A decade ago, it would have been hard to picture Janet Bravo working at a public charter school, much less leading the startup of one.
Bravo says back then she had an unflattering vision of public charter schools in her mind, but made the decision to join IDEA public schools in 2014, serving as an academic counselor in one of the network’s underperforming schools in Texas.
“At first, I was pretty anti-charter, which is the irony of it,” said Bravo. “I wasn’t familiar with them, I didn’t know them, but had a heard things from other people.”
As an academic counselor, Bravo worked to retain students and meet state standards. She says the school had been losing more kids than any other school in IDEA’s network.
After just two years, the school became the second highest performer in the district for student persistence and was meeting state expectations and accountability measures. The experience inspired Bravo to go back to school for her master’s degree.
“I saw in that the power of a principal because they got a new principal in there. It was a transformational experience and I ended up going to get my masters in educational leadership through Columbia,” said Bravo. “I knew I wanted to be a principal, I wanted to make change at a bigger level and be able to build a college-going culture for our students and also ensure this perception of charter schools is squashed.”
Educational Journey
Bravo’s interest in helping put students on the path to college began with her own experience.
She attended Emory College in Atlanta and chose to study abroad in Mexico. That experience sparked an interest in education.
Bravo says growing up, the norm in her family was to go to college. Living with young students in her host family in Mexico opened her eyes to education disparities, which ultimately sparked an interest in education during the semester abroad.
Once back at Emory College, Bravo says her newfound passion led to applying for Teach for America.
She transformed the two-year Teach for America commitment into an 11 year stay working in education in the Rio Grande Valley Region.
The school Bravo taught at sat just down the road from the founding IDEA Public Schools campus, and the charter network recruited her.
Bravo was a school leader for five years with IDEA Public Schools and has worked the last four years with a regional team as a principal coach, but is ready to get back into the school setting and build relationships with students and the community. That’s a big part of why she accepted the job as the new principal for Knoxville Preparatory School.
The all-boys public charter school will open next year with a focus on preparing students for higher education.
“While I have a lot of experience in school leadership, I know I’m new to Knoxville and I know that one of the most important things to me is getting to talk to and getting to know people here,” said Bravo.
Different from surrounding traditional public schools, Knoxville Prep will implement college visits every year for students starting in sixth-grade so that they can have a full understanding of what it’s like to be on a college campus and explore options for post-grad education. Teachers will also receive weekly trainings with Friday half-days dedicated to professional development.
Knoxville Preparatory School is accepting applications for enrollment and applications for open teaching positions.
Like all public charter schools in Tennessee Knoxville Preparatory is tuition-free and has no requirements for enrollment aside from being a Knox County resident. There are limited seats still available, with applications on the school website.
