Jeremiah Newell

Part-time jobs for high school students rarely last 15 years.

But for Dr. Jeremiah Newell, Ed.L.D. ’15, his start at the Mobile Area Education Foundation (MAEF) as a high school junior became the launching pad to a career in education that, aside from an interlude to earn his doctorate in educational leadership at Harvard, has occurred entirely at MAEF.

At a time when it’s common for education leaders to serve short stints, Newell’s commitment to seeing long-term growth in the city where he was born is paying off. In a few months, Newell will open the doors to Accelerate Day and Evening Academy (ACCEL), Alabama’s first charter school, which he hopes will be a model for sharing innovative practices rather than fostering the type of district-charter competition that happens in many other communities.

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