Covenant Preparatory School opened in 2008.  It is one of 70 schools throughout the country that make up the NativityMiguel Network. The NativityMiguel Network serves 5,000 students in 27 states providing struggling families in impoverished neighborhoods with an option to obtain high quality education for their children.  Covenant Prep is one of 10 Nativity Miguel schools in the Northeast.  Covenant Prep:

• Is a tuition-free independent day school for boys grades 5 through 8;

• Serves African American (35%), Latino (40%), West Indian (17%), Mixed Race (6%), and Asian (2%) boys from the greater Hartford area.  The majority of the students qualify for the Federal Free-Reduced Lunch Program;

• Requires that parents/guardians commit to be actively involved in the school and support their child’s academic experience by providing transportation, cleaning the school, and providing lunches for teachers and volunteers.  Students, parents and the school sign a “covenant” promising to fulfill their respective obligations;

• Is founded on the goodwill of committed volunteers:  AmeriCorps Volunteer Teachers, experienced professional teacher-mentors, community partners and individual volunteers;

• Partners with community organizations and higher educational institutions to provide enrichment opportunities and professional expertise in academic curriculum, art, music, library, athletics, field trips, tutors, and mentors; 

• Is a highly structured, academically challenging, safe environment that enables students to learn and thrive;

• Provides personal attention and guidance to its students, small single-gender classes, a 5:1 student teacher ratio, a maximum total number of students of 60, a traditional liberal arts education, in addition to after school programs and evening study;

• Provides an extended school day commencing at 7:30am with morning cleanup, afterschool athletics, clubs (math, art, video, music, chess), as well as Evening Study from 6:30pm to 8:30pm.  Requires mandatory summer school and summer camp;

• Provides athletic and cultural enrichment outside of the inner city and greater Hartford Community;

• Provides a global interfaith curriculum with an emphasis on character development, ethics, community service and an appreciation of cultural differences;

• Requires students to take the same standardized testing, the MAP Test, as other middle schools; 

• Is a part of the NativityMiguel Network of Schools from which 79% of alumni graduate high school in 4 years and 49% of whom graduate from college or trade institutes (20% higher than the national average for low income students);

• Receives very little federal, and no state or religious, funding.  It exists because of the generosity of individual donors, chartable foundations/grants, in-kind support of many volunteers, corporate, community and education partners and the AmeriCorps program.

• Graduated its first class of 8th graders in June 2011.  All students in that class were accepted into private or parochial schools including Avon Old Farms, Kingswood-Oxford, Kent School, Watkinson School, Loomis Chaffee, Northwest Catholic, Marvelwood School, Williston Northampton School, and East Catholic High School.