Awardees
The Most STOP-Enabled Innovators of 2021
Proving that learning happens when transformational practices are in place for students, each of our winners this year is delivering outstanding results for students overlooked and underrepresented on the honor rolls of traditional US education. Started and led by education entrepreneurs, many of whom started out as the students they serve, they are breathing new life into communities who have been failed by the traditional system. Get to know them – they represent the future of education for all of us!
2021 YASS PRIZE WINNER
Discovery Center of Springfield
It was a museum. And now it’s a school.
The 2021 Finalists
The 2021 Semifinalists
Having the status of Yass Prize Semifinalist has opened doors that we’ve been knocking on for years,
including public recognition from our Governor and partnership conversations with other education innovators from around the country.
We used the Yass Prize to launch a program called Skypod catalyst, which is essentially an accelerator to help other people start microschools.
We believe very much that microschools should be bottoms up, they come from the community. They're founded by educators who know their community really well. And they want to design a learning environment for the kids in that community.
The foundation of any society is a good education.
I’m dreaming bigger, bolder, and more bodacious [because of the Yass Prize].
It has helped me raise the ceiling on what’s possible.
The Yass Award is about celebrating and rewarding those who make students the priority.”
Yass brought us together, creating opportunities to create an educational universe within which we can look at education differently…
we have to find academic experiences that represent neuro-divergent learners, kids who want to learn about gaming, who want to do stuff online, who dropped out of school.
We have a tremendously transformative model that could stand for a little disruption.
The Yass experience has given us “permission” to do exactly that.
When we follow the money, it’s ludicrous how this country is getting away with funding education.
The funding is not following children. We're trying to make better options for kids, for poor kids, middle class kids. Wealthy people have this choice, they opt out of their systems easily, why shouldn't all children have that choice?
The Yass Prize has significantly impacted the trajectory of our organization.
When we originally applied, we simply provided supplemental support services to homeschooling families. Now, we are growing into an education network that provides community, coaching, and curriculum nationwide.
Education is one of the most fundamental pillars for democratizing opportunities for success that we have in our society.
It’s thanks to organizations like the Yass Prize that our children are going to have a better tomorrow.
Being a part of the [Yass] family confirmed that what I'm doing is right,
going against the common core and focusing on what we know is important for kids really works, and having a network of people now that also agree was super huge.
It might be the first time you’re speaking where everyone is actually listening and cares about what you’re doing.
I don’t think I’ve been in a room as supportive as the Yass Prize Semifinalist room in Miami.