Rooted School
Founded in 2017, the Rooted School has become one of the highest performing charter high schools in the city of New Orleans. The school seeks to educate a new generation of students while simultaneously moving them to financial and economic freedom and closing the region’s wealth gap. Rooted’s mission is to equip students with the skills and knowledge they need to compete for the fastest-growing and the highest-paying jobs in their communities either with or without a college degree. In fact, 84% of students in the founding freshman class completed industry trade certifications in web design.
The Rooted School has a successful track record thus far. Seventy-nine percent of African American students at the Rooted School perform better than students from all schools in the state of Louisiana, and 88% of students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds at the school perform at a higher rate academically than students in the state of Louisiana.
The school was founded by CEO Jonathan Johnson, who saw a need to serve his community on a larger scale after one of his students lost his life to gun violence. He is passionate about transforming the lives of students in New Orleans and has stated that “our promise is that when every student graduates, they will have a college acceptance in one hand and a good job offer in the other.”
Click here to view an interview with Rooted CEO Jonathan Johnson and Roland Martin.
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