“Here I’m not a number, not a statistic.,” says Nataly Sanchez, recent graduate of LEAD Charter School in Newark. “My teachers always acknowledge us as individuals. Here we know that we matter.”

This approach is a sea change for this young woman. In a recent interview with Dr. Jerome Patterson, LEAD’s Manager of Student Support Services, Nataly clarifies the importance of this public school’s educational approach for students like her—”opportunity youth,” ages 16-21, out of school and unemployed—who have become disconnected from traditional school and career pathways. At LEAD, students like Nataly suddenly have access to an array of academic and social-emotional supports that can transform a personal trajectory from failure to success. 

Nataly has endured much: problems at home, several hospitalizations, and, of course, the multiple disruptions engendered by Covid-19. “I missed a lot of school, especially during my freshman and sophomore years [in her Newark district high school],” she recalled. “I missed some credits—a lot of us did. But I really tried to stay on top of it, always reaching out to my guidance counselors and teachers.” But with only two guidance counselors for the entire high school, she explained, and the “constant churn” of administrators, including a new principal each year, “lots of us got disconnected. Nothing was organized, they’d hand us new rules every year. But I had been told I was on track to graduate. I was told I was fine.”

Until she wasn’t. According to Nataly, in October 2023 she was informed that she didn’t have enough credits to graduate and the school was eliminating its credit recovery program. “You can’t be here,” a staff member told her, adding, ”the only place that will take you is LEAD.”

Yet LEAD Charter School, Dr. Patterson explains, is not simply a credit recovery program. Instead, it is an innovative model that provides rigorous academic and non-academic support through Individualized Development Plans (IDPs) geared towards each student’s needs, learning styles, and personal histories. IDPs are created during a “Mental Toughness” boot camp, an orientation period when students take diagnostic subject-specific tests (many arrive well below grade-level), participate in team-building and leadership exercises, meet with social workers and educators, and are acclimated to LEAD’s culture. “Every young person needs something different,” Dr. Patterson says. “Every student has the ability to be successful.”

For Nataly, this meant “I had to do a lot of writing” because each student is responsible during their Mental Toughness orientation for creating an autobiography in twelve chapters, writing one chapter each evening. “The closer I got to the end of the week, the closer I got to the end of my story. I was really excited to start again in a place where the teachers are their own selves, where they see us as individuals and always show that they know we matter. They acknowledge us for who we are.”

The staff at LEAD knows what their students need. During orientation, staff members gather data to inform instruction—”Data is very important,” remarks Dr. Patterson—including results on the state standardized tests, NWEA MAP interim assessments, and in-house assessments. This way teachers can meet students where they are and encourage them to own their personal progress. “We create excitement about testing by using social-emotional tools to get students invested in their own outcomes. It’s a proactive approach,” he explains. “We hire the best teachers who have the best pedagogy and are able to navigate and work with opportunity youth. Two of our graduates are back as alumni facilitators.”

In addition to developing student proficiency in typical school subjects, most students also sign up for Career and Technical Education (CTE). LEAD offers two CTE tracks: Allied Health and Construction. In this way, students are immediately employable, although they are also prepared for college.

For Nataly, this means she has graduated with a certification as a Medical Assistant although she has already been accepted to Rutgers. “I love medicine,” she says, “and I really want to study neuroscience.” She credits her success to LEAD. 

“Everyone is so eager to learn more and more,” Nataly explains. “We are never made to feel that we were behind and we were all aware that we are at different levels. Now we have the connections and the credentials to get a job and go to college. For the first time, I have a team behind me and I feel like I matter.”