**All gifts will be matched by The Texas Instruments Foundation and an anonymous donor up to $20,000**

In response to the significant academic disparities existing for Knoxville's urban youth, our city's first and only charter school, Emerald Academy, opened in August 2015 as a tuition-free, independently operated, K-8 college preparatory school.

Emerald Academy's mission is to prepare urban scholars for the college of their choice and community leadership. Through our rigorous educational program and our relational culture, we create a transformative experience for our scholars that prepares them to become self-sufficient, reflective, and resilient leaders in their communities.

In addition to annual TN Ready testing, Emerald Academy completes internal assessments including the Northwest Evaluation Associations Measures of Academic Progress (MAP). MAP assessment results can also project how a scholar will perform on TN Ready testing.

So far, there are encouraging outcomes pointing to the school's success.

*For the first time in the school's history, over half of all scholars met their midyear MAP growth goals. This means that over half of scholars had greater academic growth from August through February than projected.

*In math and reading, the percentage of scholars projected to perform on or above grade level on TN Ready testing increased for nearly every grade level.