Chattanooga Preparatory School keeps hitting new milestones as their varsity basketball team captured their third straight state championship title this past weekend in Murfreesboro.
It’s only the Sentinels fifth year of varsity basketball and they’re the first team in Chattanooga to achieve a three-peat.
With a victory on the basketball court now complete, the school is now preparing their students for success in life by hosting a college and career festival this week. The festival will be held on Wednesday from 9 a.m. until 1 p.m. in the school gymnasium.
Chief Executive Officer Troy Kemp said the fair will give students a glimpse of various opportunities as they prepare for the workforce or college.
“We want our students to connect to careers,” he said. “We have to prepare them for college and make sure they have different vocations to choose from. There are careers where you can make six figures in three years out of high school. You've got everything from medical to technical to engineering. So, our goal is to bring these resources in front of the kids because it's all about exposure.”
The all-boy free public charter school recently implemented a school “House,” system where students across all grades were placed into eight distinct “Houses.”
Kemp said it’s another method of reinforcing positive behavior and friendship.
The school had bracelets made for each house in different colors and placed them in paper bags along with plenty of celebratory confetti for a reveal party in the school’s gymnasium.
Each grade level was called up one at a time and the students got to pick one bag.
“And we counted down, three, two, one and the students tore open their bag to reveal their bracelet color to see which house they belonged to,” Kemp said. “The whole idea for the house system is to give students a family within a family, to make sure they’re on a team, and have a crew and a cause. Boys need to know they belong to something bigger than themselves, and they can contribute in a meaningful and measurable way.
Each house created their own team chant and song, received their house flags and their house T-shirts.
Kemp said students immediately bonded with their fellow house mates. Being able to achieve measurable results is a key component.
“We have house meetings, and then we have house competitions,” Kemp said. “We might have tug of war or have a box building contest. Some of it focuses on academics. They get house points for things like picking up trash, holding doors open, helping around the classroom. They also receive points for displaying good character or for effort.
Kemp said it allows students who may not always get high grades to be recognized.
“Now you have students that, regardless of their talent, get recognized,” he said. “It's being a good friend, being helpful, being respectful.”
The system is tied to a phone app that allows staff, educators and parents to be engaged in the students’ activities and point system.
In the school’s entranceway there is a digital leaderboard that displays the top point earners.
“That leaderboard is dynamic,” Kemp said. “It changes. Every student has a certain number of points. We have some with 229 points. They can redeem these points at our school store, for snacks and If you get enough points, you win a pair of Air Jordans.
Students can’t ask for points, they must be recognized by others and earned.
Kemp said the first time they held a meeting to see who had the top 10 house points, five of the students were students who got in trouble the most before they moved to the house system. “Now they're getting recognized for the right thing,” Kemp said. “You want your students to stand up for the right reason, not the wrong reason.”
They plan to expand the house teams to get the parents involved.
“Once we get the parents wearing the shirts, we'll have a family day,” he said. “And we'll have competitions that involve parents and students”
Something important happening at Chatt Prep right now is student recruitment for the 2026-2027 school year and the house system helps ease the stress of entering a new environment.
“Every child wants to belong,” he said. Anybody that goes to a new school or you're a new teacher at a new school or you're a new administrator, you move slowly. Because you're trying to figure out who you can trust.”
The new incoming students will also have a reveal party so they can begin to find their house family and make new friends.
“It creates immediate connection,” he said.
The students are invested in the program and have expressed how Chattanooga Preparatory has provided them with tools for their future.
Seniors Derrick Roberson and Marquis Gardner are members of the three-time championship basketball team. Roberson has been at Chattanooga Preparatory since sixth grade, enrolled in all the honors classes, and said the school helped him attain a full scholarship so he can play basketball at Freed Hardeman University. He said he plans to study either business management or exercise science.
Gardner, who also plays football has enlisted in the U.S. Naval Academy to study engineering or computer science while serving his country.
Sixth grader Owen Mendez said Chattanooga Preparatory has a diverse student body and allows students to have fun while learning. Already a member of the Student Council Mendez is considering a career in the medical field and hopes to attend the University of Tennessee Chattanooga, or Chattanooga State.