Mission Statement
YES Prep Public Schools empowers all Houston students to succeed in college and to pursue lives of opportunity.

Leading Houston Forward Growth Plan Update
YES Prep served nearly 2,500 students in grades pre-K through 4 at our first six elementary schools: YES Prep North Central Elementary, YES Prep Southeast Elementary, YES Prep North Forest Elementary, YES Prep Southside Elementary, YES Prep Airline Elementary, and YES Prep East End Elementary. YES Prep remains one of the few major local charter school systems to offer both monolingual and bilingual elementary academic programs
driven by third grade reading proficiency — a powerful predictor of ultimate educational success. At full capacity, each school can serve 800 students in grades pre-K through 5.

Class of 2023 Update
In May, more than 1,600 YES Prep seniors proudly declared their plans for their future at Senior Signing Day at Reliant.
Highlights include:

• Nearly 100% of seniors were accepted to a two-year or four-year college.
• A combined 17,560 college applications were submitted, leading to 10,868 college acceptances with a 62% acceptance rate.
• A record number of prestigious scholarships including TheDream.US Scholarship awarded to 25 students, the Posse Scholarship awarded to 5 students, and QuestBridge scholarship awarded to 12 students.
• 75 students were awarded YES Prep donor scholarships.
• Over 90% of our matriculating seniors are first generation college-bound and now join the YES Prep alumni community, currently over 12,000 strong.

Annual Objectives
YES Prep’s annual objectives for the 2022-2023 school year included: educational equity (greater access to a YES Prep education), student achievement (all students engage inrigorous learning and dramatically increasing college readiness), embracing the culture and identities of ALL students, attracting diverse and extraordinary talent, and making optimal use of support systems and processes. We are excited to share the following accomplishments in these areas.

Educational Equity

• Construction is underway for elementary schools seven, eight, and nine: YES Prep Hobby Elementary, YES Prep North Rankin Elementary, and YES Prep Southwest Oaks Elementary scheduled to open in August 2024.
• Land has been purchased for elementary schools 10 and 11, YES Prep White Oak Elementary and YES Prep Brays Oaks Elementary. Projected to open in August 2025, this will mark the completion of the Leading Houston Forward growth plan.
• Received over 9,600 new student applications with 4,220 students having accepted a seat for the upcoming school year.
• YES Prep remains one of the highest performing public school systems in Houston, earning a district rating of 87, with 90% of our students attending an A or B school, according to 2021-2022 Texas Education Agency (TEA) data. Updated data is scheduled to be released by TEA in September.
• YES Prep’s college counselor to student ratio remains at 50:1 compared to the Texas average of 350:1, equating to seven times the individualized student support.
• The advocacy team led a group of Teacher and Family Advocacy Captains along with 30 juniors and seniors to the Texas Capitol to meet with lawmakers and advocate on behalf of bills that impact the future of public charter schools and our communities.

Secondary Student Achievement

• 94% of campuses improved their State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) passing rates from 2022 and eight campuses saw increases of 10% or higher in their passing rates.
• Students scored on average 11% higher than state-wide performance on the English (essay) STAAR assessments.
• The class of 2022 reversed the downward trend in matriculation, achieving 74% that are attending a 2- or 4-year colleges and universities across the country, an increase of 9% from the previous class.
• Introduced the YES Prep Online Scholars Program to provide approximately 600 students across the district access to an extensive variety of classes not currently available at their campuses including: Mandarin Chinese, AP US Government, AP Statistics, AP Physics, and AP Computer Science.
• Hosted a Spring Fine Arts Showcase featuring 215 students and included both visual and performing arts for the 200 guests in attendance.

Elementary Student Achievement

• In its first year of eligibility, YES Prep Southeast Elementary earned an A rating according to 2021-2022 TEA data.
• YES Prep East End Elementary and YES Prep Airline Elementary both received the coveted 2023 Imagine Learning Beacon School Award, which is awarded to the top 300 schools nationwide that are honored for celebrating innovation, dedication, and exemplary usage of Imagine Learning digital solutions.
• Seven of our eight elementary STAAR courses outperformed both the state and region and all four of our bilingual STAAR courses outperformed both the state and region.
• We exceeded our end of year K-4 MAP Growth Goals with 62% of kindergarten through 4 students meeting their reading and math goals.
• We exceeded our end of year Pre-K CIRCLE Goals with 92% of pre-K students meeting math benchmarks and 82% meeting literacy benchmarks.

Culture & Identity

• Hosted five in-person affinity group summits: Brotherhood, Sisterhood, Latinx, Pride Plus, and Asian Pacific-Islander American, serving 700 students. These annual summits provide opportunities for students to develop pride in their identities and build relationships within the communities with which they identify.
• Introduced Play Day and Connect 6, a series of after-school community-wide events to deepen our engagement with the elementary and secondary communities we serve.
• The elementary athletics program completed its first year, and across the district over 3,200 elementary and secondary students participated in over 2,000 afterschool athletics events, with five athletes receiving college athletics scholarships.
• Returned to hosting an in-person college fair for the first time since the pandemic, connecting over 3,400 YES Prep juniors and seniors with representatives from more than 120 colleges and universities across the United States.
• Over 4,000 students participated in nearly 400 ACE and Aspire after-school program activities.

Talent

• In the 2022-2023 school year, 164 of our new teacher hires were YES Prep alumni who returned to educate future YES Prep graduates.
• 87 YES Prep teachers received TEA’s Teacher Incentive Allotment designation, to help attract and retain highly effective teachers. This generated nearly $1.2M in additional funds for the 2022-2023 school year.
• This coming year, 1,126 teachers will impact our pre-K through 12 grade students, including 317 new campus staff, and 200 teachers new to the profession of which 88% identify as a person of color.
• In July, YES Prep hosted a three-day Leadership Summit for over 300 campus and program leaders across the system, with nearly 100 education sessions to ensure a strong start to the school year.
• The first YES Prep cohort of Texas Tech teacher candidates completed their year-long training and will be onboarded as teachers of record this coming school year. This new partnership creates a pipeline of classroom-ready teachers in our high compliance bilingual and special education classrooms.

Support Systems & Processes

• The Leading Houston Forward fundraising campaign goal of $80M was reached on March 2, 2023 – one year ahead of schedule.
• Launched Change Makers, a staff giving campaign that supports YES Prep’s Family Relief Fund, with nearly 150 staff participants and over $40,000 distributed to families in need.
• Served over 1.9 million meals this past school year, awarded the Gold Award for summer feeding by the United States Department of Agriculture, and the only district awarded Texas Department of Agriculture participation awards for both breakfast and lunch.
• Provided 6,000+ new laptops to students in support of our 1-to-1 programing, 1,000 staff with laptop replacements, and repaired over 5,000 student devices.
• Elevated our cybersecurity public posture to one of the highest in education industry in Texas.

Conclusion
Our results continue to show what students can accomplish when given the right opportunities, resources, and support. Thank you for providing many more children in Houston access to a high-quality education and for ensuring that our students can succeed in college and pursue lives of opportunity.