Carolina Alumni Review - November/December 2011

alumni today

The Secret of the Handshake
When he was principal
of KIPP WAYS Academy in
Atlanta, David Jernigan

T. LYNNE PIXLEY

Co-workers and students’ parents say David Jernigan ’00, executive director of the KIPP schools in Atlanta, encourages students just by the way he greets them and makes them feel important. He also can be demanding, as much of himself as anyone else.

ting a high school diploma, much less a college degree.

Now executive director of the five KIPP academies in Atlanta, Jernigan is a true believer in KIPP, or Knowledge is Power Program, and its insistence that by setting high standards and instilling children with a can-do approach to life, they will achieve whatever they set out to do.

ZIP codes and destiny

KIPP academies are charter schools. There are 109 of them nationwide, and they cater to poor and minority students in inner-city neighborhoods where poverty, broken homes and various forms of abuse often are barriers to get-

David Jernigan ’00 received the GAA’s Distinguished Young Alumni Award at a banquet with its Board of Directors on Oct. 7. Since 1989, the award has recognized alumni age 40 or younger whose accomplishments have brought credit to the University. The full text of the citations for Jernigan’s award and previous recipients can be seen at

alumni.unc.edu/awards.

Distinguished Young Alumni Award 2011

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“We believe your ZIP code does not have to define your destiny,” Jernigan said.

Atlanta’s KIPP academies are located in disparate parts of the city, but all are low-income areas often riddled with drug problems and crime. Jernigan, who not only ran KIPP WAYS but also started the school, faced a daunting challenge in 2003 when he went from home to home trying to convince skeptical parents to send their kids to his school.

As a white man in a black neighborhood, Jernigan “got a lot of doors slammed in his face,” Dozier noted. But it did not deter him. He continued to drive his Ford Focus through the streets of the Northwestern Washington Park area of Atlanta tirelessly explaining the KIPP mission.

He opened KIPP WAYS with 90 fifth-graders, two administrators and a team of four hand-picked teachers who were willing to put in the time and effort required to help each kid reach his or her potential.