Essence Preparatory Public Faculty is a tuition-free public college on the Eastside of San Antonio that was created to satisfy Black and Brown youngsters’s instructional, social, and emotional wants. On February, 2025, Essence Prep started accepting functions for enrollment for the 2025–26 college 12 months, and open enrollment will proceed by means of April, 2025. Now we have put collectively a information that will help you be taught extra about Essence Prep in San Antonio and take steps to enroll your youngsters for the approaching college 12 months.
About Essence Prep
Via rigorous teachers, intentional character growth, and cultivating scholar data of self, Essence Preparatory Constitution Faculty 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 abilities essential to be efficient brokers of change. The college 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 ought to be an atmosphere the place youngsters be taught the abilities 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 turn out to be comfy struggling to attain 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: Accountability, Mental Funding, Service, and Excellence.
Essence Prep in San Antonio
Essence Prep will serve college students in grades PK–8 for the 2025–26 college 12 months. In January 2024, Essence Prep moved into a brand new campus at 723 SE Loop 410, San Antonio, TX 78220 (map).The primary telephone quantity is 210-997-5636. You’ll be able to attain them on-line by means of the contact type on the foot of their web site, essenceprepsa.org. Right here is the 2024–25 calendar. There isn’t a college report card knowledge out there but.
Obtain the free San Antonio Constitution Faculties app for an interactive map that features Essence Prep and extra. You may also 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 college 12 months. The constructing encloses roughly 65,000 sq. ft 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 area. Learn extra concerning the ribbon reducing ceremony on January 20, 2024.
Enroll at Essence Prep
Households can apply on-line to enroll their youngsters at Essence Prep. Open enrollment for the 2025–26 college 12 months started in February, 2025 and can proceed by means of April, 2025. Essence Prep’s scholar lottery can be held in April, 2025. College students who’re chosen will obtain an e mail inviting them to register. College students who will not be chosen can be positioned on a ready record and notified if a spot turns into out there. Discover extra info within the enrollment FAQs.
Essence Prep is a tuition-free public constitution college. As well as, they supply every scholar 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 in the neighborhood throughout software season for households to be taught 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 [email protected].
We advocate following Essence Prep on Fb, Instagram, and LinkedIn for occasion notifications and college updates.
As well as, please be a part of the Faculty Discovery Community (previously San Antonio Constitution Mothers) dialogue group on Fb to submit questions and search earlier discussions about Essence Prep.
Information About Essence Prep
With a wealth of expertise, experience and expertise, the staff 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 growth with a culturally affirming curriculum to foster scholar’s progress. Essence Prep has extremely certified, caring employees who carry subject material experience and unwavering dedication to set every scholar on a route to success. They’ve deliberately employed employees who not solely have the experience however mirror and have roots in the neighborhood by which they educate.
A typical class at Essence Prep has 28–30 college students, with two lecturers per class in grades Ok–2.
Essence Prep lecturers talk at the least weekly with mother and father and caregivers through Classtag and sophistication newsletters.
In partnership with the San Antonio Ballet Faculty, all college students in grades Ok–2 are supplied free ballet programs. The American Ballet Theatre curriculum supplies college students with bodily and psychological advantages similar to correct posture, muscle growth, and suppleness, and constructive impacts on psychological well being, confidence, and cognitive and communication abilities.
Essence Prep additionally has partnerships with native organizations similar to The AM Challenge 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 a part of Inga Cotton on Constitution Mothers Chats on February 8, 2024 at 4:00 PM Central reside 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 document of making curriculum and main colleges. Earlier than her new function at Essence Prep, she was the Principal of Brentwood STEAM Faculty 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 means of a particularly designed curriculum. She says Essence Prep will concentrate on social-emotional studying, group work, project-based work, and individualized studying. She appears to be like ahead to instructing lecturers at Essence Prep to concentrate on 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 Faculty Unveils State-of-the-Artwork San Antonio East Aspect Campus,” AllofSA, January 17, 2024
“Constitution Mothers Chats — Essence Prep Enrollment, With Akeem Brown And Jae Ricks,” YouTube, February 28, 2023
“Essence Preparatory Public Faculty to assemble $17.7M everlasting campus in East San Antonio,” Digital Journal, November 30, 2022
“Essence Prep secures practically $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 Faculty,” Voyage San Antonio, October 19, 2022
“Our Children Are Students,” Trymaine Lee, Into America, September 8, 2022
“CRT Regulation Undermines Texas Constitution Faculty 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, Faculty Discovery Community (previously 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 college promised to be antiracist. Then it bought caught up within the vital race principle battle,” Matt Barnam, Chalkbeat, January 6, 2022
“Constructing Company: How Akeem Brown Is Serving to Children See Their Strengths at Essence Prep,” Faculty Discovery Community (previously San Antonio Constitution Mothers), December 16, 2021
“New constitution college to serve San Antonio’s East Aspect in 2022,” Brooke Crum, San Antonio Report, July 15, 2021
“Main SA: Akeem Brown talks East Aspect developments, way forward for training in San Antonio,” Max Massey, KSAT, April 11, 2021
“Akeem Brown is out to strengthen neighborhood, training,” 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 Aspect,” Vincent T. Davis, San Antonio Categorical-Information, February 26, 2017
