Ember Charter Schools is a high-performing high school in Brooklyn, New York. Ember’s mission is to ensure that their students will emerge into adulthood as whole and healthy people, prepared to engage in deep and thoughtful analysis about our country and world’s biggest challenges. Ember aims to ignite, empower and transform students traditionally labeled as “at-risk” into social entrepreneurs, engineers, and global leaders through its use of trauma-informed care. This approach allows students to heal and thrive despite their exposure to the deeply debilitating trauma of persistent and pervasive poverty, racism, and marginalization. At the time of closing, 100% of Ember’s student population was eligible for free and reduced lunch, 88% of students identified as Black, and 12% of students identified as Hispanic or Latino. The Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) provided a $4.5 million construction loan to Ember Charter Schools to renovate a former warehouse into a home for Ember’s high school.
Rafiq R. Kalam Id-Din II, the founder and leader of Ember Charter School, is a recognized Brooklyn-based leader tackling the root causes of racial disparity in education. The Charter School Financing team is excited to partner with him, as he truly embodies the mission of Ember and has a demonstrated commitment to racial equity. He is an inaugural awardee of the Joe and Clara Tsai Foundation’s Social Justice Fund and a former Echoing Green fellow and current board member. He is the leader and founder of the #BlackLedSchoolsMatter initiative and is the cofounder of BLACC (the Black-Latinx-Asian Charters Collective,).
With such dynamic leadership and a critical mission, Ember Charter Schools is delivering on its promise. In 2022, 100% of graduating students received admissions to four-year colleges and 100% of students were offered academic merit scholarships. Nearly 100% of the graduating class consisted of first-generation college students.
Ember Charter Schools renovated facility will allow the school to enroll and educate a total of 660 students, the school currently serves 410 students in grades K – 12. At the time of closing, 90% of Ember’s teachers were teachers of color. Teachers are recruited from HBCUs, SUNY, and CUNY schools. All of Ember’s senior leadership is black and brown. This project will create 48 construction jobs and preserve 30 staff positions already employed at the school. This deal allowed us to partner with a charter school that is fully aligned with the Charter School Financing Team’s racial equity ideals and our mission of increasing access to high-quality public schools as essential part of community development.
