Edward M. Kennedy Academy for Health Careers

Mission Statement

Kennedy Academy for Health Careers is a college preparatory high school for Boston students exploring careers in health and health-related professions. The Academy provides a supportive learning environment that promotes respect and embraces diversity. Students will attain the life skills needed to become productive and positive members of society.

Our History

In 1995, a group of community health care providers and higher education leaders recognized that too few inner-city children were envisioning the career possibilities in the health professions. Too few had the role models, mentors, and rigorous academic preparation needed to nurture these dreams. And, consequently, too few were finding their way into professional health care futures.

Kennedy Academy for Health Careers was created as their solution to this problem, providing a seamless pathway of opportunity for Boston children to access the city's rich educational resources in the health professions. Founded as one of Boston's original pilot schools, the school was a partnership of the Boston Public Schools and the Center for Community Health Education Research and Service (CCHERS) at Northeastern University. In 1998, seeking greater autonomy and program flexibility, the school applied for and received designation from the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education as one of the first Horace Mann Charter Schools. Since that time the school has been located on the main campus of Northeastern University, in the heart of Boston's higher education and health care community. Beyond the college campus, partnerships with Brigham and Women's Hospital, Mass General Hospital, and a variety of other community health care providers bring rich career-focused experiential learning opportunities to EMK students.

EMK is a school that prepares children for the academically rigorous higher education needed for health professions. In the classroom and in extracurricular activities, our students are challenged to reach their full potential every day. EMK is a place where students prepare themselves to realize their own dreams of becoming the doctors, nurses, researchers, and social workers who will make up the diverse healthcare workforce of tomorrow.

Our Educational Philosophy

• We offer a rigorous academic program because it is the cornerstone for success in both higher education and professional futures.
• We establish high expectations for effort and progress because this helps students develop the discipline and confidence they will need to succeed at whatever life goals they establish for themselves.
• We focus on health and science to excite student interest and establish relevance in education, to promote a career focus, and ultimately, to address the health care needs of underserved communities.
• We help our students to become responsible adult citizens by nurturing their commitment to and responsibility for their own community.
• We take a holistic view of the student, providing support for social, emotional and intellectual development, and recognizing the particular importance of families in the process of education.
• We believe that all students have the potential to achieve at high levels, and so we enroll students based only on their interest in exploring the health careers and their willingness to meet the challenge of learning with their best effort.
• We are part of a search for educational strategies that can have broader applicability and can lead to systemic change in the schools and in the community.

We believe this comprehensive approach to secondary education will produce graduates who understand the value of learning, who have mastered important skills and knowledge, who recognize the dividends of hard work, and who have meaningful choices about their future. This is how we will measure our success.