The surprise was particularly sweet given Lehman’s ongoing advocacy for her students throughout the school year.
"Throughout the year, the message to the special education staff was that our students needed a boost. So, I kept bringing my principal charts and graphs to show that my kids were growing," Lehman said with a laugh. "Looking back, it makes me chuckle, given the timing, I think he already knew I had won the award."
The Heart of a Teacher
Lehman’s journey into education was a deliberate act of following her heart. After spending 14 years away from her original career in chemistry to raise her family, she spent extensive hours volunteering in classrooms and realized her true calling lay in teaching. When it came time to re-enter the workforce, she faced a crossroads."Either way, I was looking at having to go back to school," Lehman shared. "And so, it was basically a 'can I follow my heart or do we need to follow the money?' and my husband said, 'We’re doing fine. If you want to follow your heart, go ahead and follow your heart.'"
Now in her third year with NHA and sixth year in teaching overall, Lehman finds her greatest joy in helping students break through learning barriers, particularly in reading. Navigating large and small groups with wide-ranging abilities presents a daily challenge, but watching students unlock their literacy skills makes every tailored lesson worth the effort.
"I would say the most rewarding is definitely those aha moments when it clicks for students, because they work so hard," she explained. "Just when they start reading and that moment when they're like, 'I just read that word.'"
Congratulations, Jessica! Thank you for all you do for your students and the Rolesville community.
Encouraging Big Breakthrough Moments
Achieving those breakthroughs requires high standards, constant self-reflection, and integrating NHA’s Moral Focus™ curriculum directly into daily interactions and reading lessons. Lehman firmly believes that setting elevated goals empowers students with diverse learning needs to push past self-imposed limits."I have really high expectations for my students, and I think sometimes they're not used to that because they do have special needs," Lehman noted. "I like my students to learn that I am capable of big things too. They end up realizing 'I can do this stuff, I can do hard things.'"
While Lehman continuously pushes herself to reflect on every lesson and refine her craft, she emphasizes that finding personal balance and leaning on her school community are key to long-term success. She credits the collaborative culture at Rolesville Charter Academy for providing a strong foundation of trust and encouragement.
"NHA has hands down been just the greatest to work for," Lehman expressed. "I love my people at Rolesville, and I feel like I can talk to anyone here. I know I'm talking to safe ears and there's just a lot of trust and a lot of caring with the staff here."
As she looks ahead to future school years, Lehman's ultimate vision for her work remains steadfastly focused on student confidence and independence.
"The imprint that I hope I leave on all of my students is that they know that they can read, that they have the ability to continue as long as they want to fight and work hard for it," Lehman said.
Congratulations, Jessica! Thank you for all you do for your students and the Rolesville community.
About Rolesville Charter Academy
Rolesville Charter Academy is a tuition-free, public charter school in Rolesville, North Carolina, serving students in kindergarten through eighth grade. It is part of the National Heritage Academies (NHA®) network, which includes more than 100 tuition-free, public charter schools serving more than 65,000 students in kindergarten through high school across nine states. For more information, visit nhaschools.com.
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