Essence Preparatory Public College is a tuition-free public faculty on the Eastside of San Antonio that was created to fulfill Black and Brown kids’s instructional, social, and emotional wants. On February, 2025, Essence Prep started accepting functions for enrollment for the 2025–26 faculty 12 months, and open enrollment will proceed by way of April, 2025. We’ve put collectively a information that can assist you study extra about Essence Prep in San Antonio and take steps to enroll your kids for the approaching faculty 12 months.
About Essence Prep
By means of rigorous lecturers, intentional character improvement, and cultivating pupil data of self, Essence Preparatory Constitution College prepares all college students in grades PK–8 for highschool, faculty, and past as main brokers of change of their communities.
Superintendent Akeem Brown (he/him/his) has devoted his profession to serving college students residing in San Antonio’s Eastside. By founding Essence Prep, he seeks to offer his college students with pathways to alternatives that he feels are missing in lots of areas of town.
Essence Prep makes use of a project-based studying mannequin that focuses on public coverage. College students grapple with real-world points and develop the talents essential to be efficient brokers of change. The varsity is establishing community-building traditions like morning circle conferences and weekly household gatherings. Lecturers use a “entire self” curriculum to show social and emotional studying abilities. “Our college needs to be an setting the place kids study the talents they should advocate for themselves and the wants of their communities after commencement,” stated Brown.
“We maintain ourselves accountable to the best efficiency requirements in pursuit of success,” Brown continued. “We should at all times set expectations as excessive as potential and change into snug struggling to realize our targets as a result of we all know that we ‘develop our brains’ greatest when challenged.”
The tradition at Essence Prep stays true to their core values and beliefs, RISE: Duty, Mental Funding, Service, and Excellence.
Essence Prep in San Antonio
Essence Prep will serve college students in grades PK–8 for the 2025–26 faculty 12 months. In January 2024, Essence Prep moved into a brand new campus at 723 SE Loop 410, San Antonio, TX 78220 (map).The principle telephone quantity is 210-997-5636. You possibly can attain them on-line by way of the contact kind on the foot of their web site, essenceprepsa.org. Right here is the 2024–25 calendar. There isn’t a faculty report card information accessible but.
Obtain the free San Antonio Constitution Faculties app for an interactive map that features Essence Prep and extra. You too can discover campus details about the Essence Prep (and plenty of different colleges of alternative) in our Information to Constitution Faculties in San Antonio.
New Campus Constructing in 2024
Essence Prep moved into a brand new campus facility in January 2024 faculty 12 months. The constructing encloses roughly 65,000 sq. toes of educational and administrative area and a 6,000-square-foot gymnasium. The 2-story constructing can accommodate as much as 1,100 college students in grades PK–8. The positioning additionally features a playground and discipline. Learn extra in regards to the ribbon slicing ceremony on January 20, 2024.
Enroll at Essence Prep
Households can apply on-line to enroll their kids at Essence Prep. Open enrollment for the 2025–26 faculty 12 months started in February, 2025 and can proceed by way of April, 2025. Essence Prep’s pupil lottery can be held in April, 2025. College students who’re chosen will obtain an e mail inviting them to register. College students who usually are not chosen can be positioned on a ready listing and notified if a spot turns into accessible. Discover extra info within the enrollment FAQs.
Essence Prep is a tuition-free public constitution faculty. As well as, they supply every pupil with 4 units of college uniforms firstly of the college 12 months. Essence Prep supplies free transportation to college students residing inside a five-mile radius of the campus.
There can be in-person and digital occasions locally throughout utility season for households to study extra about Essence Prep. Households can get extra info, or ask for assist with their functions, by calling 210-997-5636 or sending an e mail to Damika Burton, Director of Household Engagement and Enrollment, at dburton@essenceprepsa.org.
We suggest following Essence Prep on Fb, Instagram, and LinkedIn for occasion notifications and faculty updates.
As well as, please be part of the San Antonio Constitution Mothers dialogue group on Fb to put up questions and search earlier discussions about Essence Prep.
Details About Essence Prep
With a wealth of expertise, experience and expertise, the workforce at Essence Prep is paving the best way and constructing success for in the present day, tomorrow, and the long run. The employees instills and embraces pleasure and excellence of their college students by instructing character improvement with a culturally affirming curriculum to foster pupil’s development. Essence Prep has extremely certified, caring employees who convey material experience and unwavering dedication to set every pupil on a path to achievement. They’ve deliberately employed employees who not solely have the experience however mirror and have roots locally through which they train.
