Why Donate?

Coney Island Prep will open in August 2009. The upcoming school year will be spent planning for the school's opening--developing an academically challenging curriculum and assessment program, hiring teachers and other school based staff, finding a facility, and setting up all of the necessary operational systems needed to run a high quality charter school. Before we enroll students, however, Coney Island Prep will not receive public funding. Rather, we are relying upon the gifts of individuals, foundations and corporations to support the school during this all-important planning year.

How Can I Donate?

We have set up a non-profit organization, Coney Island Prep Builders, to support the start-up and growth of Coney Island Prep. To find out more about making a tax-deductible donation, please email jmnookin@coneyislandprep.org or make a donation below.

How Can Private Financial Support Benefit Coney Island Prep?

Coney Island Prep urgently needs funders of all kinds: individuals, foundations and corporations. Strategic investments from these various donor groups can support Coney Island Prep in all of the important planning work that will take place prior to August 2009. It will be this foundation that will allow the school to minimize start-up challenges that occasionally arise during the first operational year.

How Can Financial Support Help Donors?

New York City is the most charter-friendly school district in the country. As such, New York City offers potential private donors the opportunity to play a key role in this innovative, effective, and increasingly popular national public education reform movement. Other benefits for private funders include:

• Charter schools offer a high benefit-to-risk ratio: Charter schools have a success rate of over 90% and consistently rank among the top performing K-12 schools in the city–and make an attractive beneficiary for prospective donors.
• Private contributions to Coney Island Prep help young people succeed: A donor's financial gift is a tangible, measurable step toward improving public education–one child and one school at a time.
• Charter school models of success can positively impact the larger public school system: Charter schools strengthen the promise of American democracy: access for all to the best education available.
• Charter schools provide a superior education to disadvantaged students: Children living in poverty in Coney Island face limited options. Coney Island Prep would help these students achieve their full potential and make a difference for their families, their communities, and for themselves.