minnesota. Teachers are our most valuable commodity. Many of our teachers are Minnesota natives and are Teach For America alumnae. Most currently live and teach in other cities and we need to find them and bring them home to teach our students! We need a compelling site that inspires great teachers to apply for a job at KIPP Stand Academy. Finding teachers is our biggest challenge and having effective teachers in the classroom is critical to meeting our mission. Once we find our teachers, we would like to use the website as a resource for our new teachers so that we can share information with them about the school. We hire most of our teachers in February and March for the following year. A dynamic website would allow us to build culture and connections with our new teachers during the 6 month period between their hire date and start date as a member of our teaching team.
The second opportunity that a new website would provide is the opportunity to develop an individual funder pipeline. Our website is currently not being used as a tool to fundraise for our organization. Our current site does not tell our story well or reflect who we are as an organization. Our site does not inspire or tell the story of our students and families. In addition to improving potential funders experience with our site, we would like our site to have the capacity to offer individual donors the choice to donate online. We would like funders to be empowered to research our financial status, our academic results, and learn more about who we are and the work we are doing . Increasing our effectiveness in fundraising and development is critical. We receive state and federal funding for our school but it does not cover the cost of our program. Every year we raise approximately 30% of our annual budget. Developing a broad funder network is essential to our financial sustainability. The key component in a developing a broad funder network is to increase individual donors. A new website would significantly improve our ability to connect and recruit new potential funders effectively.
The third opportunity is by helping us reach our stakeholders with accurate and timely information. We currently do not have the capacity to update or change information on our current site. We do not have the capacity to share new information with external stakeholders through our website. We want to show the Twin Cities community the amazing work our students and teachers are doing! We want to use our website to ensure that all families know about our program and can enroll their child easily! We want to provide resources for our kids over the summer so they can stay engaged and active in the school community during summer months and holiday breaks! We want to let the Twin Cities community know of the volunteer opportunities there are at the school and how to access them. In short, we’d like our website to be accurate, up to date, current and full of information for our parents, students, community members, board members, teachers, and anyone else who’s interested. We want our website to reflect who we are and reflect our determination and focus on results. By sharing our vision, along with accurate information, to all stakeholders, a new website would inspire more people to join our efforts. A new site will compel new teachers, new students, new families, new volunteers, new funders, who are all empowered with our vision, and understand the work we are doing. A new site will help us tell our story: Minnesota has the second highest achievement gap between black and white students in the country. The work we are doing is closing that gap, one student at a time.
How Our New Site Will Help Make the World Greener
We could considerably reduce our use of paper with a re-designed website. A new site would allow us to post our annual report on our site instead of distributing paper copies. A new site would allow us to post our policies, employee handbook, student handbooks electronically instead of printing them which would save a tremendous amount of paper and energy. Many of these documents are over 60 pages in length and are currently distributed to all families and team members.
By posting our board materials electronically on our site, we would both reduce our use of paper and also increase the information flow to all stakeholders.
Messages From Supporters
When the judges choose which non-profits will be selected to participate in this year's Challenge they will take into account testimonials from beneficiaries, donors, volunteers, board members and other
