LeBron James established the “I Promise School” in 2018 to help educate “at-risk” students. However, not one of the students at the NBA star’s school in Akron passed Ohio’s state math test, according to a new report.
The I Promise School proclaims:
With education as the driving force of change, the LeBron James Family Foundation is not only spreading that impact and improving lives of inner-city students and families, but also shifting the course of an entire community. Focusing on his hometown of Akron, the Foundation’s I PROMISE program provides year-round resources, access to opportunities, supportive skill development, constant encouragement and other wraparound supports to more than 1,300 Akron Public School students who have all been guaranteed college scholarships if they do their part. These efforts have culminated in the groundbreaking new public school – the I Promise School – that is taking an innovative approach to providing a challenging, supportive, and life-changing education, creating a new model for urban public education.
LeBron’s I Promise School – which teaches children from 1st to 8th grade – has recently been outed for poor performance in mathematics.
The Akron Beacon Journal reported this week: “This fall’s class of eighth graders at the I Promise School hasn’t had a single student pass the state’s basic math test since the group was in the third grade.”
During a school board meeting this week, a puzzled Akron Public Schools board member Valerie McKitrick asked, “Not one? In three years?”
Keith Liechty-Clifford, the district’s director of school improvement, responded, “It is discouraging.”
The Akron Beacon Journal added, “The state has also issued its first concern about the school: two of I Promise’s biggest subgroups of students, black students and those with disabilities, are now testing in the bottom 5% in the state, landing the school on the Ohio Department of Education’s list of those requiring targeted intervention.”
School board President Derrick Hall said, “For me as a board member, I just think about all the resources that we’re providing, and I just, I’m just disappointed that I don’t think, it doesn’t appear like we’re seeing the kind of change that we would expect to see.”
Stephanie Davis, who was appointed as the new principal of the school this year, was said to be “the perfect person to lead the I Promise School and all of our families to the success we know they will achieve,” according to the school district earlier this year.
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