(upbeat music) - Recently, my colleague, Mary Gamba and I, on our series "Lessons in Leadership," sat down with Dr. Dionne Ledford, who's the executive director and the superintendent of Roseville Community Charter Schools.

We talked to Dr. Ledford about the keys to successful urban education institution like the Roseville Community Charter Schools.

We talked about her passion for education, the fact that her two parents were educators, public school teachers in New York City, the impact it had on her, a teacher in her life who influenced her trajectory.

She was not planning to go into education herself.

Dr. Ledford talks about that teacher, the impact that teacher had on her life, and the fact that right now Dr. Ledford is one of the leaders in education in this state, in this nation.

Here's that conversation, right now.

Dr. Ledford, great to have you with us.

- Thank you, it's great to be here.

- You got it.

The website's up right now.

Tell us what Roseville Community Charter Schools are all about.

- So Roseville Community Charter School is a public charter school, K to four originally, but we were just approved for grade five.

So we are a K through five public charter school in the great state of New Jersey, of course, in the city of Newark.

But we serve children within the city of Newark and the surrounding areas.

So not all of our children are residents of Newark, but the majority are.

- Y our passion for education, urban education, and frankly educational leadership comes from where?

- Well, that's a good question.

I have a legacy of educators in my family.

Both my parents were New York City public educators.

My father, by way of being a professional athlete and being injured early in his career, that's why education is so important, had a Plan B, that he was able to fall back on, which was education.

So both of my parents are retirees of the New York City public school system.

So I could say that's kind of where I get it from.

But I would also say that when I was at Hampton University, psychology major, I minored in special education.

So I took some education courses, but I said I was not gonna follow my parents' footsteps.

And so- - (laughs) What happened?

And then they put me in the laboratory school to do my rotation, and I got to meet a teacher by the name of Miss Littlejohn.

- Say it again 'cause we're big fans of recognizing, Miss Littlejohn?

- Miss Littlejohn, who was the teacher of the integrated preschool program at the laboratory school at Hampton University.

And she changed my whole mindset with regard to teaching and particularly teaching children with special needs.

- You know what I'm thinking?

Ms. Hoffman, my first grade teacher at Ridge Street School in Newark, in the North Ward, the great city of Newark, who's been long gone, Ms. Hoffman.

Thank you Ms. Hoffman.

Go ahead, Mary.

- Oh, I'm thinking about Ms. Sager.

She was my kindergartner first grade teacher back in the day in Fords, New Jersey.

So I think everyone has that teacher in their lives that just has impacted them.

And speaking of impact, one initiative that, one of many initiatives that we were looking into, and I'm fascinated by and I wanna look down, the SELF & Wellness Initiative, and self stands for social, emotional, learning, fun, and Wellness Initiative.

Talk about that and what type of skills the SELF & Wellness program is providing for the students.

- I'm so glad you asked about that because that is my, this like my baby.

So when I first started in this role, I knew the importance of social emotional learning well before it was really something that became a new initiative with regard to education.

I had always been a special educator.

So I understood the impact of social emotional wellness on academic achievement and school performance and success in school and success in life.

So when I came here, the first thing I did was I shifted the title that used to, it was a title that was called like Dean of Discipline or something like that in the school.

And I spoke to the board about, can I hire a behaviorist instead, because I know the importance of understanding the function of behavior.

It's not so much extinguishing the behaviors that we don't wanna see.

It's understanding the function of the behavior and then replacing it with a more socially acceptable, productive behavior, because we all have those.

We all have behaviors that we do it because we get what we want from these behaviors, right?

So the more we get what we want from these behaviors, the more we repeat it.

And that can be negative reinforcement or positive reinforcement.

So the SELF & Wellness program grew from that.

We were very lucky to be able to write a grant.

I wrote a grant back in 2020, and the dates I give you are going to, it's gonna start to make you think like, hmm, it's almost like I knew something.

But in January of 2020, I wrote this grant, and the Victoria Foundation in Newark Trust for Education granted us $50,000 to start this program.

And I titled it Social Emotional Learning, Fun and Wellness.

And then I was like, oh, it's SELF & Wellness, which talks about self-care, wellness, mental health, social emotional development, all of those things.

And then two months later we had a global pandemic.

Right?

So we had to shift gears, but we continued that program even virtually.

And that was our lifeline for our families.

Our SELF & Wellness program became, I didn't know it at the time, became the lifeline and the connection that we maintained through the tech, my technology plan, which who knew, was to have every child have a laptop.

Who knew?

I did that back in the fall of 2019.

I knew that I wanted every child to have a laptop because I felt like in this community, not every child has access to technology, like in some other communities.

And thank goodness I did, because that was our lifeline to that.

So the SELF & Wellness program provides weekly yoga, mindfulness art that's integrated into our art lessons.

It's parent university, I started here, where it educates our parents on how to support their children and their education.

So there's a lot of components to our SELF & Wellness program.

- We've been doing a lot of programming on urban education and what seems to be working and also what doesn't work.

Along those lines.

A few of the keys to the success of your children and teachers include?

- Well, I'm gonna start with our CHEER values.

Our CHEER values are collaboration, honesty, excellence, effort, and respect.

So they're the cornerstone of our program here.

We believe here at Roseville Community Charter School that every child can be college bound or if not college bound can be successful in life, as long as they are nurtured.

So the environment must be nurturing.

So that's why the SELF & Wellness program is so important to me to have in place here.

It's about community though also.

So a corner stone of our school, we have the word community in our name.

So community is also very important.

And so our scholars do a lot of community service, but also civic leadership is important, because in order for communities to thrive, you have to have, you have to have leadership.

And it should be homegrown leadership.

And so I would say that those are the key attributes of our school.

But also I think there are key attributes really, that children need to have in order for them to be successful in life.

- Well said.

You've just been listening to and watching Dr. Dionne Ledford, executive director and superintendent Roseville Community Charter Schools.

Dr. Ledford, thank you so much for joining us.

We appreciate it.

- Thank you so much, Steve, I appreciate it.

I appreciate this opportunity.

- We got it.

Thank you so much.

We'll have you back again.

For Mary and myself, stay with us.

We'll be right back after this.

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