Kansas City Girls Preparatory Academy

The mission of Kansas City Girls Preparatory Academy (KCGPA) is to develop young women to discover their power, succeed in college, and lead impactful, meaningful lives. KCGPA will be the first single-gender, open-enrollment charter public school in Kansas City. It will enroll 100 fifth grade girls beginning in Fall 2019 and grow one grade per year to form a 5^th - 8^th grade middle school and a 9^th - 12^th grade high school.

KCGPA will be an affiliate of the Young Women’s Leadership Network (YWLN), a network of all-girls schools founded over two decades ago that has ensured college access for thousands of young women from low-income neighborhoods. In service of its core values of equity, community, and growth, KCGPA will build on YWLN’s model to create a space where young women develop their voice and build the academic skills and knowledge to go wherever they want in life.

KCGPA addresses a community need for more opportunities for young women in neighborhoods that have been negatively impacted by historical de jure segregation and contemporary de facto segregation. KCGPA will serve young women living in the Kansas City Public Schools district boundaries, with a geographic preference for students from zip codes with the largest gap between demand for and supply of quality schools.

To ensure every student can achieve at high levels, KCGPA will partner with families and its community to build a strong network of support for every student. In particular, KCGPA seeks to serve students with special educational needs exceptionally well, including students with learning disabilities and students who speak a language other than English at home. KCGPA’s program will foster a strong community, confidence-building identity development, and a rigorous, college-bound academic culture, including:

• More time. An extended school year and longer day will provide 32% more time for learning.
• No tuition, fees, or admissions exams. KCGPA will recruit and enroll girls of all academic abilities.
• Rapid literacy growth. Students will be immersed in rich texts in all classes and will receive daily personalized support to ensure they grow as readers faster than they could imagine.
• Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics (STEAM). STEAM classes will build conceptual understanding and interdisciplinary connections in content areas that open doors to a vast array of future opportunities for young women.
• Social and emotional learning. A daily advisory will ensure a tight-knit, trusting community where young women can challenge and support one another to be their best selves.
• High quality teachers who are always learning. Teachers and leaders will engage in 30 full days of professional development per year, not including weekly professional development sessions on an early-release day, weekly coaching, and weekly collaboration with colleagues to design rich learning experiences for students.

KCGPA’s founding team is inspired by the incredible growth and achievement that students attain when supported by a school that ensures high expectations through high support, and is excited to share that opportunity with the young women who will serve as Kansas City’s next generation of leaders.