About
Intrinsic’s mission is to create a revolutionary new school model to prepare all students for post-secondary success and world-changing endeavors and provide the education community with a roadmap to sustainable implementation. Intrinsic is a charter school network currently operating two campuses in Chicago. The school focuses on personalized and blended learning to place students at the appropriate level regardless of age or traditional grade. Intrinsic utilizes technology and nontraditional classroom structures to provide independent and collaborative work opportunities and individualized lessons.
Grantee Performance
Why We Invested
A Better Chicago continues to be impressed by Intrinsic’s compelling, innovative, and blended learning model, which has produced promising student outcomes and its commitment to ongoing improvement. Intrinsic continues to achieve above benchmark outcomes across SAT scores, high school graduation rates, and college enrollment rates. Over the past two years, Intrinsic has grown to serve more students with expansion to its new Downtown campus, and Intrinsic is now serving approximately 1,400 students between its two campuses. The Intrinsic team remains focused on optimizing its leadership team, financial modeling, and operations. In addition, it has launched new post-secondary supports to help recent graduates navigate the current challenging college and employment environment.
Looking Ahead
Intrinsic will continue to prioritize growth and improvements to operations and culture. Intrinsic will continue to expand into its new Downtown campus over the next couple of years and will ultimately serve over 2,000 students between its two campuses. As Intrinsic grows to serve more students, it will need to hire more teachers and staff. In addition, the organization will be focusing on optimizing school culture to make Intrinsic the most attractive school to work for in Chicago.
Our Impact
- School growth accelerator: Intrinsic’s leadership team participated in an intensive cohort-based training program led by Achievement First to help schools like Intrinsic grow to scale with quality, a particularly important initiative given the recent opening of Intrinsic’s Downtown campus. A Better Chicago covered 75% of the cost.
- Financial modeling: Intrinsic pursued support from Afton Partners, LLC to develop a flexible and responsive financial modeling tool and communication plan that allows for greater staff input. A Better Chicago covered 75% of the cost of the project.
- Leadership team development: Given Intrinsic’s recent growth across multiple campuses, much of it during the COVID-19 pandemic, Intrinsic worked with inTerract Consulting to build a more effective and unified leadership team and achieve improved role clarity, decision-making rights, and performance management systems. A Better Chicago covered 75% of the cost of the project.