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On the day before Christmas, when others took paid vacation, Richard Moten walked onto a median on San Felipe Street, near the wealth of the Galleria. He flashed his white poster at drivers, the message in capital letters.

One day in the summer before fifth grade, Courtney Scott was jumping rope with a friend outside her family's West Philadelphia rowhouse when her parents called her inside to meet a stranger. The visit was not the only thing about KIPP Philadelphia Charter School that would be different.

Applications flooded the PEOPLE offices when we asked you to nominate candidates for our first Teacher of the Year competition....Arwen Imai Matthews teaches introductory physics and chemistry to 8th graders at KIPP 3D Academy Middle School in Houston.

Here's how it all started. A decade ago, in my final year of graduate school, I met two educators, Dave Levin, of the KIPP charter school network, and Dominic Randolph, of Riverdale Country School. Though they served students at opposite ends of the socioeconomic spectrum, both understood the importance of character development. They came to me because they wanted to provide feedback to kids on character strengths. Feedback is fundamental, they reasoned, because it's hard to improve what you can't measure.

Inside the crisp, brick walls of Arthur Ashe Charter, students study math independently in state-of-the-art computer labs, blow off steam with in-class exercise breaks and take cooking lessons using vegetables grown in the school garden. Ashe is a public school with mostly poor students in a neighborhood swallowed and spit out by the floods of Hurricane Katrina.

"These awards reflect the hard work and grit our students and staff show all year long," said Maisie Wright, school director. "At KIPP, we set the bar high, and are committed to doing whatever it takes to see our students achieve. These recognitions are a good indicator of the success that is possible with that kind of commitment."

One of the nation's largest charter school organizations has announced an ambitious expansion plan to more than double its enrollment in the Los Angeles area over the next six years. KIPP LA now operates 11 schools that serve about 4,000 students; by 2020, the organization wants to grow to 9,000 students in 20 schools.

KIPP KC has rented space in the old Metropolitan Community College Pioneer Campus building at 18th and Prospect Avenue in Kansas City for eight years. Now, the charter middle school has bought the entire 95,000-square foot property as it embarks on a larger expansion plan.

At KIPP Academy Charter School in the Bronx, where 100 percent of students are from minority backgrounds, the KIPP ethos of college prep, including qualities like grit and persistence, helps students transcend challenging environmental factors that may hold back their peers in less rigorous schools.

KIPP Delta Public Schools and local public school districts will continue "KIPP Through College," a partnership designed to increase the number of students in the region pursuing college. For the past two school years, "KIPP Through College" has advised students and their families in the Helena-West Helena and Lee County school districts with college guidance.