Social Justice Aurum Prep Case Study

Designing for Social Justice Aurum Prep is deeply committed to providing a rigorous and trajectory changing education to the most disenfranchised students in Oakland. One well known but unaddressed issue facing the Oakland education landscape is the significant underrepresentation of African American children in high quality schools. Aurum Prep not only seeks to provide equity for this subgroup, but for all students it serves.

I have been fortunate enough to be part of two school leadership fellowship programs, both of which share the same mission but have different ideas on how to achieve that mission. One is much more focused on structured school models that deliver strong math and reading test results. The other is much more focused
on innovative models that focus on a broader definition of student success. I want to take the best practices from both traditional and deeper learning models to develop a school that provides a radical and transformational education. Given that goal, I can think of no better program to help me further refine my model. I am eager to learn how to deliver a best-in-class project based learning experience to my students, leveraging my strong relationships in and understanding of the Oakland community to make it our own.

I believe that my deep, personal commitment to social justice, experience in successfully working in challenging environments, and hunger to learn from others will be a great asset to the HTH Graduate School of Education and others in my cohort.

Finally, I would be very interested in receiving a tuition fellowship as I am currently in the founding stages and our budget is tight.

Thank you for your consideration,