Grounding Academic Excellence in Community

“By establishing a common language among our scholars across the network and creating daily opportunities to learn and practice, we have observed changes in their mindsets and behaviors, as well as an increased sense of belonging.”
— Uplift Education

Since opening its first campus in 1996, Uplift Education has grown into North Texas’s largest tuition-free public charter school network, serving more than 23,000 students across 20 campuses in the Dallas–Fort Worth area. Their mission extends beyond academic rigor. Uplift sees itself as a launching pad for underserved youth—preparing students to attend, thrive, and graduate from college while transforming their families and communities.  

Strengthening Scholars Through Family and Well-Being

Uplift’s whole-child approach centers on families as partners, integrating them fully into students’ learning journeys. Through their Family Engagement model, they host events like Family Learning Nights, classroom volunteering, and parent workshops—all designed to support students and strengthen relationships between homes and schools. Their campus web pages emphasize this culture of inclusion, inviting families to be active participants in their child’s education.

This family orientation complements and extends the school’s use of Social Emotional Learning (SEL) techniques and curriculum, which is embedded into everyday life in the school. Uplift’s team has developed systems that foster emotional awareness, resilience, and self-reflection—qualities that align with contemplative practices and support academic success. SEL is a practical, secular, backed-by-science strategy that shares similarities with contemplative practices. Both focus on self-awareness, emotional regulation, empathy, and reflection. 

Hemera’s Active Partnership

Since 2017, Hemera has partnered closely with Uplift’s Well-Being Department to strengthen this integrated model. Over the years, we have provided Uplift with $1,580,000. We support their efforts to marry rigorous academics with intentional SEL, supporting both students and educators. Uplift’s emphasis on teacher well-being—with reflective practice embedded in professional development—reinforces the link between staff emotional health and school-wide success. 

Uplift’s innovation includes the Voyager I mobile wellness center, affectionately known as the “Magic School Bus.” This custom vehicle rotates through campuses, offering students from Pre-K to 12th grade a dedicated space for daily wellness lessons that support self-awareness and emotional regulation.

Transformative Outcomes

Uplift’s model of combining academic expectations with emotional support delivers tangible results: a 100% college acceptance rate, double the college readiness of the regional average, and significantly higher persistence into a second year of college. More importantly, students gain a sense of belonging, confidence, and emotional resilience—preparing them not only for academic success but for a well-rounded life.

Through our partnership with Uplift, Hemera has seen how student-centered, family-inclusive, and emotionally rooted education can shape young people into compassionate, capable leaders. It is a model of school transformation that philanthropy can support—and learn from.