History
Greg Lippman, ACE Charter School's Founding Executive Director, along with Susan Hammer (former mayor of San Jose), founded ACE Charter Schools to build on the community movement that the first ACE had started, and to create charter schools specifically designed for the most marginalized students and families in San Jose. In 2008, the first ACE school opened with 95 5th and 6th graders; in 2017, the first class of ACE high school alumni headed off to college. ACE Charter Schools has grown by leaps and bounds since opening in 2008, and now numbers four schools (three middle and one high) with over 1,200 students and over 100 alumni in college.
Specialties
ACE is a growing charter school network that has demonstrated that it can achieve something unique and urgently needed: success with the highest-need students in our most under-resourced urban communities. ACE is unique because it only serves disengaged, marginalized students who are failing in school. 94% of ACE students are low-income Latinos, over half are English Learners, and ACE serves double the number of Special Needs students than any other school in the region. Children who come to ACE having fallen far behind and anxious about their future become optimistic students driven to keep growing in college and beyond.