Rigorous college preparatory academics, lengthy commutes to school, and family responsibilities (which often take focus away from school) don’t always add up to success and the pursuit of a college degree.
But, in 2016, that’s exactly what the founders of Brooklyn Emerging Leaders Academy (BELA) set out to change.
Educator Nicia Fullwood and former social worker Shannon Riley met years ago when they worked in tandem advising and counseling girls through Children’s Aid Society’s Carrera Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Program.
In part because of this shared experience, Fullwood and Riley saw a need in their Bedford-Stuyvesant community — a need for a place that could uplift, encourage, empower, and challenge exceptional young women to be their best selves and serve others.
They knew starting a charter high school was the answer.
Getting a New Charter School Off the Ground
Charters make up the fastest growing form of schooling today. When BELA opened for the 2016–2017 academic year, there were more than 6,900 charter schools nationally enrolling an estimated 3,100,000 million students.
Today, there are nearly 8,000 charter schools, and they cumulatively serve close to 4,000,000 students.
In their first year, BELA enrolled just 85 students — but they had a plan to welcome an incoming freshman class in the fall and double their enrollment.
Getting a new charter school like BELA up and running means the tangible to-do lists are a mile long and include financial planning, academic planning, spatial/logistical planning, recruiting students, hiring staff — just to name a few.
But leaders of new charters must also possess a certain level of emotional strength too; passion and determination are necessary for a school to succeed.
“There just were not enough hours in the day for everything we needed to do,” says Riley. “We prioritized, and in the end, it all came together. We could not be happier. Seeing the girls acclimating and contributing to our culture each day keeps us focused on our goals and our mission.”
Increased charter school enrollment was one of those goals.
Increasing Enrollment as a New Charter School
At a charter school, increasing student enrollment has to be a top priority since enrollment is the key to sustaining the health and prosperity of the school.
Recognizing that an online enrollment solution would be key to long-term success and family adoption, Fullwood and Riley turned to SchoolMint.
Through SchoolMint Enroll, BELA’s first class completed all the necessary registration paperwork in two ways:
- First, families that Fullwood and Riley recruited through an incredible grassroots campaign could register with the charter school enrollment management solution SchoolMint designed for BELA.
- To maximize the school’s applicant reach, Fullwood and Riley also worked with SchoolMint to enable BELA registration inside the NYC Online Charter School App powered by SchoolMint.
SchoolMint Enroll’s student registration module has helped BELA increase its visibility in the registration space, but it also provided some relief from budgetary constraints. The new school was limited on administrative staff, so automation was essential.
With the right mix of hard work and effective tools in place for their first year in operation, Fullwood and Riley welcomed 85 highly motivated young women to be excellent stewards of BELA’s vision and mission.
These young women come from as far away as Staten Island to BELA’s location in Bedford–Stuyvesant, a neighborhood of 166,000 inhabitants in the north central portion of Brooklyn.
Students gather together for Sisterhood Circle at the start of each day. Fullwood can be heard sharing inspirational stories, challenging the girls to be kinder to each other, and praising the girls for their dedication to their studies — routinely referencing the mission and core values of the school:
- Sisterhood
- Scholarship
- Strength
- Service
During their first year, Fullwood remained acutely aware that their first class was charged with a significant task: carrying the mission and core values forward for future classes.
And they’ve succeeded: in 2021, the school graduated their founding class of young women ready for the world beyond BELA.
As interest in BELA spreads and as there are more students applying than there are seats available, Riley will continue to use SchoolMint Enroll to assist not just with registering students but also with running a transparent, fair, and equitable student lottery and placement process.
The relationship between BELA and SchoolMint will continue to grow as family engagement needs rise with expanded enrollment and comprehensive enrollment data and reporting required for effective governance.
And we can’t wait to see it all unfold.
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