accelerator program and pitch competition in December.The Yass Prize and STOP Awards Initiative recently announced 32 semifinalists for the second annual $1 million Yass Prize for Sustainable, Transformational, Outstanding and Permissionless Education. Among them are a construction apprenticeship program, a sailing-focused private school for high-risk teens, and a financial literacy company.
The semifinalists are spread across 23 different states and a variety of learning models, including public schools, microschools, hybrid learning programs, internship programs and charter schools. Nearly half of the semifinalists are in the public sector and nearly half are private. Each semifinalist will receive a $200,000 grant, and the, unveiled last month, received $100,000 grants.
“There are literally thousands of education leaders who are quietly transforming a previously stagnant education landscape,” Jeanne Allen, Yass Foundation director and founder and CEO of the Center for Education Reform, said in a statement. “Our goal is to find and fund the best and influence others to follow their examples, so that no child has to wait for the education that best meets their needs.
A handful of microschools, which typically serve about a dozen students each, made it to the semifinals. One of them, called Black Mothers Forum in Phoenix, Ariz., was founded by mother Janelle Wood in 2016 and has since been asked to expand their small group learning centers throughout the state. Another, KaiPod Learning based in Boston, Mass., has now opened 12 in-person learning centers across four states for homeschooled and online students.
Several apprenticeship and internship programs are in the running for the Yass Prize, including unCommon Construction, an apprenticeship program for high schoolers in New Orleans, La. The program is working to increase representation of women and minorities in the construction industry by matching students with paid construction internships, for which they can also earn school credit.