Dr. Howard Fuller Collegiate Academy Secures Over $1.6 Million to Strengthen Its North Side K4–12 Pathway, From Early Literacy Through College Completion

MILWAUKEE – September 30, 2026 – Dr. Howard Fuller Collegiate Academy (HFCA) secured over $1.6 million at its third annual Gala, where about 300 families, community members and partners gathered on Wednesday, Sept. 23. The theme, Level Up, honored the school’s growth journey over the past two years, which has expanded to include an elementary school, middle school and high school. Now a unified K4–12 network, HFCA serves approximately 1,100 students across three campuses on Milwaukee’s north side. The money raised will support HFCA’s scholars through every stage of their education: learning to read in the early grades; building confidence and academic ownership in middle school; preparing for college and careers in high school; and finishing college through Fuller Forward, HFCA’s support program for alumni. The funds will also expand professional development for teachers, so every HFCA classroom delivers best-in-class instruction.

HFCA’s growth responds to a citywide literacy crisis. On the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress, only 9% of Milwaukee Public Schools fourth graders read proficiently, the second-lowest result among the nation’s large urban districts. HFCA opened in 2004 as a single high school. By expanding to serve children beginning at age four, HFCA can now build reading skills from the start instead of trying to close gaps once students reach high school.

“That ranking belongs to the adults who built the system. It says nothing about what lives inside a child,” said Dr. Rodney Lynk Jr., CEO of HFCA. “We couldn’t just wait for children to reach us at fourteen. Now we shape a child’s journey for fourteen years instead of four. A child who reads on grade level in third grade at HFCA does not have to be rescued in tenth.”

Leveling Up Student Performance

HFCA’s results show the literacy crisis is solvable. On Wisconsin’s academic growth measure, HFCA improves test scores faster than 68% of Wisconsin schools. Scholars who arrive furthest behind are posting double-digit growth in English and math, gains that outpace the state. In the last year alone, HFCA nearly doubled its English and math scores.

A Scoreboard that Proves Every Promise

Since its founding, HFCA’s mission has been to send its scholars to and through college. Loved, Literate, and Liberated is the framework HFCA uses to raise the bar on that mission, with measurable goals for each part:

• Loved: Every scholar is known by name, safe in every room, and held to a high standard. It is measured by attendance and by how many students and staff stay.
• Literate: Every child reads, and reads on time, because every other subject depends on it. It is measured by reading proficiency, annual growth and ACT scores.
• Liberated: Scholars leave with the freedom that literacy and a college degree make possible. In Lynk’s words, that means a scholar “who can read a lease, a job offer and a ballot … building a life they author instead of a life they inherit.” It is measured by how many graduates finish college and come home to lead.

“Our mission has never changed,” Lynk said. “This year we put a scoreboard next to each of those three words, because a promise you cannot measure is a wish.”

HFCA’s college promise remains intact after 22 years. More than 90% of HFCA seniors graduate, in a city where less than 70% of Black students finish high school, and 100% of HFCA graduates are accepted to college.

Invested in Milwaukee’s Future

HFCA honored three partners who have helped make these student outcomes possible:

• Christy Walton, Visionary Leadership, for her longstanding support of HFCA, including her 2022 capital gift of $1.5 million through Innovaciones Alumbra, her philanthropic and investment organization, which helped build HFCA’s new high school. Walton gifted the school $250,000 prior to her arrival and, inspired by a pre-Gala tour of the new elementary school, invested an additional $100,000 during the event.
• Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Milwaukee, Community Impact, for its Community Learning Center at HFCA, where afterschool homework help, tutoring, enrichment and mentoring are shown to strengthen academic performance.
• HFCA’s Founders, Legacy: Dr. Howard Fuller and the eight Milwaukee clergy who founded the school with faith in 2004. Their vision of a single high school born in a church basement now reaches from K4 through college completion across three campuses, including state-of-the-art facilities.

Walton’s investment was one of two major gifts that anchored the Gala’s record total. Keith Mardak and Mary Vandenberg made a three-year, $525,000 commitment renewing their operating support for the recording studios at HFCA’s high school and middle school campuses. Through their pivotal support, Mardak and Vandenberg have committed more than $6 million to HFCA, and HFCA’s middle school campus bears their name.

“This generosity is a vote of confidence in Dr. Lynk, our leadership team and what our scholars are proving every day,” said Michelle Nettles, chair of the HFCA board. “Milwaukee’s children cannot afford for adults to move slowly, and our HFCA community refuses to give up on what our young scholars can make possible for themselves and our city’s future.”

Photos and interviews: Photos from the Gala and HFCA’s recording studios are available on request. HFCA leaders, scholars and Fuller Forward alumni are available for interviews.

About Dr. Howard Fuller Collegiate Academy
Dr. Howard Fuller Collegiate Academy (HFCA) was founded in 2004 as a single high school by Dr. Howard Fuller and eight Milwaukee community clergy. It is a public charter school authorized by the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee Office of Charter Schools. Today, HFCA is a K4–12 network serving approximately 1,100 scholars across three campuses on Milwaukee’s north side: HFCA Elementary School, HFCA Middle School – Mardak Vandenberg Campus, and HFCA High School. HFCA’s mission is to send its scholars to and through college, guided by its framework for ensuring scholars are Loved, Literate, and Liberated. More than 90% of HFCA seniors graduate, 100% are accepted to college, and through Fuller Forward, HFCA continues to support its graduates as they complete college and begin their careers. Learn more at www.hfca.org.

NOTE: This press release was submitted to Urban Milwaukee and was not written by an Urban Milwaukee writer. While it is believed to be reliable, Urban Milwaukee does not guarantee its accuracy or completeness.

Recent Press Releases by Dr. Howard Fuller Collegiate Academy

Dr. Howard Fuller Collegiate Academy awarded $100,000 in national Yass Prize competition

Dec 5th, 2025 by Dr. Howard Fuller Collegiate Academy

HFCA will use prestigious national award to support students and the community

$25 million capital campaign a “beacon” for educating Milwaukee children

Jul 18th, 2022 by Dr. Howard Fuller Collegiate Academy

Dr. Howard Fuller Collegiate Academy seeks to expand enrollment to 500 students with new high school facility