Ehab Jaleel, Amana Academy Charter Schools (North Fulton Business Radio, Episode 448)
With a diverse population of over eight hundred students, Amana Academy Charter School is a unique K-8 school using the Expeditionary Learning (EL) model for its curriculum. Ehab Jaleel, Executive Director, and host John Ray talked about the EL learning model, what the children learn and experience, the partnership with the Girl Scouts of Greater Atlanta which has resulted in their new West Atlanta Campus, and much more.
North Fulton Business Radio is broadcast from the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® inside Renasant Bank in Alpharetta.
Amana Academy Charter Schools
Amana Academy is a K-8 tuition-free public charter school open to all students who are eligible to attend Fulton County Schools.
Considered among the most well-regarded charter schools in the state of Georgia, Amana Academy’s Alpharetta campus was established in 2005 and authorized by the Georgia Department of Education and the Fulton County Schools system.
Amana chose the Harvard-based EL Education (Expeditionary Learning) model* because of its equal emphasis on academic achievement and character education. With high standardized test scores, an integrated STEM curriculum, a focus on stewardship and ethical character, and Arabic world-language instruction across all grade levels, Amana is a success story in the world of whole-child education.
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Ehab Jaleel, Executive Director, Amana Academy Charter Schools
Ehab Jaleel has a zeal for pursuing innovation and mobilizing new ventures with an eye toward making a difference in his community and the world. He aspires to be a “weaver”—building community connections and weaving a rich social fabric.
A graduate of the Leadership Atlanta class of 2016, Ehab is a corporate professional turned nonprofit leader/educator. He is Executive Director of Amana Academy Charter Schools, an emerging network of metro-Atlanta public schools. He co-founded Amana’s flagship school in 2005 in Alpharetta, GA, a STEM-themed EL Education credentialed Title-1 school that is among the highest performing schools in Georgia. Amana’s first replica school is in partnership with Girl Scouts of Greater Atlanta at their Camp Timber Ridge.
Ehab’s education and community focus extends to a number of organizations including the Greater North Fulton Chamber of Commerce’s Tech400 Committee, the Advisory Council for North Fulton Community Charities, as a board member of the Atlanta International Night Market, and as a Regional Director for the Georgia Tech President Scholars Selection Committee. He led the governance committee on the Board of Directors for the Georgia Charter Schools Association, and he served as a board member at U-Beyond, a youth mentorship & professional development organization.
In 2014 Ehab was included in the list of Georgia’s 100 Most Influential Muslims; and in 2015, The Alif Institute recognized him with the Arab American High Achiever award.
Born in Jordan, Ehab immigrated to the United States at the age of six and resided in Albany, NY until his family moved to Florida’s Tampa Bay area. He has also lived in Louisville, KY while working for General Electric, but most of his adult life has been in metro-Atlanta where he earned degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Applied Psychology from the Georgia Institute of Technology, and where he worked at The Coca-Cola Company’s headquarters in operational marketing and innovation roles for fifteen years.
Ehab resides in Milton, Georgia with his wife Lara ‘Lemiya’ Alexander. They have three adult daughters, the eldest an equestrian, the second a veteran of the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne Division, and the youngest attending his alma mater studying Environmental Public Policy and minoring in Japanese. He is a foodie who enjoys global travel, fitness, outdoor adventure, and following Formula 1 racing.
Questions and Topics in this Interview:
- What are charter schools? How did Amana get started?
- Why did you make the switch from the corporate world to running a school?
- How do you see yourself fitting into the North Fulton landscape?
- What is the student experience at Amana? How does it benefit them? Where do your students come from?
- How do families find you?
- Where do they go after 8th grade?
- Education was in the news quite a bit during the pandemic. How did your school navigate it; and how will emerging trends affect your organization and the education sector in general? Are there lessons for leaders?
- We hear you are expanding with a very innovative partnership with Girl Scouts. Tell us more about that.
- What local partnerships do you have going?
- How can the community get involved and help with your mission?
North Fulton Business Radio is hosted by John Ray and broadcast and produced from the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® inside Renasant Bank in Alpharetta. You can find the full archive of shows by following this link. The show is available on all the major podcast apps, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, Amazon, iHeart Radio, Stitcher, TuneIn, and others.
Renasant Bank has humble roots, starting in 1904 as a $100,000 bank in a Lee County, Mississippi, bakery. Since then, Renasant has grown to become one of the Southeast’s strongest financial institutions with over $13 billion in assets and more than 190 banking, lending, wealth management and financial services offices in Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia and Florida. All of Renasant’s success stems from each of their banker’s commitment to investing in their communities as a way of better understanding the people they serve. At Renasant Bank, they understand you because they work and live alongside you every day.
Special thanks to A&S Culinary Concepts for their support of this edition of North Fulton Business Radio. A&S Culinary Concepts, based in Johns Creek, is an award-winning culinary studio, celebrated for corporate catering, corporate team building, Big Green Egg Boot Camps, and private group events. They also provide oven-ready, cooked from scratch meals to go they call “Let Us Cook for You.” To see their menus and events, go to their website or call 678-336-9196.
