KIPP Texas-Dallas – Fort Worth and Paul Quinn College announce a new partnership that will return KIPP Oak Cliff Academy High School to the campus of the renowned Historically Black College & University. KOCA, currently located approximately five miles from PQC, will relocate to the college campus next August, in time for the 2021-2022 school year.
The partnership will introduce hundreds of students from neighborhoods across Oak Cliff to the college experience while continuing KIPP Texas’ emphasis on promoting academic excellence. The move will also address space constraints of the current KOCA campus.
“Paul Quinn College is a great partner with deep ties to the local community. Strong community partnerships are key to building successful programs that can play an integral role in closing educational achievement gaps and developing our students into successful contributors to the community,” said Dr. Anthony Smith, Regional Superintendent of KIPP Texas-Dallas – Fort Worth.
“Together with our families and communities, we create joyful, academically excellent schools that prepare students with the skills and confidence to pursue the paths they choose-college, career, and beyond–so they can lead fulfilling lives and build a more just world,” Smith explained.
KIPP Texas-DFW and PQC are committed to working together to engage, educate, and prepare students for the future. At KIPP Texas, the college graduation rate is 38 percent — more than three times the national average. KIPP Texas-DFW’s student population is 54 percent Black, 42 percent Latinx and 88 percent economically disadvantaged. Many students who attend a KIPP Texas school will be first-generation college students.
“KIPP is one of America’s leading charter school brands. We have personally had great success with their graduates. We were excited when they reached out to us about the prospect of them returning to our campus,” said Dr. Michael J. Sorrell, President of Paul Quinn College. “This is going to be a great relationship for everyone involved.”
Both KIPP Texas and PQC are strong advocates for the communities they educate. Since school buildings closed in March due to the COVID-19 pandemic, KIPP Texas-DFW has provided more than 14,000 meals to Dallas children, regardless of whether they attend a KIPP Texas school. To ensure all KIPP Texas-DFW students could attend classes online, more than 700 laptops and 400 M-Fi hotspots were distributed to ensure all students are prepared to start school.
Paul Quinn College set up a free COVID-19 testing site this summer and administered approximately 6,100 tests, and provided more than 3,500 boxes of food, 300 gallons of milk, and more than 7,000 masks to the community.
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ABOUT KIPP TEXAS-DALLAS-FORT WORTH & KIPP TEXAS PUBLIC SCHOOLS
KIPP Texas-Dallas-Fort Worth has seven tuition-free schools educating more than 3,250 students from educationally underserved communities and is part of the KIPP Texas network of more than 59 pre-K-12 schools with 31,000 students across Austin, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, and San Antonio. KIPP Texas Public Schools is an open-enrollment, public network of charter schools across the state. KIPP Texas is part of the national KIPP network of college-preparatory public charter schools in 20 states and the District of Columbia. Nationwide, KIPP students complete four-year college at a rate of 36 percent, comparable to the national average for all students and approximately three times higher than the average of students from low-income families. www.kipptexas.org.
About Paul Quinn College
Paul Quinn College is a private, faith-based, four-year, liberal arts-inspired college that was founded on April 4, 1872, by a group of African Methodist Episcopal Church preachers in Austin, Texas. The school’s original purpose was to educate freed slaves and their offspring. Today, we proudly educate students of all races and socio-economic classes under the banner of our institutional ethos, WE over Me. Our mission is to provide a quality, faith-based education that addresses the academic, social, and Christian development of students. Under President Sorrell’s leadership, Paul Quinn has become one of the most innovative and respected small colleges in the nation and now serves as a model for urban higher education. Fortune magazine recognized President Sorrell’s work and the College’s transformation by naming him one of the World’s 50 Greatest Leaders. President Sorrell is also a three-time award winner of HBCU Male President of the Year by HBCU Digest and was named by Time magazine as one of the “31 People Changing the South.”
