Program areas at Zest Education
Our first strategic priority is to elevate The voices of those most underserved by our school systems and empower families and students to design and drive change as part of a broad and diverse coalition. This program aims to 1) strengthen parent leadership and advocacy infrastructure by organizing and growing new neighborhood groups focused on lowest 5% performing schools in st. louis city, seeding efforts to create demand in st. louis county, and improving charter perceptions by organizing 10k charter parent voices via state charter association, 2) increasing Trust through development of community coalitions, and 3) continue investing in early stage growth of key partners.
Our third strategic priority is to build an Education ecosystem that supports improvement, innovation, and equity. This program's objectives are to 1) mitigate high attrition rates and declining supply of teachers from regional teacher preparation programs, 2) develop more robust school and board leadership succession planning and pipelines, 3) launch new education-focused communications platform, 4) become destination for high quality Education data through internal research and through partnerships, and 5) shift state policy advocacy to strategic partners.
Our second strategic priority is focused on increasing access to world-class schools by growing The capacity of our most successful schools, launching new and innovative schools, strengthening existing schools with conditions for sustained success, and helping districts to methodically transform their lowest performing schools. This prograim aims to 1) drive toward goal of 25% students in quality seats by expanding investments in new schools, expanding investments from three schools in fy21 to thirteen schools in fy24 and maintaining investments in high performing charters, 2) catalyze support for district autonomous models through community design and post-secondary intermediary initiative, and 3) explore partnerships with seven county districts representing 27k students enrolled in low-quality schools.