July 1, 2023 - June 30, 2024
Letter from Board Chair
The 2023-24 school year was a remarkable year for KIPP North Carolina.
Our K-2 students showed some of the strongest growth in foundational literacy skills of any KIPP region in the country. We earned a higher letter grade on our state report cards in Charlotte, and our students in Gaston and Charlotte scored in the top 10-15% for reading and math growth among all public schools across the state.
While the 2023-24 school year was a banner year, there is still much work to be done, and many challenges remain. Our student achievement scores, though improving, do not yet fully reflect the brilliance of our students.
In the months and years ahead, we will continue to invest in high-quality instructional curricula and assessments. We will continue to support and develop our teachers and leaders, and we will foster the joyful learning environments for which KIPP is known.
We are also launching the state’s first charter-sponsored educator preparation program, set to launch in the summer of 2025 with 20 elementary educators. This initiative will provide a game-changing opportunity for our teachers and support their perseverance in the world’s most demanding profession.
In addition, we are unifying our operations in our easternmost campuses—Halifax and Gaston. By unifying our charters, we are solidifying our impact in Eastern North Carolina for the next 25 years.
We are investing in new facilities and grade arrangements in Charlotte to ensure that our buildings reflect the excellence in teaching and learning happening inside them every day.
and Executive Director
We will accomplish all of this in close partnership with the national KIPP Foundation and its One KIPP initiatives. The connections among KIPP schools across the country far outweigh any differences, and we will continue to learn from other KIPP regions in how they invest in their students and staff.
We are grateful for your support of these efforts and our many other important endeavors. Thank you for being part of the KIPP Team & Family. We are One KIPP.
Douglas Kahn Board Chair
Saintsing Executive Director
Tim
WHO WE ARE
Our Mission
Together with families and communities, we create joyful, academically excellent schools that prepare students with the skills and confidence to pursue the paths they choose—college, career, and beyond—so they can lead fulfilling lives and build a more just world.
As the KIPP North Carolina Team & Family:
We are aligned and committed to our shared mission, vision, and core values.
We work intentionally and constantly to build trust among one another.
We believe in the infinite potential of all people. We believe that ALL MEANS ALL.
We care for each other by building each other up.
We extend grace to one another.
We believe the promises we make to every member of our community are sacred.
Students Enrolled: 542
Address: 5431 Hickory Grove Rd, Charlotte, NC 28215
Students Enrolled: 419
Address: 931 Wilann Drive, Charlotte, NC 28215
Students Enrolled: 157
Address: 1107 Holloway Street, Durham, NC 27701
Students Enrolled: 209
Address: 1107 Holloway Street, Durham, NC 27701
Students Enrolled: 551
Address: 9986 NC-903, Halifax, NC 27839
Students Enrolled: 435
Address: 320 Pleasant Hill Road, Gaston, NC 27832
Students Enrolled: 383
Address: 320 Pleasant Hill Road, Gaston, NC 27832
Students Enrolled: 377
Address: 320 Pleasant Hill Road, Gaston, NC 27832
KIPP Halifax College Prep Public School (K-8)
KIPP Durham College Prep Elementary (K-2) KIPP Durham College Prep Middle (6-8)
One KIPP Priority: K-8 Literacy
KIPP schools across the network will implement shared curricula, assessments, and aligned teaching practices in foundational literacy and reading and writing comprehension.
Training KIPP NC Teachers and Leaders
Becoming a strong reader helps students build confidence; learn about themselves, others, and the world; express themselves and ultimately, craft their own future. KIPP NC teachers and leaders are trained in Lexia LETRS® (Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling) “to empower them with the deep knowledge of Science of Reading that they need to support students learning to read in grades K-2,” says Managing Director of Academics, Brett Noble. Also, “Fishtank [English Language Arts] curriculum adoption for grades K-8 [will begin in school year] 2026, starting with a Fishtank curriculum pilot for grades 6-8 at KIPP Durham Middle School. We are also leading the charge on responding to DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills) data in grades 3-8 by implementing tier-1 multisyllabic decoding routines and oral reading fluency and text comprehension practices to strengthen student reading skills.”
One KIPP Priority: K-8 Math
Implement shared curricula, assessments, and aligned teaching practices.
“One KIPP provides us the opportunity to grow together as a network through data, communities of practice and collective knowledge building. As a network, we have the ability and the power to rise together through collective reflection and action.”
- TaLisa Clark
TaLisa Clark, Director of Elementary Math
“KIPP North Carolina [elementary] schools [continue] to use Zearn as our core and Tier 2 instructional curriculum with the permission of KIPP Foundation. Zearn is an award-winning curriculum and has been green-lit by EdReports for both usability and alignment,” says TaLisa Clark, Director of Elementary Math. EdReports is a nonprofit that reviews instructional materials for K–12 classrooms and provides educators with detailed reports on alignment to standards and other markers of high-quality curriculum. “In first grade, 80.7% of students across all first grade classrooms [in North Carolina] mastered the content on the first end of unit (EOU) assessment [and] at KIPP Halifax, 60.7% of third graders mastered the first EOU assessment.”
One KIPP Priority: High School Model
Make significant improvements in how our students experience high school.
