High Profile: CECELIA ROGERS

Charleston Development Academy Charter School director born to be a teacher

Charleston Development Academy Charter School director born to be a teacher

Cecelia Rogers has loved teaching for as long as she can remember. As a very young girl living on the east end of Calhoun street, she often played teacher. And before she was 12, she was helping teach Sunday school at Ebenezer AME Church.

So, it's not too surprising that early mornings find Rogers greeting kindergarten through fifth-grade students as they start the school day. The students under her care constantly use words such as "please," "thank you" and "excuse me."

Rogers, director of Charleston Development Academy Charter School, praises the students for specific achievements, large and small. She also calls their achievements to the attention of almost anyone present. She's like a cheerleader championing the home team.

"Isn't that something? Isn't that something?" Rogers asks at every opportunity. You get the feeling that she has no trouble envisioning bright futures for each of them. She's on a mission and just knows that failure is not an option.

Keith Waring, a financial adviser and member of the charter school's governance board, was attracted to assist because of Rogers' personal drive. Rogers and others in the community were organizing the school when Waring became involved.

Charleston Development Academy was founded in 2003 to serve economically and socially disadvantaged children who live in Gadsden Green, a city of Charleston Housing Authority project, and the surrounding area. About 75 percent of the 105 students live in that area, and many others are the children of professionals who work downtown.

"I knew her commitment to education," says Waring, who describes Rogers as having more than an exceptional level of commitment and capacity to nurture the students. He says everything she does is grounded in her love for the children and that they sense it.

"I have seen her walk into a class and see a child raise her hand and ask (Rogers) if she can have a hug. She'll say 'Sure darling' and the next thing you know, 15 children are gathered around her and she looks like a beehive."

She has definitely created an environment for learning, Waring says.

Rogers has taken the vision, to raise the comprehension levels of the children and make sure they test above the Adequate Yearly Progress level under the federal No Child Left Behind initiative, and is succeeding, he says.

"Parents, staff and volunteers are moving toward the same objective. She's doing what you're not supposed to be able to do: to go into Gadsden Green and turn those children into exceptional students," he says. "She has to be a great leader to do that."

Throughout her career in education, Rogers has been a teacher's aide and teacher at Sanders-Clyde Elementary School, principal apprentice at Ashley River Creative Arts and A.C. Corcoran elementary schools and lead second-grade teacher at Flowertown Elementary.

The school, in a retrofitted building at Gadsden Green, grew out of a tutoring project at Ebenezer that was designed to help parents learn to teach their children. It developed into a charter school, which is run by a governance board of parents, teachers and community leaders.

"I do have high expectations," says Rogers. "It comes from my mother who ... encouraged us to be the best that we could be. She would sit back and listen to me recite (homework) for hours.

"I guess my whole purpose is to emulate what I have been given," says Rogers, who is greatly influenced by the educational values she absorbed in her youth. "Anybody can be successful if they have the right environment to learn in."

She recalls the nurturing learning environment created by those who taught her at Burke High School. Many of her teachers were Avery graduates with advanced degrees from some of the nation's best institutions.

Rogers recalls the emphasis on things such as root words and stems, keys to figuring out the meaning of unfamiliar words. She recalls studying mythology in ways that taught her to analyze, synthesize and think critically. She recalls the memorization and role playing.

"We were expected to have an appreciation of all types of fine arts," she says. "I want to share that with our children."

In a nutshell, that's her job.

"It's easy. It's not work. It's fun."

Reach Wevonneda Minis at 937-5705.

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