Rise Inspire Academy

Rise Inspire Academy is a very small alternative high school in San Antonio, TX, serving just 24 students in grades 9-12 and is part of the Inspire Academies district, which ranks in the bottom 10% of all Texas school districts. The most critical concern for parents is the school's catastrophically high dropout rate of 18.6% for the 2023-2024 school year, which is nearly four times higher than the district average and astronomically higher than every nearby school. For context, top-performing schools like Travis Early College High School and Young Women's Leadership Academy reported a 0.0% dropout rate, while even the next highest nearby school, Legacy of Educational Excellence High School, had a rate of just 4.8%.

Academic proficiency at Rise Inspire Academy is also extremely low across all tested subjects, with scores far below state averages. In the most recent data, Algebra I proficiency was 0% compared to the state average of 54%, U.S. History was 16.7% versus 70%, and English I Reading was 20% versus 55%. The only nearby school with comparable struggles is Triumph Public High Schools-San Antonio, but Rise Inspire Academy consistently performs lower. This is especially striking given that within a 2.5-mile radius, there are some of the highest-performing schools in the state, including Alamo Heights High School and Great Hearts Monte Vista North, highlighting a severe disconnect between this school and the educational opportunities available in the immediate area.

There was a brief glimmer of hope in the 2022-2023 school year when the school achieved its best performance, including a 1-star rating and its lowest dropout rate in recent years (10.9%), along with a 63% proficiency in U.S. History. However, this improvement was not sustained, and the school has since declined sharply. The student-teacher ratio has also fluctuated wildly, from 5:1 in 2022-2023 to 12.2:1 in 2023-2024, suggesting instability in staffing or enrollment. While the school serves a population where roughly 58% of students are economically disadvantaged, the nearby schools demonstrate that this demographic profile does not predetermine failure. Rise Inspire Academy appears to be struggling with both academic instruction and, more fundamentally, with keeping students enrolled and engaged.