A typical class at Essence Prep has 28–30 college students, with two academics per class in grades Okay–2.
Essence Prep academics talk a minimum of weekly with mother and father and caregivers by way of Classtag and sophistication newsletters.
In partnership with the San Antonio Ballet College, all college students in grades Okay–2 are provided free ballet programs. The American Ballet Theatre curriculum supplies college students with bodily and psychological advantages comparable to correct posture, muscle improvement, and adaptability, and optimistic impacts on psychological well being, confidence, and cognitive and communication abilities.
Essence Prep additionally has partnerships with native organizations comparable to The AM Undertaking and Gardopia Gardens to offer enrichment and after-school actions for college kids.
Constitution Mothers Chats
Jennipha “Jae” Ricks, Chief Studying Officer and Principal of Essence Prep, and Damika Burton, Director of Household Engagement and Enrollment at Essence Prep, be part of Inga Cotton on Constitution Mothers Chats on February 8, 2024 at 4:00 PM Central stay on Fb and YouTube.
Jennipha “Jae” Ricks is the Chief Studying Officer and Principal of Essence Prep. Mrs. Ricks is a local Texan and has a confirmed report of making curriculum and main colleges. Earlier than her new position at Essence Prep, she was the Principal of Brentwood STEAM College of Innovation in Edgewood ISD. She additionally served because the assistant principal at Younger Ladies’s Management Main and an elementary math educational specialist for SAISD. Mrs. Ricks plans to organize college students by way of a particularly designed curriculum. She says Essence Prep will give attention to social-emotional studying, group work, project-based work, and individualized studying. She seems to be ahead to instructing academics at Essence Prep to give attention to constructing relationships and belief first with college students.
Damika Burton is the Director of Household Engagement and Enrollment at Essence Prep.
Learn Extra About Essence Prep
“Essence Preparatory Public College Unveils State-of-the-Artwork San Antonio East Facet Campus,” AllofSA, January 17, 2024
“Constitution Mothers Chats — Essence Prep Enrollment, With Akeem Brown And Jae Ricks,” YouTube, February 28, 2023
“Essence Preparatory Public College to assemble $17.7M everlasting campus in East San Antonio,” Digital Journal, November 30, 2022
“Essence Prep secures almost $18M to fund new East SA campus,” W. Scott Bailey, San Antonio Enterprise Journal, November 10, 2023
“Inspiring Conversations with Akeem Brown of Essence Preparatory Public College,” Voyage San Antonio, October 19, 2022
“Our Children Are Students,” Trymaine Lee, Into America, September 8, 2022
“CRT Regulation Undermines Texas Constitution College for Black and Latino College students,” Aasimah Navlakhi, 74 Million, Might 11, 2022
“The Essence of Essence Prep: Cultivating Main Brokers of Change,” Jennipha Ricks, San Antonio Constitution Mothers, April 20, 2022
“Constitution Mothers Chats — Essence Prep Founding Students, With Jae Ricks,” YouTube, February 8, 2022
“A proposed Texas constitution faculty promised to be antiracist. Then it acquired caught up within the important race principle combat,” Matt Barnam, Chalkbeat, January 6, 2022
“Constructing Company: How Akeem Brown Is Serving to Children See Their Strengths at Essence Prep,” San Antonio Constitution Mothers, December 16, 2021
“New constitution faculty to serve San Antonio’s East Facet in 2022,” Brooke Crum, San Antonio Report, July 15, 2021
“Main SA: Akeem Brown talks East Facet developments, way forward for schooling in San Antonio,” Max Massey, KSAT, April 11, 2021
“Akeem Brown is out to strengthen group, schooling,” Ed Arnold, San Antonio Enterprise Journal, March 25, 2021
“Making a Distinction: Akeem Brown, Essence Prep,” Robyn Oguinye, FOX San Antonio, February 22, 2021
“Akeem Brown: Serving San Antonio with Love, Justice, and Peace,” BES, February 2021
“San Antonio’s Brown is likely one of the new younger leaders advocating for the East Facet,” Vincent T. Davis, San Antonio Categorical-Information, February 26, 2017
