Our Community | Partner Schools

Partner schools are at the center of the world-class educational environment the CEB aims to create.  We have established a high admissions bar for existing and new charter schools seeking to locate in The Community Education Building, and will monitor and hold them accountable for their progress towards the successful closure of the City’s urban achievement gap.
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For Our Partners
Leland Kent
​Executive Director
Effective July 1
Great Oaks Charter School – Wilmington

The mission of Great Oaks Charter School – Wilmington (GO-WIL) is to prepare students to succeed in college.  The purpose of the school is to give students the knowledge and values required to graduate from a competitive four-year college by delivering individualized instruction, emphasizing character development and fostering relationships with families.  What sets GO-WIL’s approach apart from other college preparatory charter schools is their high-dosage tutoring. The Great Oaks Tutor Corp, a highly selective cadre of recent college graduates, will deliver at least two hours of individualized instruction to every student every day.  

GO-WIL will serve Wilmington students in grades 6-12. In the 2017-2018 school year, they would have enrolled a number of sixth graders, seventh graders and eighth graders. GO-Wilm will add one new cohort of 100 every year until they are a full middle/high school in 2021-2022

GO-WIL is supported by the Great Oaks Foundation – a non-profit organization dedicated to the launch and support of Great Oaks Charter Schools.  Their model was inspired by the Match School of Boston, which has an extraordinary track record of success using the Tutor Corps model.  The Great Oaks Foundation successfully replicated this model in Newark, NJ in 2011 (GO-NWK), opened a second Great Oaks in the Chinatown neighborhood of New York City in September 2013 (GO-NYC), and opened Great Oaks Bridgeport (GO-BPT) in Connecticut in 2014.  GO-NWK is among the most successful charter schools in Newark, outperforming its home district by 17 percentage points in Language Arts and 36.6 percentage points on Math on the 2013 standardized NJASK State Assessment.  Of 65 district and charter schools in Newark, GO-NWK had the third highest average student growth in literacy and math.  Of the 87 charter schools in the state of New Jersey, Great Oaks’ growth percentage on Math ranked second. ​In the school’s first year of operation, 89% of GO-WIL students scored higher on the state Math assessment than they did in the previous year.
Sally Maldonado
Head of School
Kuumba Academy

Kuumba Academy is a K-8 charter school with the mission to provide an innovative learning environment focused on the whole child. Kuumba Academy directors, staff, and parents share a core belief that parents are the primary educators of their children. Our parents, in partnership with teachers and administrators, believe that every child can maximize his or her learning potential given the opportunity to do so.

Kuumba Academy was founded by Christina Cultural Arts Center, Inc., a non-profit organization with a commitment to meeting the needs of the whole child via the arts, academics, and family and community involvement.  At Kuumba, curriculum and instruction are delivered using an innovation combination of arts and academics coupled with Expeditionary Learning.  

Kuumba Academy students’ futures are on a different path. They are compassionate, confident, persistent and proud of whom they are. They are leaders and artists, excited to take on challenges, “different.” They know that academic success is essential, and that school prepares them for success in life.