Valissia is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Leadership Preparatory Charter School. Leadership Preparatory Charter School provides students in grades K-8 with the academic and character foundation necessary to excel in high school, graduate from college, and lead in their communities.

Valissia deeply believes that she can and must create public schools of extraordinary quality that provide their graduates with a clear pathway out of poverty. “I am a graduate of a struggling urban district where less than 60% of students graduate. My success - an educator cared deeply.”

This knowledge and expertise shaped Valissia’s professional life. After graduating from college, she worked with young adults, teaching middle school English and coordinating a youth program for a community theatre before pursuing her goal of earning a law degree. Working with Michigan Legal Services, a nonprofit dedicated to eliminating the systemic causes of poverty through impact-oriented legal services, she co-coordinated a property tax foreclosure project that saved the homes of families unable to pay their property taxes at the start of the national financial crisis. Additionally, she founded the probate administration program. The program educated low-income seniors on how to transfer wealth effectively. Through this work and her experience providing legal services as an Assistant Public Defender with Mecklenburg Public Defender’s Office in Charlotte, North Carolina, Valissia is convinced that creating real change comes from working to eliminate the pervasive educational inequalities that persist in historically underserved communities.

Leadership Prep is one of the highest-performing non-selective schools in Memphis, TN. Valissia and her team are determined to build schools where all the adults are invested in each student’s academic and personal success.

Valissia earned a Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Michigan and a Juris Doctorate from the University of Wisconsin.