SUCCESS ACADEMY HAVING BROAD IMPACT ON NATIONAL EDUCATION SECTOR, AS ‘ALUMS’ SPREAD NETWORK’S PRACTICES ACROSS THE COUNTRY
New Kentucky Department of Education General Counsel Appointment from Success Academy Continues Mission to Ensure Children Everywhere Have Access to Great Schools
NEW YORK, NY — Today, the Kentucky Department of Education announced the appointment of Deanna Durrett to the position of General Counsel of Kentucky’s state education department. Since joining Success Academy in 2012, Deanna has held various positions, most recently chief of staff. She will report directly to Interim Commissioner Wayne Lewis, starting August 16.
With this appointment, Durrett becomes part of a diaspora of former Success educators who have taken the training, expertise, and commitment to excellence they’ve gained at New York’s top-performing public school network to implement in district and charter schools across the country.
As part of its dual mission, Success has a deep commitment to advancing national education policies and practices that ensure all public school students have access to the life-changing opportunities that a great education affords. Over the 12 years since its founding, many former employees have taken the training and expertise gained at Success to advance the mission nationally. They have founded their own charters (Emily Kim, Zeta Charter Schools), pioneered operations in Texas (Kris Cheung at KIPP Texas Public Schools) and Washington, DC (Larisa Yarmolovich at Rocketship), and taken on academic leadership roles in San Francisco (Lindsey Luebchow at The Primary School and Jennifer Obiaya at Rocketship) and elsewhere.
“As New York’s highest-performing network of public schools, we will continue to provide the training and talent that has served our scholars and families so well,” said Eva Moskowitz, founder and CEO of Success Academy. “Our broader mission is to ensure that every child has access to a great school.”
Success has also made its curriculum and school design available to educators around the world through a robust online platform: Success Academy Education Institute. Since its launch last year, more than 30,000 visitors from almost every state and 90 countries have visited the free resource. The institute’s headquarters — the Robertson Center — also brings together a K-8 lab school and state-of-the-art training facility, where teachers and principals from across the country can participate in workshops, interactive webinars, conferences, and attend lecture series and other public programming.
ABOUT SUCCESS ACADEMY CHARTER SCHOOLS
Founded in 2006, Success Academy Charter Schools are free public K-12 schools open to all children in the state through a random lottery. With 47 schools set to open across Brooklyn, the Bronx, Manhattan, and Queens,in August, Success Academy will enroll 17,000 students, primarily low-income children of color in disadvantaged neighborhoods: 74% of students receive free or reduced-price lunch, 94% are children of color, 16% are children with disabilities, and 8% are English language learners. Ranked in the top 0.3% in math and the top 1.4% in English on 2017 state proficiency tests, Success Academy schools received more than 17,700 applications for 3,288 open seats this year.
For more information about Success Academy, go to Successacademies.org and virtualtour.successacademies.
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