impact report
2024
We are a thriving network of 22 public elementary, middle, and high schools open to all students. We believe all children should grow up free to create the future they envision for themselves and that excellent public schools are a critical factor in making that vision a reality. We’re laying strong foundations in early childhood and continuing to build on that support until the day our alumni earn their college degrees.
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 create a more just world.
Our Student Community
Since the founding of our first school in 2002, we have embarked on a transformative journey, growing to 22 schools across Northern California, with plans to open a high school in Stockton in 2025. Our school communities are vibrant, diverse, and filled with endless potential. We celebrate the richness of our students’ backgrounds and experiences.
84%
Are economically disadvantaged
33%
Are multilingual learners
13%
Receive special education services
Rigor & Results
All students deserve to be academically challenged. We provide engaging and rigorous instruction that meets them where they are. We’re investing in new, evidence-based curriculum and instructional materials that have the potential, when combined with our data-driven instructional systems and comprehensive human capital model, to deliver consistently strong outcomes at scale.
The Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) is the statewide evaluation designed to measure proficiency in national academic standards. It is one measure that contributes to a holistic view of student progress. The most recent SBAC results show that California students have not yet rebounded to pre-pandemic achievement levels. However, we’re proud to be climbing back at a quicker pace, and that KIPP NorCal outperforms the California state average in both Math and ELA. For students classified as economically disadvantaged, KIPP NorCal is outpacing the state by 10 or more percentage points in both subjects.
Early Literacy
Being able to read and write is fundamental to a child’s success in school and in life. Our goal is for every student to read at grade level by the time they reach third grade. With that vision in mind, we’ve retooled our approach to early literacy over the last several years, embracing new teaching practices in our elementary schools aligned to the science of teaching reading. Instruction in transitional kindergarten through 2nd grade classrooms focuses on phonemic awareness (understanding individual letter names and sounds), phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.
Despite only about a quarter of kindergarteners coming in with the baseline skills expected for school readiness, our early elementary students are far surpassing typical rates of growth for students nationally.
College, Career, and Beyond
We know that high school graduation is only the first milestone toward realizing a choice-filled life. As a public school system, we make a unique promise to our students and their families — that we will also support our alumni on their post-secondary paths.
The college completion rate of KIPP alumni, if extrapolated nationwide, would completely close the degree completion gap for Black students and nearly close the degree completion gap for LatinX students in America.
(Mathematica Study, 2023)
Aligning our high school graduation requirements to college expectations is critical to ensuring our students are academically prepared for success in college and beyond, and they are earning high school diplomas at significantly higher rates.
3X
Our alumni graduate from college with 4-year degrees at three times the rate of their peers.
KIPP Forward
We’re proud to offer our students and recent alumni access to personalized and data-informed college and career counseling through our best-in-class KIPP Forward model with supports focused on college readiness, persistence, and completion. Our students receive college and career programming throughout their KIPP high school experience; once they graduate they receive 1:1 postsecondary advising on financial literacy, socio-emotional and career-readiness support, and access to a robust alumni network of professionals. We know we’re on the right track because our alumni are graduating college with 4-year degrees at three times the rate of their peers.
The KIPP Forward model is funded solely through philanthropy; our success would not be possible without your support.
Sense of Belonging
Strong relationships among educators, students, and families are fundamental to fostering an excellent learning environment. We strive to create schools that are inclusive and community-focused, where all students are known and supported, respected for their unique strengths, and can grow as learners and leaders. Decades of research supports what we know firsthand—joyful and positive school culture has a direct impact on a student’s academic success and overall well-being.
100% of schools have mental health clinicians
Our schools provide tiered levels of mental health support that take into account a child’s identity, culture, and life experiences. Counselors also work with families for a collaborative approach to our students’ socio-emotional development.
Higher attendance, lower absenteeism
We know that if students aren’t in school, they miss out on crucial learning. At KIPP NorCal, not only is daily attendance up year-over-year, but chronic absenteeism, an issue plaguing many school systems post-pandemic, is significantly down due to targeted interventions that we’ve put in place for the most at-risk students.
Empowered Educators
We know excellent teachers and leaders are the single most influential factor in student outcomes. We invest in training, coaching, and benefits that support adults to also stay and thrive at KIPP from regular coaching to hone their skills instructional practices to free therapy via our Mental Health for All initiative.
95%
School Leader Retention Rate
73%
Teacher Retention Rate
Our students’ identities are reflected by our team. Research shows that students benefit from seeing their identities reflected in their teachers. Our teachers are racially diverse and use teaching approaches that affirm the identities and background of all of our students.
Leadership Development
We believe people are more successful and more likely to persist in teaching and leadership roles when we invest in their training and development as early as possible.
our GROWTH
At a time when the need for excellent public schools has never been greater, we are one of the only charter networks in California to currently be growing. We are continuing to expand with intention and in partnership with families and communities. This August, we launched our fourth school in Stockton in four years, and we’re on track to increase our footprint in Northern California by 40% in the coming years. As we grow our student community, we’re also making smart investments to build and renovate the safe and state-of-the-art campuses that our students and families deserve. With your support, we will continue to expand educational access and opportunity and fulfill the promises we make to students and families.
Your support makes this possible.
Your investment supports our KIPP Forward post-secondary counseling; accelerating post-pandemic recovery through targeted academic and mental health supports; innovations like our Principal-in-Residence program, the KIPP Teacher Residency, and new AI pilots; ensuring all students have safe, permanent learning facilities, and our growth in Stockton, where we are opening five schools in five years, completing a TK-12 pathway.