Kairos Academies

A new school model that leverages technology to personalize learning and empower student autonomy.

Despite advances in technology and neuroscience, most schools in the U.S. and internationally haven’t rethought education to match evolving needs in the 21st century. Our education system is designed in the interest and image of industrialism. The problem is that development cannot be standardized according to a child’s “date of manufacture;” knowledge cannot be downloaded from lectures; and maturity cannot be manufactured in a classroom assembly line. Anyone who has tried to teach one lesson to twenty students at twenty different proficiency levels knows the truth firsthand: children cannot be engineered.

Kairos takes a different approach. We see students as organisms that grow, not products that are manufactured. And because kids need to grow into self-governing adults, we empower students to direct their own lives and learning. Our grassroots movement of educators is trying to rethink education for the Information Age. By leveraging technology, we hope to personalize the learning experience and nurture student autonomy. Our students will each receive a dedicated Chromebook, through which they’ll access a vast array of multimedia resources and instructional materials. Students will receive immediate feedback on their coursework paced according their personalized goals. Teachers can view data on how and what each student learning and constantly adapt curricula to fit individual needs and group trends. Through cameras, auto-graded tests, tools collecting student clicks, and more, teachers can pinpoint and troubleshoot curricular or learning issues.

By incorporating technology, we hope to innovate other aspects of the traditional school model too. Instead of depending on the master schedule of a traditional school, Kairos students practice managing their own time in the same flexible environment as a college student or modern-day professional. Faculty members coach students every day to develop the agency and executive function they need to manage their own time. Using a wealth of online applications makes lesson-planning, teaching, and grading much more efficient, meaning faculty members can not only teach and coach, but also take on leadership roles. Excellent teachers can advance their careers and influence school practice without “leaving the classroom.”

We will open our first charter school in Dutchtown, St. Louis—St. Louis most underserved neighborhood. We will enroll a diverse group of 115 sixth graders beginning in Fall 2019 and grow one grade per year to form a 6th-8th grade middle school and 9th-12th grade high school. We expect that Kairos will be one of the highest performing schools in St. Louis by the end of our first charter term in 2024. This success will serve as a launching point to radically transform the Midwest’s educational landscape. We plan to serve as a hub for educators who are using technology to transform America’s outdated school system. All materials and resources we curate or build will be available online for free for anyone who wants to implement Kairos’ model in their local context. We believe that our schools will serve as a proof of concept to catalyze education reform movements around the country and, hopefully, the world.

Kairos has synthesized the latest research in child development and education with the best cost-effective technology to maximize the impact of blended learning in a high-needs area. By meeting with a 1-1 coach, Kairos students learn to manage their own time in a flexible co-working environment. Our personalized learning approach is designed to meet the diverse needs of an integrated student body in a city where segregation has long been the norm.

The technology Kairos uses—Chromebooks, educational applications, click tracking, etc.—is ubiquitous and low-cost, but either underutilized or used to replace teachers in traditional classrooms. By thoughtfully dividing tasks between computers and faculty, Kairos maximizes the value of both for student growth. Blended instruction allows for immediate and unlimited access to curricula, differentiated instructional material in multiple modalities, adaptive skill practice and immediate feedback, but also focused, dynamic collaboration between students and faculty. When the average teacher blends instruction with online content, attitudes improve for 80% of students and state test scores increase for 67%.

Kairos will spend the next year developing the structures and connections vital to opening a successful, innovative school in September 2019. We will hire a team of rockstar educators and recruit our first class of students and families. We will also design an educational facility composed of versatile co-working spaces equipped with laptops, projectors, and other relevant technology. Finally, we are fundraising and partnering with organizations who can help us maximize our impact on student learning.

Kairos’ five year plan focuses on building up from 6th grade to opening a high school, adding a grade each year. By the end of Year 5, our schools will be offering a world-class education to approximately 500 students and their families. We will being regularly training and providing increased leadership opportunities to about 50 faculty members. Beyond our immediate impact, Kairos plans to be a hub of innovation within the American Midwest. We are already in conversation with other personalized learning schools, such as Intrinsic Charter Schools in Chicago, to organize a conference that shares best practices.

Through canvassing Dutchtown, Kairos has received 900 signatures of support, including a significant number who said they had or knew age-appropriate children for whom they wanted enrollment information. To extend our outreach, we have also partnered with local community organizations, which have agreed to host information sessions and classroom simulations. Information about Kairos is being disseminated through social media, a newsletter, and the summer pilot. Above all, though, Kairos trusts in word-of-mouth publicity from satisfied parents. Once the school is open, our Family Council—a group of families that believe in the solution—will lead efforts to reach out to prospective parents.

Kairos is currently serving 60 low-income students in our pilot program. In partnership with area summer schools, we are working to combat summer slide and bring student choice to children who are told where to sit every minute of every day. We have rented laptops to test our model and collect data. We will continue iterating throughout this next year with groups of students in our enrollment zone. That means before opening, Kairos will function as an after-school enrichment program for dozens of students in the highest-need area of St. Louis.

In 12 months we will be welcoming 115 6th graders and their families to our new school, situated in the heart of the most high-need and diverse neighborhood in St. Louis. Our school will focus on empowering students (with academic and executive function) so that they are able to direct their own lives and learning. In 3 years, Kairos will have expanded to 300 students, steadily growing year by year. By that point, our model will be proven and refined, and we will serve as a model and resource for other schools hoping to adopt technology-based personalized learning practices.

After graduating from Yale and Washington University-in St. Louis, Kairos’ co-founders taught low-income students in multiple cities nationally and internationally. We met in Teach For America, where we grew frustrated watching an outdated school model rob our students of the futures they deserved. We felt compelled to expand access to Kairos after testing elements in our own classroom and seeing transformative results. We quit our jobs with no funding in sight and built a team with experience in charter school startup, teacher development, student social-emotional coaching, law, accounting and non-profit compliance, financial management, architectural design, and facilities development.

As a non-profit charter school, Kairos will receive per-pupil funding for each student we serve. Most charter schools fundraise about 3% of their annual operating expenses. Kairos expects to subsist on public dollars alone. Our budgets are conservative, with revenues lower than the average St. Louis charter school receives. For example, the state department of education has already confirmed that we will receive $1,000 more per student (about $100,000 more in Year 1 and $500,000 more in Year 5) than we have budgeted. These cash reserves will allow us to open a high school and move into our permanent facility. During pre-opening, however, we do not receive public funds. We have already secured $100,000 to bring on a founding faculty team, renovate a facility, and purchase equipment.

For Kairos to affect the lives of students both in St. Louis and beyond, we need the kind of support and community that Solve offers. Our steady growth, paired with our expected high performance and family satisfaction, will challenge other schools—both in St. Louis and beyond—to innovate and better serve their students as well. By connecting us with peers and mentors in education around the globe, Solve can help refine and augment the technological aspects of our model, providing a collective of passionate, diverse innovators to work together with.

Kairos’ long-term success depends on navigating our pre-opening year. We have just months to establish a founding faculty team, recruit students, raise necessary pre-operational funding, and renovate our first facility. While we have deep passion for the work, our background is in pedagogy, not management. Partnering with Solve is critical during this upcoming pre-opening year because, although we need financial support and advice, we receive no government funding (to do things like contract with consultants).