(upbeat music) - Hi, I am Jacqui Tricarico, Senior Correspondent for "One-on-One," and I'm so pleased to be joined now by Ashley Jiles, who is the principal of Speedway Avenue School in Newark, New Jersey.

Great to have you with us, Principal Jiles.

- It's great to be here.

Thank you.

- Well, you've been principal now for four years, right?

- Yes, this is my fourth year.

- Fourth year.

Tell us about that journey for you.

I know you started off substitute teaching in the city of Newark.

Was the goal always to get to a leadership position like this?

- No.

The goal was to service children.

I started off as a substitute teacher.

Actually before I was a substitute teacher, I was a student teacher through the Rutgers program, and I worked at Oliver Street School, and then I became a substitute teacher once I was finished with my internship.

And from there, I was offered a full-time position.

I went over to Luis Muñoz Marin as a special ed teacher.

I taught ERI for about four or five years.

I was an academic interventionist there as well.

And then I transitioned to Dr. Horton as a vice principal.

I was there for two years.

And then I've been here at Speedway as a principal ever since.

So, nope, I did not intend to, you know, assume any leadership role.

But when your heart is in the work and people see great things in you, they push that.

- Tell us about Speedway Avenue School.

Describe it for us and why you fell in love with that school and why it's been so important for you to dedicate your time there as a principal.

- Absolutely.

So, Speedway is a pre-K3 through eighth grade school.

We're home to about 550 students.

And our philosophy is "Good, better, best.

Never let it rest until your good is better and your better is your best."

And I think that motto sticks with me and everything that I do.

And our goal at the school, which is to make sure that our students are equipped for high school, college, and their careers.

We're home of the Phoenix, The Phoenix is known to rise out of the ashes.

So, we're resilient and we keep pushing.

- Well, part of that equation is definitely the parent-caregiver support of the students.

And sometimes that's so difficult for parents.

I know that firsthand.

I can't even imagine when people have two, three jobs and being able to still help their kids after school or even volunteer for school functions and things like that.

But I know that's an important part of what you all are doing through the Parent Mentor Academy.

Why was something like that important for you to start to really help those parents get involved with their kids' academic life?

- Great question.

So the Parent Mentor Academy through Rutgers University was actually near and dear to my heart because it's all about literacy.

So, in alignment with our 10-year strategic plan with Mayor Baraka's 10-point literacy initiative to address the learning gaps, and especially in students between the grade ages of pre-K to third grade, this partnership was super important.

So what we do at Rutgers is we actually hire some of our parents, either parents of the community, parents at our school, and Rutgers pays them to not only come and support the lowest percentile of students in each of the classrooms, but then we, as a school, we provide professional development through one of our master teachers.

So, every week on Mondays, all of our parent mentors work with one of our teachers, Ms. Tallis.

They give her what's happening with their students academically, and she gives them strategies and tools to use in the classroom.

So, the partnership is beneficial to both parties.

Parents get in the door, they learn, they see what's going on with their children, and then they gain tools and strategies to be able to support their students, not only in school but at home as well.

- And you talked about reading literacy, we've seen that still, you know, based on state testing, national testing, that our students still aren't back to pre-pandemic numbers when it comes to reading proficiency.

And that's something that you there at Speedway Avenue School really take into consideration when helping your students with reading.

Talk about how you're making sure that your students are engaged and wanting to read and learning to love to read.

Because we all know that that's where the reading really comes from, right?

That love for reading.

And I know you're doing a couple unique fun things for them at the school.

- Yes, so we were super excited to kick off our Phoenix Library Express, which is actually a book vending machine, located right in the front of our main hallway.

We got it the week of Read Across America.

So that was super special.

We actually surveyed the students to see... We did an unveiling because they had no idea, but we also surveyed the students to see what text they were into, what they wanted us to order.

We ordered those books, and all students have access to it.

So, there's actually a little coin that they use and they put it in the machine and they can pick whatever book book that they like.

In March, we placed a large order with Scholastics for about $3,000 worth of books, and it's already... We have to put it in another order.

So the kids love it, the families love it.

It even got our parents engaged.

We have organizations that have been donating new books for us to keep the library refreshed.

So you can see, if you check us out on Instagram, NPS_Speedway, our students are super excited, from the babies all the way up to middle school.

And that was one of the ways that we try to just make sure that students have that love of reading and that they have choice in what they get to read.

- I love that.

I love that idea.

Something unique and different to get them excited again.

- Yes.

- Principal Jiles, you said that it takes a village.

And it really does in so many aspects of life, but especially running a school like yours, an elementary school.

Talk about what you mean by that and who your village consists of.

- Okay, so my village is everybody from custodial staff, security guards, paraprofessionals, teachers, social workers, everyone that is involved in the school building, but also parents, community members.

We have partnerships with Rutgers, Montclair, communities in schools.

The list goes on and on, but everybody has to work together for the greater of good of our students.

We know that we cannot do this work without the support of our parents and community members.

And it's important to get the community members and the families in the door.

So we're always hosting events, workshops, just different events to make sure everybody gets to see what's going on in schools and that they can support.

We have afterschool enrichment programs.

From the Excel program, which is robotics, basket-weaving, sign language, baking, bowling, to sports, soccer, track, basketball, cheerleading, majorette, you name it, we have it.

And I think that one thing that we do unique here is that we survey.

We survey our parents, we survey our students, we survey our staff, and we see what the needs are in the community and we all work together to make it happen.

- I think the key word you said there is support.

Supporting our teachers, supporting our educational support staff, supporting our principals.

So important.

Principal Ashley Jiles, thank you so much for joining us today.

We really appreciate it.

- Thank you for having me.

- Thank you to our Senior Correspondent Jacqui Tricarico, and for Jacqui, and our entire team here at One-on-One, we thank you so much for watching.

See you next time.

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