Freire Schools Mission
Freire Schools empowers students to build the future. We provide a rigorous education in a safe, creative, and supportive environment that enables and inspires all children to achieve.
Freire Schools is committed to ensuring that every single student who walks through our doors can succeed and grow. We provide students in underserved communities a college-prep learning experience with a focus on individual freedom, critical thinking, and problem-solving in an environment that emphasizes the values of community, teamwork, and a commitment to peace. We are four distinct schools in two different cities, each guided by the same values of equity, diversity, love, and critical thinking.
Freire students are confident, dynamic, and collaborative individuals who are engaged in their communities and are excited to apply the skills and knowledge they acquire at Freire Schools to create new possibilities for our future. Of Freire Schools’ 2,000 students, 94% are Black or Latinx, and almost all students qualify as economically disadvantaged.
Even during the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, our students kept their sights set on college – our 279 Class of 2022 graduates were accepted to 217 colleges and universities and earned over $15.1M in college scholarships and aid. Ensuring equity in education is at the core of Freire Schools’ work. We strive to provide the individually tailored resources, supports, and experiences that each individual student needs to achieve at the highest level. Our average student to faculty ratio is 16:1.
Freire Schools Core Values
Equity
Inequity in educational resources is among the most serious civil rights issues of our time. Freire Schools fights daily to ensure equity in education. From high quality content to diverse learning experiences to exceptional teachers, we strive to provide each of our students with the individually tailored resources and supports that they need in order to achieve at the highest level.
Diversity
Freire Schools places a high value on the wide range of backgrounds, lived experiences, and ways of thinking that each of us bring to the table. We prioritize student and staff voice. We embrace and celebrate our differences, because we know they make us stronger as a community and as individuals.
Love
Freire Schools takes a proactive approach to creating a strong community culture built on mutual respect, openness, and honesty, where every individual is seen and valued. We insist that every member of our community be accepted at face value, without judgment, and be supported in inhabiting their fullest self. Our connections create our community. As a Freire Family, our shared struggles, joy, challenges, and successes give us strength.
Critical Thinking
It is essential that our students are active participants in their own learning, connecting knowledge gained in the classroom to action in their communities and their world. The Freire Schools academic model goes beyond passive lecture and memorization. Instead, we teach students to conduct independent inquiry, ask probing questions, synthesize diverse and complex materials, consider bias and individual perspective, and develop informed conclusions.
Our Commitment
Kids are at the center of all that we do, and we believe that they have unlimited potential. Deeper learning is at the core of our educational practice, and we are successful when everyone in our community is growing. We are committed to applying these principles at every level of Freire Schools’ operation, ensuring that:
- Our schools are safe and welcoming.
- Our decision-making is informed by our history, the most respected research in the field, and our desire to do what’s best for our kids.
- We are developing an actively anti-racist school network.
- We are all connected and everyone has a voice – our students, parents, staff, board, and community.
- We uphold our mission and honor the educational values of Paulo Freire.
- We identify, develop, and retain talented teachers and leaders from diverse backgrounds.
- We are intentional and strategic in how we use our public funds, and we maximize our resources to go beyond a basic education to one that is inspired and inspiring.
- We are ethical, legally compliant, and fiscally sound in all that we do.
- Learning extends past the classroom walls, and we seek partners who share our values and help our students succeed.
- We are a voice for and example of high-quality urban education for economically disadvantaged students.