Ambition Preparatory Charter School will expand to become the second charter high school in the state. 

The Mississippi Charter School Authorizer Board approved the expansion at its Monday meeting, while a handful of Ambition Prep students and administrators watched in the audience. 

The school, which was opened by executive director DeArchie Scott in August 2019, currently serves kindergarten through eighth grade. The expansion will make Ambition Prep Jackson’s only charter high school.

Clarksdale Collegiate Public Charter School in the Delta will start expanding into high school grades next year to become the state’s first charter high school, and while the board authorized RePublic Charter Schools to open a high school in 2018, the charter network did not ultimately open one.

The board’s move is one that parents have been asking for since the school opened, Scott said. 

“We are excited about the decision,” he said after the meeting. “It’s going to have a huge impact on our students. We’ve been telling our families who have been asking for this since kindergarten that we just have to see how we’re doing, and given our results, this is the right time.”

According to the charter authorizer board’s annual evaluation of the school’s performance, Ambition met expectations in the vast majority of categories during the 2023-2024 school year, though it did fall short in at least one instance of employee credentialing and had a high chronic absenteeism rate at 24%.

Lisa Karmacharya, executive director of the authorizer board, said she “couldn’t be more happy” that the charter’s expansion was approved. It’s the first school to take advantage of the board’s new expansion framework — Karmacharya said that Ambition put forward a strong plan and has set an example for other charters. 

“Expanding grades will provide educational opportunities for students in communities that have been traditionally underserved and allow for students to continue their education in a structured and high performing school as evidenced by results on annual performance reports,” their expansion report reads. “Ambition Prep is committed to character development, leadership, and college readiness for all scholars now and in the future.”

Kyson Bailey, a rising 7th grader at Ambition, was one of the students in attendance at the Monday meeting. He said he’s looking forward to attending high school at Ambition in a couple of years. 

“It’s a good opportunity, just them building on what we have,” he said. 

The high school will open in fall 2027, and construction on new classrooms will start in January.