The way Connor Kids Academy director Alex Klein sees it, the program he oversees has 1,000 days to make a game-changing impact on the middle school boys it serves.
It’s a critical time in their lives, perhaps the most critical. And CKA’s sole purpose is to use sports as a hook to teach the boys how to create healthy habits and make great choices. The program does it while working upstream against peer pressure, social media, hormones and quickly-developing brains.
In that context, 1,000 days might not seem like much. But the program is making the most of the time it has with the boys. And as it grows from start-up to a scalable model with a proprietary curriculum of its own, Alex and his team are starting to see CKA’s true impact.
“We have a fifth-grader here in Dayton who signed up after I went and talked at his school,” Alex said. “This was a kid no one was investing in; and it was obvious. But he showed the initiative. He heard the word ‘basketball’ and he wanted in. So we’ve invested in him and he’s become one of our five-start students.
“He’s seeing the connection between hard work and rewards and outcomes. The impact has been remarkable. This is the exact kid we were created to serve.”
Each new cohort of CKA kicks off with a three-day basketball camp held with a local college program. During the camp the boys learn five lessons taught by teachers and reinforced by mentors. Examples from this years camps include How to be a Good Man, How to Pick Five-Star Friends, Owning up When You Mess Up, How to Read an Ingredients Label and How Having a Routine Puts You in Control.
Students will spend the next year interacting with CKA’s app, which reinforces these lessons and allows them to earn rewards. There are also two other events in each market every year. Alex and his team have created more than 1,000 pieces of content for the app, and 73% of students interact with it weekly.
“This app has really pushed growth and habits in my child,” one parent recently said. “Connor Kids Academy has been amazing and my son has learned so much and I see him challenging himself to do great things. I’ve just seen such an improvement in his maturity. It’s been a blessing.”
CKA serves 214 kids in Dayton, Cincinnati and Louisville. Next year it will serve more than 300 kids in four cities. By 2027 it will be in six markets. With growth comes more attention –The Dayton Daily News recently featured the program – and more data.
Early metrics indicate that CKA can prove not just a positive correlation, but causation, between program participation and grades, behaviors, self-confidence and physical health.
“This past summer was the most impactful concentrated experience our kids have had,” Alex said. “We’ve figured out how to find hiqh quality teachers, coaches, staff and mentors who can truly impact the lives of the kids. We’re serving more kids and the kids we’re serving are more engaged and we’ve created operational practices that will allow this thing to effectively scale.”