As Wisconsin’s first Hmong charter school, the Hmong American Peace Academy (HAPA) in Milwaukee has always seen itself as school and a community hub aimed at improving the lives of its students, as well as their families.
Last week the K4-12 school, located at 4601 N. 84th St., on the city’s northwest side, marked a milestone of sorts towards that effort, with the launch of its foundation.
Dubbed HAPA Foundation, Inc., school officials say the mission of the fund (and friend) raising arm is to enrich the experience of HAPA students, families, and staff, “nurturing a culture of academic excellence, celebrating Hmong heritage, and building skills for lifelong success through community engagement, ambassadorship and fundraising.”
But a clear goal of the foundation is to help the school address funding gaps as it strives to expand opportunities for its students. A recent appeal announcing the launch of the foundation, asked supporters to consider donating to the foundation to help it raise “an additional $1,000 per scholar.”
Speaking about the effort earlier this month, Dr. Chris Her-Xiong, HAPA’s chief executive officer, said the idea to create a foundation to support the institution started with the decision to construct a new 99,000-square-foot high school building on its existing campus in Lindsay Park.
Prompted by steady increases in enrollment at the school, which was founded in 2004 with only 200 students in grades K4-5, construction of the new building began in late summer 2020 in the midst of the pandemic. It was completed in August 2021 with 38 classrooms, a 16,000-square-foot gymnasium, a multipurpose resource center with a student-run café, a museum dedicated to Hmong history and culture, dedicated college and career resource centers and professional development facilities for teachers and staff.
“It started with our decision to build the new building. We wanted to make sure that we could provide support for our scholars. As we look at our population, 84% of our students come from poverty or live below the poverty line,” Her-Xiong said. “And the funding from (Milwaukee Public Schools) is not as much as we would like. The heart and soul of the foundation is to support the scholars, the families, and the staff of the school, but with the understanding that we want to manage risks. And so, in the event that the school were to close, we wanted to have a foundation that would still be alive and kicking.”
Enrichment
With so many students living at or below the poverty line, Her-Xiong said school officials recognize that even though so many of them have the academic dedication that leads them to go onto college, few have the means to engage in enrichment activities, like piano lessons or other extracurricular activities.
“They go to school and then they go home,” she said. “And so, we felt a foundation would be a wonderful vehicle to provide support and opportunities to our young people.”
Right now, HAPA is trying to develop lower cost activities, like chess and robotics clubs, and sports like volleyball, and girls’ and boys’ soccer, but it still needs the start-up cash for more expensive programs like wrestling and tennis.
But the organization is also hoping to raise funds to expose their students to activities that they might otherwise never get a chance to do, like camping.
“Many of our students don’t have the opportunity to leave the city of Milwaukee, let alone experience the lakefront,” Her-Xiong said. “We’re looking at sponsorships or partnerships with organizations, so that they can do things like take our students camping.”
Dual Enrollment
Another big reason for the foundation, is to provide funding for HAPA’s dual enrollment program, which has become a big cost for the school since it pays the tuition for its students.
While it’s still developing its dual enrollment program, it currently has students taking classes at Mount Mary University, Alverno College, and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
“By the time our seniors leave us, we want to make sure that they earn at least an associate degree so that they will have a head start in college,” Her-Xiong said. “We know that education is the key to moving out of poverty. And so, if we were to have 500 students participating in dual enrollment, by the time that our seniors graduate, our cost would be $300,000 to $500,000 depending on the number of students involved.”
Since the per-pupil funding the school receives doesn’t cover dual enrollment costs, the hope is that the foundation will be able to secure grants or donations from individuals and corporations to help fund the effort.
“Our main focus with dual enrollment is to help our students graduate high school with enough credits so they only need to spend two years in college, and have half of their tuition paid for,” she said.
Milwaukee’s future
With the school’s growing enrollment, which currently sits at 1,894 students, Her-Xiong said an investment in HAPA is an investment in Milwaukee.
“We really want to make sure that we focus on the future of Milwaukee, and a unique aspect of our school is that while 100% of our young people get accepted to college, over 90% stay in Milwaukee,” she said. “They stay in Milwaukee because part of the culture is that the students are still the change agent for the families, the translator, the person that does all of the things for the family.”
The hope is that with some buy-in from the business community, HAPA can also create opportunities for their students to learn the soft skills they’ll need to be leaders in the professions of their choice.
“We’re really looking to transform lives – from behind to ahead, from disadvantage to advancement, from at-risk to academic all-star, and from poverty to prosperity,” Her-Xiong said.
