Today, we are honored to introduce you to the extraordinary Christina Yi-Perry, Founder of Kwenda Collegiate Girls in Brooklyn, NY.
On August 31, the inaugural kindergarten class of girls skipped through the doors of Kwenda Collegiate Girls. When first graders joined them on September 2, the school welcomed 120 students in all, beginning the creation of what Founder Christina Yi-Perry calls “beautiful core memories.”
For Christina, a self-proclaimed advocate for gender equity and educational opportunity, the moment was the realization of an eight-year vision.
Delayed by the pandemic, complicated by charter-school politics, and sustained by unwavering community support, Kwenda’s opening was more than the launch of a new school. It was the answer to the question that had guided Christina’s work: What would happen if girls were not an afterthought in education, but the starting point?
“We wanted to design a school that fundamentally turns schooling on its head, all in the name of our girls,” said Christina.
Kwenda was founded with a mission to “create a joyful K-5 environment where girls explore, question, and bloom”.
Just weeks before opening, Kwenda celebrated a ribbon-cutting ceremony at its new home on Church Avenue in Flatbush, Brooklyn. Teachers recently completed the school’s inaugural Summer Institute and families toured classrooms that had existed only as plans and sketches for years.
From the beginning, Christina and her team envisioned a school that would radically reimagine what was possible for girls, one that would challenge conventions by putting their needs and strengths at the center.
Building a School Where Girls Are at the Center
Growing up in Atlanta, Christina experienced firsthand how dramatically educational opportunities could vary within the same city.
Her family rented a home in a county school district that fed into one of Georgia’s highest-performing public high schools. Many of the children she knew through church attended city schools that consistently ranked among the state’s lowest performing.
“The difference in outcomes for us just based on our zip code really didn’t sit well with me,” she said.
Initially, she imagined a career in law. Instead, after graduating from college, Christina joined Teach for America and began teaching special education at Forest Park High School outside Atlanta. The two-year commitment before law school became a lifelong career in education.
“Once I taught, I realized I wanted to be working in schools,” said Christina.
Over the next two decades, Christina served as a teacher, instructional coach, school leader, and network-level educator. Throughout those experiences, she observed a recurring pattern.
Even in schools filled with talented educators and supportive adults, Christina noticed that girls were often overlooked when leaders made decisions about interventions, behavior supports, and resources.
Because boys frequently showed higher rates of suspensions or disciplinary incidents, schools understandably focused their attention there. Yet girls’ needs often went unaddressed simply because they appeared less urgent by comparison.
“The girls were still experiencing challenges,” she said. “But because their numbers were lower than the boys’, they weren’t the focus.”
From Community Conversations to School Founding
After moving to Brooklyn in 2018, Christina found herself attending community meetings focused on rising violence in Flatbush and East Flatbush. The conversations were overwhelmingly centered on boys and men.
At one community meeting, she raised her hand and asked what supports existed for girls facing their own vulnerabilities. There were none. And, afterward, several educators and neighbors approached her to continue the discussion. Together they began imagining possibilities to include mentorship programs, after-school opportunities, and targeted supports for girls building to ask, “What if we started a school?”
The idea quickly evolved into Kwenda Collegiate Girls Charter School.
To refine the concept, she joined the Building Excellent Schools Fellowship, studying high-performing schools nationwide while developing Kwenda’s founding model. Kwenda is also a 2024 Seed Cohort of the Charter School Growth Fund.
Schools Require Advocacy
Approval, however, did not mean immediate opening. Although Kwenda had received authorization, the school remained stuck behind New York City’s charter-school cap. Months became years as Christina and her founding board organized families, built coalitions, met with elected officials, and fought for the opportunity to open a school that technically already existed on paper.
“I came into this work really naively,” she said. “I thought if families wanted the school and we had a great vision, then we’d open.”
Instead, she discovered that school leadership and advocacy are inseparable.
“This work is political,” she said. “You have to build relationships, tell your story, and make sure families’ voices are being heard.”
Defining Feminism in Practice
Kwenda proudly describes itself as a feminist college-preparatory school. Christina understands that the term can evoke different reactions from different people. She has found that when conversations move beyond labels and focus on values, families overwhelmingly agree.
Parents want their daughters to be confident. They want them to have agency. They want them to have choices, Christina said.
“When we talk about girls’ empowerment, confidence of voice, and girls making their own decisions about their lives and futures, parents love that,” she said.
For staff members, the mission has become a powerful recruitment tool, attracting educators excited to help define what feminism looks like in practice.
The School Is Finally Real
For Christina, the most meaningful part of opening week was seeing families who stayed committed through years of uncertainty. Many families who originally enrolled for kindergarten remained with Kwenda after the school’s opening was postponed.
“They trusted us enough to stay with us,” she said.
Kwenda means “go” in Swahili. And the staff and educators at Kwenda believe that girls deserve an education that provides the knowledge, skills, and habits to “go” wherever they want to in life.
“The one thing that’s remained constant is girls’ empowerment,” she said. “There’s still so much work to do around supporting, caring for, and empowering our girls. I hope Kwenda is just one example of what that can look like.”