These Life-Changing Success Stories Are Just the Beginning

Washington, DC - Throughout the Bayou, the Yass Prize for Sustainable, Transformational, Outstanding and Permissionless (STOP) education hit the road last weekend and poled our pirogue down the bayou (figuratively, of course) to highlight and celebrate the award-winning, innovative educators who continue to change the lives of traditionally underserved students.

The first stop on Thursday was Living School, a 2021 Yass Semifinalist that is about to graduate its first class of 45 students. All are graduating with two things - at least one college acceptance and a living wage job. In a post-Katrina New Orleans, many students still must navigate the challenges of homelessness and truancy. But students at Living School are thriving.

When Stefin Pasternack was dreaming up Living School, he couldn’t get access to a public school facility, even though many buildings were vacant in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.  So, he traveled to New Orleans East, buying a laser tag arena and transforming the space into a school for less than $40,000. The space is vibrant and offers students multiple roads for learning including pathways for skilled trades, digital media, emergency and medical fields, music production, agriculture and horticulture, engineering, and more. Here students personify the school’s motto “Learn by doing” as they work with their heads and their hands at the same time.

In the woodworking shop, students learn a dizzying array of skills – from how to frame a house, to building little free libraries, solar generators for disaster relief, musical instruments such as steel drums and banjos, millwork, furniture, and more. One of their students is even an unCommon Construction apprentice - working with Aaron and his team on building a house on the weekends.

The Roadshow continued Friday with a visit to the flagship campus of Louisiana Key Academy (LKA) in Baton Rouge where school founder, Dr. Laura Cassidy, and her team of dedicated educators are helping students with dyslexia soar to new heights in reading.  LKA was a 2021 finalist for the inaugural STOP Award, and its growth and collaboration with all the other awardees has accelerated its growth.

One in five people have dyslexia. Yet, many - especially less advantaged students - are undiagnosed or misdiagnosed, leaving them to struggle with learning and reading.  But all these students need to be successful is targeted, small-group, specialized instruction, and that’s what LKA provides. At LKA, students overcome the challenges of dyslexia because of the tailored, expert-taught instruction.

In one class, a small group was working on direct phonics instruction notating the vowels and consonants to break down multisyllabic words, while in another, middle school students were building miniature cars with man-made batteries as part of an engineering unit. Down the hall, a small group of students participated in “Math Kitchen,” learning math fundamentals through the hands-on experience of making pizza.  

While the school is at capacity and busting at the seams, thanks to a $250,000 STOP Award from the Yass Prize and other community support, LKA recently opened a new Northshore campus in Covington, Louisiana, where they are serving 300 students. And, plans are in motion for another LKA location in Shreveport next year.  LKA won the STOP Award in 2021 for its heroic work during the pandemic which resulted in 80 percent of students improving their reading fluency from the prior year. 

On to the Big Easy! The following Saturday morning, the Yass Prize team joined 2022 Finalist unCommon Construction for their Community Build Day. 

At unCommon Construction, youth from different high schools apply to join a diverse team to earn hourly pay and school internship credit for building a house in a semester. With the revenue from each project, apprentices also earn a matching "Equity Award Scholarship" for further education, industry certifications or the tools needed for long-term employment. Through more than 100 hours each semester, apprentices develop career awareness and exposure, technical, soft skills, and leadership abilities through a work-based learning experience in a real-world classroom - which also happens to be a construction site.

In New Orleans’ 7th Ward, we joined unCommon on the job site-turned classroom that was bustling with high school apprentices, workforce industry leaders, and unCommon board members who all came together for this special home build which they have been working on for the past few months.   

A $500,000 STOP Award from the Yass Prize has catalyzed unCommon Construction’s expansion plans to serve students in Minneapolis, Louisville and other cities. At their base in New Orleans, they just broke ground on the unCommon Campus, a 5,000 sq ft building that will offer hand-on learning activities, and allow  unCommon to expand its workforce development programs and enroll more students. As one of the Yass Prize team members put it, “They are – literally and figuratively – building the future, and revitalizing their city that is still recovering from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.”

One of the former apprentices building the future is Hunter, who built six houses with unCommon Construction and used his scholarship to become an electrician. unCommon helped pay his union dues and Hunter completed his trade apprenticeship as an electrician.  He has since become a journeyman electrician and bought his first house at the ripe old age of 19.  He now sits on the Board of unCommon Construction - a full circle moment indeed.

It’s these types of innovators that we are hunting down for the next round of Yass Prize and STOP Awards – a growing initiative to find, reward, celebrate and expand best-in-class education organizations from every sector, in every state. The Yass Prize is accepting applications for the 2023 cycle until July 15th. Visit YassPrize.org for more information. The 2023 finalists and $1 million Yass Prize winner will be announced in December.  

Get in the game, and let’s see you in a Roadshow email like this next year!

Want to learn more? Our next applicant webinar is May 4th.  Register here, or drop into informal office hours every Friday from 12:00-12:30pm ET on zoom.

Are you the next Yass Prize winner?  Or do you know one?  What are you waiting for? Apply now!

Next STOP on The Yass Prize Roadshow - Capital Prep’s Bridgeport, CT campus, Tuesday, May 2, 2023. Stay tuned for more!