Kairos Academies is a high-performing middle and high school in St. Louis, Missouri creating a new home for their students. The school’s mission is to empower students to direct their own lives and learning. The Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) provided the school with $500K predevelopment loan to cover predevelopment soft cost, architectural and engineering fees associated with the construction of the new facility.
Kairos Academies currently educates 500 students in grades 5 – 10. The school leverages technology to reimagine traditional instruction, personalize the learning experience, and nurture student agency. The school utilizes the Summit Learning Program, a software-enabled classroom model that allows students to work through content at the right pace and requiring them to demonstrate competency before progressing to more challenging content. Students alternate between objective coursework, where the software provides immediate feedback, and subjective projects, where students apply content knowledge creatively. At the time of closing, 60% of Kairo’s student population was eligible for free and reduced-price lunch, 23% of students identified as Hispanic and Latino, and 61% identified as Black. Kairos is third on U.S. News & World Report’s list of Missouri’s best charter middle schools in 2023.
Kairos Academies new home will be a 100,000-square-foot facility that makes it possible for Kairos to grow to full capacity, serving 900 students in grades 5-12. This loan represents an opportunity to partner with a growing, diverse-by-design charter school in St. Louis and partner with Level Field Partners, a long-time LISC partner and nonprofit developer of charter school facilities.
