MISSON

Akili Academy of New Orleans equips students in Kindergarten through 8th grade for success in college preparatory high schools and selective colleges. Within a structured and rigorous learning environment, Akili Academy students excel in academic pursuits, develop strong character, and are poised for success.

NEED

The need for outstanding public schools in New Orleans predates the devastation caused by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Like most large cities in the United States, New Orleans students living in poverty, particularly students of color, have had no choice but to attend schools that demonstrate chronic student underachievement on statewide and nationally-normed assessments. In response to this crisis, the Recovery School District has been charged with recreating the public school system, particularly by reopening most of the city’s schools as charters. This unprecedented overhaul has created a need for high-capacity charter school operators with unrelentingly high expectations for the students of New Orleans to create outstanding schools that deliver on the promise of legitimate, high-quality choices for these students and their families. Akili Academy of New Orleans has seized this opportunity and is providing a no-excuses, highly-structured, and fully accountable school in service of a most urgent mission: that all of our students graduate 8th grade with the skills and content knowledge necessary to be accepted to the best college preparatory high schools in New Orleans, followed by admission to and success in selective colleges or universities.

The need for accountable and rigorous education begins in the youngest grades, and we believe that teaching students to read well is the critical task of elementary and middle schools. In full support of the Louisiana content standards, we have built on the latest research in literacy education to create a rigorous program in which all students are fluent readers by the end of the second grade. Beyond the second grade, we will develop students who are able to rigorously analyze text using explicit and explicitly taught comprehension strategies. In order not to lose any of the gains lost in the earliest grades, and to continue to strengthen and accelerate the literacy levels of students in the later elementary grades, extended time on strong literacy development will continue in the later middle school years. A similarly intense and strategic approach will be taken in the other core subjects, particularly in mathematics as it lays the foundation for more advanced study in high school and eventual entry into college.