Our Principal

August 2023

Dear Cheetah Family,

The year we have all worked so earnestly for is here. This year Challenge Charter School will witness its first Twelfth Grade graduating class – The Class of 2024.  This graduation milestone is not a simple event. Upon reflection, I must express my astonishment at how a young charter has snowballed and spread its wings over the Far Rockaway Community in just a decade.  As I look at our scholars, some have been here since Kindergarten; others, in grade 6, and many are founders. However, Challenge Charter CTE High School and Early College have afforded every senior an opportunity to enter into the college and career readiness experience with a particular skill, college credits, or the discovery of a talent uncovered to continue their journey into the global village as citizens of the Earth. 

Having understood the work and the mandate of this work for myself as the Principal and the Senior Director for Secondary Teaching and Learning, I have invited my leadership team and now our scholars and parents to journey under this banner: Upholding the tenets of Authentic Compliance to continue developing Student Agency and promote College and Career Readiness.  This theme encompasses our past work and continuing efforts to serve our scholars, families, and the Far Rockaway community at large. 

A focus on authentic compliance requires stakeholders to creatively strategize around Education Law, ensuring it positively impacts scholars in all situations. Then we must encourage our scholars to take ownership of their learning by becoming self-advocates, sharing their ideas, and critically questioning the experiences provided and the quality of their learning. They learn through student agency that they have rights and responsibilities, and that the adults in their lives are accountable for ensuring that they do exceedingly well as far as their talents can carry them. And all the while we engage our scholars in the aforementioned actions, we continue on a daily basis as a school to promote college and career readiness. If you have any questions about how we do this work, please take a journey with me through these lines of accomplishment.

• Our Career and Technical Education (CTE) and Early College programs start in middle school with courses in college readiness, including college visits and exposure to college life. We also collaborate with the New York Institute of Technology (NYIT) in the STEP program, an after-school hybrid program that focuses on Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM).

• When students become freshmen at our high school, they continue with the STEP program and start studying Career and Financial Management to prepare for their chosen CTE Pathway.

• By their sophomore year, scholars enter a CTE pathway and, through their Junior year, continue with the chosen pathway - Culinary Arts, Allied Health, or Aviation then, through our articulation agreement with The CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies, scholars begin to take college classes for credits that will be applied to their college journey. All this work is done alongside their core courses for their Regents diplomas.

• By Senior Year, our scholars are ready to graduate with a Regents diploma, CTE endorsements, and College credits. 

Thus, when our CEO Dr. Les Mullings made the decision to launch this high school, it was in line with the vision and mission of ensuring that a high school diploma would hold meaning. Scholars would be equipped to gain entry-level jobs in various industries, get a head start in college knowledge while earning credits, and receive the traditional Regents diploma upon exiting high school– a promise given and a promise kept.

I need not tell you how delighted and blessed I am to lead this high school, having had most of these scholars with me in our middle school and now with me at the high school–but most invaluable to me will be witnessing the first cohort of founding scholars cross the big stage into the next chapter of their lives. To have journeyed with our scholars for the last seven years as their witness has defined my leadership, and I am forever grateful to them and their families for their consistent vote of confidence.

As a charter school, we will embark on our first full academic year without Dr. Estep, our former Senior Advisor and a staple of our organization. Although his absence is felt, we will continue to ensure that the work he diligently carried out with our CEO persists. 

Though heavy is the responsibility, we know that the task remains achievable when we have our scholars repeat the mantra: Teach Me. Prepare Me. Challenge Me. 

In Authentic Compliance,

Mavgar Mondesir-Gordon

Senior Director of Secondary Teaching and Learning 6-12/Principal Gr. 9-12