An artist’s rendering of the new boys’ school, Chattanooga Prep. Plans are underway to launch a multi-million dollar capital campaign in 2017 that will endow the school for 10 years.Some of the city’s poorest boys could receive an advantaged education if a new charter school gets approval to open in 2018.
The new all-boys school, Chattanooga Prep, would be located in Highland Park and is the brainchild of Ted and Kelly Alling, who have been investing in inner-city Chattanooga for 15 years. The pair, in their late 30s, want this school to provide boys with the support and tools needed to counteract the crippling effect poverty can have on education.
Chattanooga Prep comes at a time when much public attention is being placed on the lack of equity in Hamilton County Schools. The high schools serving a majority of the districts’ poor and minority students are failing to prepare graduates for college or career, and most kids struggle to escape the toxic cycle of poverty, data shows.
“The families and young men of Chattanooga deserve greater opportunity and choice,” said Ted Alling, a founder of Access America Transport and managing director at Dynamo, a logistics accelerator. “The gifts and talent of these students have been underserved due to poverty and educational inequity.”
The Allings moved to Chattanooga in 2002, and Kelly began working as a resource manager for Habitat for Humanity. They say this work exposed them to the obstacles many Chattanooga families living in poverty face.