Neilson and former KIPP ENC Board Chair Mary Brown have been supporters of KIPP schools in North Carolina since 2015. Most recently, their philanthropy has supported KIPP North Carolina’s partnership with Hill Learning Center in Durham through the HillRAP (Hill Reading Reading Achievement Program)/95 RAP literacy intervention program. HillRAP/95 RAP provides personalized, small group reading intervention delivered by teachers and supported by technology and high-quality professional development grounded in the Science of Reading.
When we think about celebrating National Literacy Month with KIPP North Carolina, we are reminded of a quote from scientist Carl Sagan: “Frederick Douglass taught that literacy is the path from slavery to freedom. There are many kinds of slavery and many kinds of freedom, but reading is still the path.”
We agree that literacy can be the path to “freedom from”—freedom from poverty, freedom from misinformation, freedom from limitations—and the path to “freedom to”. Since 2001, KIPP schools in North Carolina have been laying a path to intellectual freedom for our state’s urban and rural children, preparing them for lives of choice and change.
For nearly a decade, we have supported KIPP North Carolina Public Schools as leadership volunteers and donors. Our investments have been focused on KIPP NC’s partnership with Hill Learning Center in Durham and its HillRAP literacy intervention program.
Special education teachers and tutors at KIPP ENC and KIPP Durham schools had been using HillRAP technology since 2015. When KIPP NC and Hill Learning Center formalized their partnership in 2021 with the help of time-limited federal funding, the goal was to expand the reach of the technology into KIPP Charlotte schools, and equip more special education and multilingual learner educators with training, coaching and professional development to help an even greater number of students, who experience reading challenges, find their freedom through literacy.
Children who don’t have adequate levels of literacy risk experiencing difficulties with self-expression, which can limit their future pathways. Literacy is important for success in subjects that are not traditionally associated with literacy like math and science. And, students who are more highly literate have better ability to reason efficiently and critically.
In the years since KIPP schools in North Carolina began partnering with Hill Center, hundreds of KIPPsters have benefitted from the intervention. Ironically, the funding that was used to seed the collaboration in 2021 will expire this month – National Literacy Month.
Our call to action to all KIPP North Carolina friends is to join us today in supporting the KIPP NC-Hill Center partnership. All KIPPsters deserve to have access to the support that so many KIPPsters need to experience success because the sooner we get students literate, the greater the options are for their future and the future of North Carolina. That’s what KIPP and the Hill Center are about.
