Big news today! Atlanta Public Schools has officially announced the results from its statewide assessment program, Georgia Milestones, and Hollis Innovation Academy has made strides once again!

Hollis charted improvement on scores for the second consecutive year showing that the school’s model, which focuses on expeditionary learning, an innovative STEM curriculum and strong character development, is a winning formula for student success.

While Hollis is only in its third school year, having opened in August 2016, its students mostly hailed from the now-closed Bethune Elementary, which was one of the most at-risk schools in APS.

Since the full implementation of the APS Turnaround Strategy in 2016, Hollis has experienced a double-digit decrease in beginning learners across all subject areas. Specifically, the percentage of Hollis students performing at the lowest level has decreased by 13.6%.

In support of Hollis and the entire Washington High School Cluster, Westside Future Fund, in July 2017, committed $16.4 million over five years to APS as part of its cradle-to-career education impact strategy.

Since the announcement, nearly $5 million has been raised towards the goal, thanks to the generous support of partners The Coca-Cola Foundation, SunTrust, NCR, AT&T, PwC Charitable Foundation and Kaiser Permanente. Check out video below from the announcement of NCR’s $1 million gift to Hollis.

Funding to date has directly supported improvements at Hollis, the pilot school of WFF’s partnership with APS.

The investment of WFF and its partners has resulted in additional wrap-around support services; an additional teacher in every classroom, decreasing the student: teacher ratio; and support for its STEM-education curriculum, including Hollis’ partnership with Georgia Tech’s Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics & Computing (CEISMC) and Horizons program.

To learn more about Hollis Innovation Academy, visit www.atlantapublicschools.us/HollisInnovation.