Each day she goes to school, Hmong American Peace Academy senior Eva Vang feels so welcomed among her teachers and peers that she’s received awards for perfect attendance.
“Maybe it’s just because we’re at a predominately Hmong school, but we kind of connect in a lot of ways,” Vang said. “It’s easy to kind of relate to them and relate to the same experiences that we have.”
Aside from a brief stint at a different school in the third grade, Vang has spent each year since kindergarten at Hmong American Peace Academy, or HAPA. The Northwest Side charter school serves students from kindergarten to 12th grade with a curriculum rooted in Hmong cultural values and heritage.
In 2025, the Elementary School and Secondary Education Act Network recognized HAPA as a distinguished school for exceptional student performance and academic growth. It was one of only two Wisconsin schools to receive the national honor last year.
The school achieved the recognition largely through its efforts to address chronic absenteeism, retain teachers and expand their college and postsecondary career programs, HAPA Chief Academic Officer Brendan Kearney said.
Here’s how it did it.
‘Amazing sense of purpose’
Middle school English Language Arts teacher Austeen Yang is in her fourth school year at HAPA, and she said the school’s respect for teachers keeps her coming back.
“HAPA is amazing at asking for our advice and then making decisions based off of that advice,” Yang said.
Each year, the school solicits teacher feedback through annual surveys, then reports their findings and plans to respond to suggestions and concerns.
“I think it’s a really big part of the culture, and we’ve seen a lot of things change because of those surveys,” Yang said.
HAPA recently reported a 96% staff retention rate.
Sara Shaw, deputy research director at Wisconsin Policy Forum, said many schools across the state have struggled with teacher retention since the pandemic. The researchers observed a spike in teacher turnover going into the 2022-23 school year, and while numbers have decreased slightly, they’re still above pre-pandemic levels.
Shaw attributes the retention issues to both a change in labor market conditions, where inflation rose and it became more favorable for workers to negotiate employment elsewhere, and problems specific to education.
Shaw said the strains from COVID-19 caught up to a lot of teachers, who originally worked to support students during the pandemic but left when things became too difficult.
HAPA administration recognized that attracting and keeping good, quality teachers would be critical to accomplishing the school’s academic goals, Kearney said.
The school made several adjustments to meet the needs of new educators and returning teachers, including reducing minutes in the workday and the number of workdays in the calendar year. The school also made changes in compensation, class sizes and professional development opportunities, Kearney said.
“We won’t get done what we need to if we can’t keep good teachers in the building getting better year after year and serving our scholars,” Kearney said. “We don’t want our scholars to show up and see a bunch of new people.”
Something else that Yang appreciates about HAPA is the school’s focus on providing a culturally based education.
Yang, being of Hmong heritage, said she feels a “great, huge amazing sense of purpose” and connects with the school’s commitment to preserving and teaching Hmong cultural values.
Supportive teachers and postsecondary success
HAPA senior Angelina Yang, who’s attended the school since kindergarten, said she felt motivated to come to school this year because of HAPA’s Money Coach program, where senior students learn financial literacy skills.
“I don’t really have a strong knowledge or education on financial literacy,” Yang said. “Going to that program really helped me understand why it’s important to be present in that program because it betters me.”
Vang appreciates the school’s college and career office, which focuses on postsecondary success. She said the office helped her figure out what she wants to do after school and apply for colleges and scholarship opportunities.
“It is a time right now where it’s very overwhelming, but because we have such a great college and career team, they do support us a lot,” Vang said. “In a way, I think they did also kind of grow my expectations for college.”
Vang said she knew she wanted to go to college since her freshman year.
She has choices – she’s been accepted at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Loyola University and DePaul University. She’s looking to study medicine and become an emergency physician.
The office has also supported Yang, who plans to attend the University of Wisconsin-Madison next year.
“A lot of the students here are first generation,” Yang said. “Having that support really builds our self-esteem and making sure that we know what we want to do in the future and how we can go to college or enter the workforce.”
After seeing how transportation barriers to hospitals in Laos impacted her uncle during her freshman year, she decided to study health promotion and equity.
“That really made me recognize the health disparities in my community and in my family,” she said. “Going into health administration … would help me at least try to help remedy those uncertainties.”
Kearney said HAPA has invested in greater college support in the past five years.
Traditionally, counselors at the school helped students in a more one-size-fits-all fashion. Currently, the school has four college advisers, a coordinator and a director of college and careers who work to personalize the experience for each student and connect their work now with their post-graduation goals.
“The goal is that every student here leaves with a plan,” Kearney said. “For very many of them, it’s college, but we also support students who want to pursue career or technical education.”
Chronic absenteeism
Neither Yang nor Vang has struggled much with their attendance at HAPA. Still, the school has not been immune to chronic absenteeism, especially after the pandemic.
HAPA tackles absenteeism through a multi-tiered system of supports, a collaborative group of staff members that helps identify the causes of absenteeism and supports the scholar and their family, Kearney said.
“A big part of making that work has been investing in student services staff,” Kearney said. “Post-pandemic, we’ve added several staff members who can help to serve different parts of the scholar.”
The team helps design an intervention or support plan based on what’s causing the student to miss school. Sometimes that includes connecting students with social workers, counselors or helping those dealing with homelessness, Kearney said.
If a student hasn’t been to school in a while and can’t be reached on the phone, HAPA sends impact coaches to check on students at their homes.
Austeen Yang said the system works well for teachers because they talk with other educators about the student of concern and collaborate to address issues. When teachers have exhausted all their options for helping the student, the support team comes in to support students.
Kearney said the system came from teacher feedback.
“It’s a part of why we’ve invested in student services staff,” Kearney said. “When teachers are expected to do all things for all students, it becomes an unsustainable job.”
Angelina Yang said the supportive teachers keep her coming back and her attendance strong.
“HAPA does a really great job at hiring teachers who actually really care about their students and their well-being,” Yang said. “Having that support makes me feel more inclined to go just because I have a space that I know that I am welcome in.”
Alex Klaus is the education solutions reporter for the Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service and a corps member of Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues and communities. Report for America plays no role in editorial decisions in the NNS newsroom.
Jonathan Aguilar is a visual journalist at Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service who is supported through a partnership between CatchLight Local and Report for America.
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