Article
Kindle Education is a proposed 6th-12th grade public charter school in Jersey City, NJ that plans to launch in the fall of 2023. The mission is to cultivate an equitable community of purposeful individuals who are prepared to navigate our current world and build an adequate future.
Senior Fellow Katie Hahn is a member of the Kindle Education team, securing funding for the project through the 2021 Racial Equity Grant.
Impact
The Kindle Education team strongly believes that schools should be designed in partnership with communities. As an intentionally diverse school, it is of paramount importance that Kindle Education’s development is informed by feedback from a racially, ethnically, and socioeconomically diverse cross-section of the Jersey City community. To ensure that this vision centers the needs and wants of Jersey City community members, the team took a three-pronged approach to community co-design:
- Listen, learn, and serve,
- Incorporate feedback, and
- Build awareness.
While these strategies remained fluid and iterative over the 17 months during which the team engaged the Jersey City community, this model provides a framework for how to engage parents, families, and the community.
Next Steps
By engaging a racially/ethnically, socioeconomically, and linguistically diverse group of stakeholders in imagining what an excellent school could look like for Jersey City students and families, Katie and her team made their school design stronger and built trust among those we intend to partner with and serve.
Recently, the Kindle Education team submitted Phase 2 of their charter application to the New Jersey Department of Education on June 24, 2022 (Phase 1 was submitted in March 2022). They will soon interview with representatives from the state in August and will be notified of our approval at the end of September 2022.
At this point, their attention will shift to hiring staff, enrolling students, solidifying community partnerships, and completing all of the operational tasks that will enable them to open doors in September of 2023.
Updated September 2022
