March 2020, a national quarantine was mandated, because the COVID-19 virus was voraciously taking lives here and across the globe at a rate that had not seen since the 1918 flu pandemic.
Schools were abruptly closed. Initially, it was thought that the closures would be for just two weeks. Dr. Booker did not lose her focus on the total welfare of the scholars at Global Leadership Academies West (GLAW) and Southwest (GLASW). Before the school doors closed, every student received study packets to take home to complete the assignments for their courses. Parents were contacted and informed of the work to be done at home.
In September 2021, schools reopened. GLA sites were professionally sanitized, ventilation inspected, and shields placed around each desk. Parents were informed of meal pick-up times; daily temperature checks were mandated for scholars. Vaccinations were continuously recommended. Core to the academic life at the GLA sites are the trips to various parts of the U.S. and abroad, thus another reason for the vaccinations (GLA works in partnership with CHOP and Twin Doctors). GLA sites worked on the hybrid system. In each classroom, half of the scholars were present; the others attended class virtually. The following week, the scholars were reversed. Education has not been interrupted at the two GLA sites during the pandemic.
Dr. Naomi Johnson Booker has been celebrated on numerous occasions for her extraordinary work in education and in the communities in which she has been a change agent. While she is fully present in the honoring moment, she is simultaneously on a road of the future that will enable her to reach more scholars who will become global and local leaders. She is always striving to lead young scholars beyond the ten-block radius of their neighborhood that they can return and be effective there, and in the world, at large.
Naomi Johnson Booker, Ed.D.
CEO of Global Academies
Founder/CEO, Global Leadership Academy Charter School West, 2006 and
CEO of Global Leadership Academy Southwest, 2016
Education
Spellman
Antioch – Masters – education
Temple University – principal and superintendent’s certification
Nova Southeastern University – Ed.D. – Dissertation: Restructuring in Small Learning Communities:
A Model for Elementary School Improvement.
Professional Positions – 30 years in School District of Philadelphia
Area Superintendent – managing fifteen schools (including three high schools)
Principal, Clymer Elementary School (moved school from its prior failing status)
Teacher, Pastorius Elementary School, initiated her signature outside-the-classroom learning, taking
students on tours of historic Philadelphia studied in textbooks
Reginal Vice President of Curriculum and Instruction for charter school management Organization (2001)
Honors: In 2020, Philadelphia City Council named Dr. Booker a “Philadelphia Legend.”
Philadelphia Business Journal honored her as a “Woman of Distinction.”
Numerous other prestigious industry and business recognitions.
Signature Outside-the-Classroom learning trips related to school curriculum: approximation
K-2nd grades – Philadelphia;
3rd – 4th grades – Pennsylvania;
5th – grade – Washington, D.C.
6th and 7th – Canada (Underground Railroad), Bahamas (largest collection of artifacts of Slave Trade
8th – grade-Africa (Kenya). 2015, Study of community and a missionary school (A scholar was so inspired
that when she returned, she established a foundation to assist homeless teenagers in Philadelphia)
China. 2017, major cities of Beijing and Shanghai (Teacher contracted to teach Mandarin language)
Every graduating 8th grader has his/her own passport.
For information:
267 295 5700; drbooker@gla-schools.org; www.glacharter.org; info@ga-schools.org
Dorothy Watson Tatem, D.Min., ACC
Senior Associate
Next Step Associates, LLC
Cassandra W. Jones, Ed.D.
CEO & President
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