Recently rebranded Rise Academy consolidates its mission around educating East End students

When Rise Academy students walk into Executive Director Brittany Lopes’ office, they’ll notice that she has a sign asking onlookers, “Are we doing what’s best for students, or are we doing what’s most convenient for us?”

That same question has shaped how Lopes has led the academy over the past year, working alongside Principal Moira Sallade. Neither has been in their current role for long — Sallade stepped in as principal in December, and Lopes became executive director in November after being the academy’s assistant principal and principal, respectively.

Rise Academy — a private Christian high school in the East End with 57 current students — was formerly known as Church Hill Academy until a 2023 rebrand aimed at making “newness acceptable,” as Lopes put it.

The new name reflects the school’s goal to uplift East End students. Though the academy continues to prepare students with the same earnestness, the rebrand signaled a new chapter, trimming some of its offerings outside its core mission.

“The heart of the organization is the same, but there’s beauty in evolution,” Lopes said.

Rise Academy will say farewell to its 16 seniors during its graduation on Friday. Sallade said those soon-to-be graduates cumulatively earned $3 million in scholarships and were accepted into 200 universities.

Financial model

Rise Academy is unique from other private schools because its money isn’t sourced from tuition but “the generosity of people who believe in our mission,” Lopes said, which includes donors. A large part of Lopes’ job is reaching out to community members and networking with potential contributors to Rise Academy.

Sallade said tuition is a sliding scale. According to the academy’s website, the base rate is $23,000, but students’ tuition is often reduced or nonexistent using need-based scholarships. These are calculated based on the student’s household income relative to the number of people that income supports. In 2023, 33.2% of Rise Academy’s census tract lived in poverty — nearly double the city’s 17.1%. Lopes said the majority of Rise Academy students are tuition-free. 

Offering free tuition at a private institution comes with financial constraints, so school leadership had to be strategic about where additional funds went. Rise Richmond, which oversees the academy, was split into three branches: Rise Academy, Rise After School — which serves 45 students, kindergarten through eighth grade — and Rise Labs. Last summer, the organization redirected funding from Rise Labs — a program where students could explore professions like barista or screenprinter through its now-closed cafe and print shop — into the academy, cementing it as Rise Richmond’s top priority. 

Sallade and Lopes said they supported this plan, and the money was redirected into Rise Academy’s college and career readiness programs. The goal was to expose students to a broader range of careers through the academy’s curriculum. In seeing this change through, Sallade and Lopes doubled down on the school’s mission, which is present in the rebrand: set students up for post-graduation success while building a sustainable organization involved in its community.

“No matter who you are, what your standing is, you will have a great education when you leave here,” Sallade said.

Adding mindfulness and meditation

With the help of science teacher Courtney Barber, the academy revamped its religious offerings to students to increase involvement. This included letting students take the lead. This more collaborative environment has, in Sallade’s words, created a “meaningful, meditative moment.”

“Kids are coming and figuring out what their personal walk of faith looks like,” Sallade said. “It’s not prescribed to them. It’s their choice and their path.”

Another Rise Academy educator who has taken the lead on exposing students to greater mindfulness is health and physical education teacher Josh McDonald. Like Sallade and Lopes, it’s his first year in his role, though he first got to know Rise Academy as Church Hill Academy as an intern.

During his classes, McDonald leads students in meditation to help them slow down and be in the moment.

“I just felt the differences it was making for me, so naturally I just wanted to pass that along to my kids,” McDonald said. 

“One thing that surprised me is how quickly the kids gravitated toward it.”

Students aren’t the only ones meditating. Sometimes other Rise Academy leaders and educators, including Sallade and Lopes, will drop into class. Lopes, a former collegiate soccer player, played a game with McDonald’s students — something she laughingly said she’s just recently recovered from.

While teaching at Rise Academy, McDonald said the school leadership's engagement with students has stunned him. He said leaders have taken time to know each person, which impressed him in a line of work where it’s easy to “copy and paste.” McDonald hadn’t noticed the same attention and care as a Church Hill Academy intern.

“I can feel the leadership as opposed to seeing it in emails or mantra and things like that,” he said. “I can feel it throughout the building and throughout the day.”

In Sallade’s experience, the school’s small student body creates a sense of closeness. She’s gotten to know students’ families — even their grandparents — and said students often call out her name and joke with her in the hallways. 

This “personal touch,” as Sallade puts it, is something she said wouldn’t be possible in a larger public or private school, and it’s part of what makes Rise Academy special.

“There’s no other place like Rise Academy,” Sallade said. “When you walk into this building, there’s a presence and an energy about this building, about the kids, about the teachers. You can’t replicate it in any other place. It’s palpable. The kids feel it. You can walk down the hallway and see the genuine kids that they are, warts and all. They are beautiful people. I feel honored to work in such an environment [that] I truly feel is making a difference for kids every day.”

Contact Reporting Intern Eleanor Shaw at eshaw@richmonder.org