Yass Prize leaders continue multi-state tour of exceptional award-winning education institutions.
BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — This Tuesday, May 2, 2023, The Yass Prize for Sustainable, Transformational, Outstanding and Permissionless Education has announced that Bridgeport’s Capital Preparatory Harbor School (Capital Prep) will be the next stop on the Yass Prize Road Show, dedicated to highlighting and celebrating educators who have outperformed for underserved students.
The Yass Prize and STOP Awards Initiative honors the country’s top innovators who deliver best-in-class education and exemplify Sustainable, Transformational, Outstanding, and Permissionless approaches to education. It awards over $16 million annually and creates unprecedented partnerships that accelerate impact with the speed and urgency students deserve.
Last year, the Capital Preparatory Schools charter network, which serves 1,500 students in CT and NYC, was named a finalist for the Yass Prize and won a $500,000 STOP Award, to help expand exceptional education to more deserving students. In March, Capital Prep won unanimous approval to open a new charter school in Middletown but will need to win an uphill battle for funding in the state budget in order to open. This is also happening with other charter schools that were approved in 2018 and are still awaiting funding from the state legislature five years later.
Schools like Capital Prep improve education opportunities among marginalized populations, which have continued to decline over time. In 2022, according to the State Department of Education, “Connecticut’s average scores in 2022 for students who are Black and students who are Hispanic are lower than the national public average scale score for the same student group.”
Yass Prize Founder Janine Yass and her team will be joined by several elected officials and press are welcome. They will begin with a school tour followed by a student roundtable and panel discussion.