Director of Charter Schools, Detroit Public Schools Community District

Dr. Jendayi Gardner was appointed Senior Deputy Executive Director of the Detroit Public Schools Community District (DPSCD) Office of Charter Schools in August of 2017. In the 2017-18 school year, Dr. Gardner will work to serve as a High Quality Authorizer by providing oversight and customized support to every DPSCD charter school.

Prior to becoming the Senior Deputy Executive Director, Dr. Gardner served as the Deputy Director for the DPSCD Office of Charter Schools. During that time, she provided academic training and support to schools, with a special emphasis on schools whose performance on the 2016 M-STEP assessment was in the bottom 5 percent of schools in Michigan. Dr. Gardner has been an educator with Detroit Public Schools Community District for seventeen years.  Dr. Gardner began her career as a mathematics teacher for DPSCD. After serving 10 years as an educator, Dr. Gardner served in various central office roles where she utilized data to drive systematic change and provided school stakeholders with intensive intervention training targeted towards improving student achievement.

Dr. Gardner has a keen ability of capturing evidence of instructional strategies implemented by teachers in the classroom and helping to transform the strategies into exemplary instruction. Dr. Gardner graduated from Eastern Michigan University with a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics. Following her graduation, she received her master’s degree in Educational Leadership and doctoral degree in Curriculum and Instruction from Wayne State University.