Doreatha White, Ph.D.
Principal, Dreamkeepers Academy
Doctorate in Organizational Leadership , 2001
What’s your dream? For Regent graduate Dr. Doreatha White it involved saving an entire school. Threatened with closure after city redevelopment forced the relocation of many students, Doreatha’s elementary school was suffering. But she had a plan, one that would require a radical remodeling of J.J. Roberts Elementary in Norfolk, Va., into Dreamkeepers Academy, a school that would combine rigorous academics with character education.
Doreatha won approval of her plan in 2003 and created a premier school for low-income students that incorporated character development into the curriculum and required a school day two hours longer than usual and mandatory attendance at the school’s summer camp. In addition, the plan called for limiting class size to ten students, offering teaching assistants in every classroom and providing instruction in such things as golf, fencing, foreign language, music and drama. The goal, according to Doreatha, was to develop the whole child, not just to provide the three “Rs”—reading, writing and arithmetic.
Today, as principal of Dreamkeepers Academy, Doreatha is at the helm of one of the most innovative Title 1 schools in the nation. In 2005 she was named the sole recipient of the National School Board Association Black Caucus’s Educational Leadership Award, and in 2002 she was awarded the Milken Motivational Educator of the Year Award. Doreatha credits Regent for providing the encouragement and guidance she needed to envision and bring to fruition what stands today as a dream come true for many. Doreatha is an extraordinary woman.
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