Brett Noble, Managing Director, Academics
“I’m on the One KIPP High School Design advisory board, and we are in the process of selecting curriculum for adoption in SY26. We are also studying best practices for MTSS (Multi-Tiered System of Support for exceptional children) in high school, acknowledging that the stakes are higher and high school is a trickier place to ensure that students are earning the credits they need to lead a life of choice, while closing any gaps they have to best prepare them for their future. I hope [One KIPP] produces better outcomes than what’s been used in the past [with the benefit] of the collective implementation and knowledge-building resources that we can leverage from the KIPP Foundation. The opportunity to adopt alongside our KIPP high school peers creates the conditions for us to learn and move forward together in service of students. I’m a big believer that it takes at least three years to see the success of change at this scale, and we are a couple months into that journey. At the high school, we are seeing immediate growth on interim assessments for math.” - Brett Noble, Managing Director, Academics
One KIPP Priority: Leadership Development
Implement common talent development practices for Principals and Principal Managers.
“One KIPP is an initiative to align and scale the collective work we are doing to make a greater impact on student results.” - Tiffany Flowers
Tiffany Flowers, Director of Leadership Development
Tiffany Flowers says that KIPP Foundation’s new rubrics have been introduced to align North Carolina to the same bar of excellence for the role of the principal and principal managers. To date, “100% of principal managers, principals, and assistant principals have had [beginning of year] meetings with development goals that align to highest leverage activities, and 100% of them have performance goals to measure student achievement within their roles and across their schools.” Additionally, 100% of principals and principal managers have had meetings with Flowers and Managing Director of Academics, Brett Noble, to review assistant principals’ progress towards goals, and align next steps for their growth and development.
Learn more about how to support the Principal In Residence Program at kippnc.org/join-our-team/kipp-nc-principal-in-residence.
$130,000 Granted to Train Dozens of KIPP NC Educators
The Raleigh-based ChildTrust Foundation granted KIPP North Carolina $50,000. The contribution, combined with an anonymous donation of $80,000, totaled $130,000 in support of literacy professional development for educators in Eastern North Carolina. The funding was used to provide teacher incentives and the implementation of programs such as Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading Spelling (LETRS) and the Science of Reading (SOR). With a focus on equity, ChildTrust Foundation directs its investments towards early education and literacy initiatives, particularly those aimed at serving children and families historically overlooked by early childhood systems.
Summers at KIPP: Boosted!
Last summer, KIPP NC hosted its third Summer Boost Academy for elementary students across the state. Summer Boost is dedicated to providing high-quality foundational instruction to prevent students’ summer learning loss, with an emphasis on improving writing and comprehension, especially for 2nd and 3rd graders. Nearly 100 students spent more than two weeks in our classrooms for this “literacy boot camp.” The impact of Summer Boost has been clear and measurable: At the end of the 2023-24 school year KIPP NC schools saw incredible growth in our DIBELS data, and met 100% of our DIBELS goals with the KIPP Foundation at all elementary schools for the first time ever!
Initiatives
Teacher U
In 2024, KIPP NC became the first public charter school system to be approved by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction to start its own educator preparation program. KIPP NC Teacher U is a 13-month program designed to train and certify classroom teachers, with the goals of raising achievement levels of students taught by the teachers in our program, and retaining those teachers for longer than the market average.
Eastern North Carolina Unification
KIPP NC is making strategic changes to our operating model in Eastern NC to ensure we continue to deliver on the promises we made to our families for the next 25 years. These shifts are in an effort to ensure that our story—and the impacts we have on lives daily—will continue well into this century. Shifting population demographics in Northampton and Halifax Counties, tightening local and national markets for educators and teachers post-pandemic, and evolving legislative priorities for public education in our state require we organize across our two campuses in Eastern NC differently so that we guarantee the KIPP story will continue even stronger than it ever has.
KIPP in Eastern NC was founded on the belief that public education must nurture in students the skills, character, and knowledge necessary to succeed at the colleges of their choice, strengthen their communities, and fight for social justice. For the past 25 years, KIPP has been synonymous with love, care, and exceptional student outcomes. Since 2001, we have nurtured a lot of brilliance and created countless moments of homeplace, be they in classrooms, on athletic fields, or at college commencement ceremonies. KIPP has been an important institution in the life of Eastern North Carolina for the past quarter century. We aspire to stay that way for a quarter century more.
Learn more at kippnc.org/next25/.
Community Events
Cook 4 KIPP
Cook 4 KIPP was a pair of events in Charlotte and Durham designed to showcase the talent of our KIPPsters and demonstrate the impact of KIPP North Carolina schools in our communities.
Cook 4 KIPP Durham
Cook 4 KIPP Charlotte
On Giving Tuesday 2023, KIPP Academy Charlotte students Reignn’, Charles and Landon were paired with mentor-chefs to create dishes for a live audience. Guests in the restaurant, and those who watched live on YouTube, voted for their favorite team by making donations online, helping KIPP NC raise thousands of dollars for KIPP Charlotte students, and KIPP schools across the state.
Sponsored by Delta Air Lines, Cook4KIPP Durham was held at Saltbox Seafood Joint in April 2024.
“Education is the great equalizer, and supporting education is one the pillars of Delta’s community engagement strategy,” said Delta Air Lines’ Nicole Sheedy. “The KIPP model focuses on preparing students for whatever life path they choose, and KIPP schools are known for closing the college achievement gap for students.”
