By Jack McLoone
When looking at the life of Dr. LeRoi Jones, it’s clear that he is a paragon of persistence equaling success. This truth is found in the example that soon after his father’s passing in his freshman year at RBR, a grieving LeRoi Jones chose to attend football practice, which was at the time the only thing in his fractured life he could control. It is found in his drive to be successful in school, despite struggling for a C. And later in his high school career, when, on his fourth attempt at his SAT, he finally achieved the college football requirement, blowing it out of the water with a 910 when a 700 was needed. He did all of this while being on the wrestling team, being a key player on the football team (he was named Male Athlete of the Year in 1990 and was named to the All-Conference first team and All-Shore second team), and serving as Vice-President of the class of 1990.
This drive to achieve through persistence was instilled during Dr. Jones’s RBR career. A very influential guidance teacher who told him that every person in the world has a gift or talent and that “being smart” alone does not equal success. His quest for excellence continued to play a vital role in his life after graduation. After initially walking onto the Nebraska football team, he chose to transfer to Rowan, where he won numerous awards, including being the NJAC Player of the Year in 1995, an All-American the same year, and reaching the Division III championship game in 1993 and 1995.
Dr. Jones’s persistent drive to ever improve himself put him in a situation to become a community leader. Inspired by yet another lesson he learned at RBR, that any student, regardless of circumstance, could make a difference. He served as the Deputy Mayor of Shrewsbury Township for four years and also held responsibilities as the Director of Recycling, Emergency Management Coordinator, Chairman of the Township Budgeting Committee and Clean Community Director. He did this during the timeframe when he was pursuing two master degrees from Monmouth University, one in Psychological Counseling and then one in Educational Leadership. In 2011, he received his doctorate for Educational Leadership from Rowan. The latter is an accomplishment he is most proud of stating, “It was a secret promise I made to myself right after my eighth grade graduation. At the time I wanted to make my family proud of me, especially my mother. After she died, I obtained my doctorate to honor her memory.”
Dr. Jones has worked with a variety of students, using the tools he acquired in his higher education and the lessons he learned from RBR. He has done what he can to assist learners of all walks of life as when he was a special education teacher and educational supervisor at Red Bank Charter. Indeed, some of those students whose lives he positively impacted are thriving in this high school today. He served as the director of an adult school in Union Beach, the principal of the KIVA school, and as an education coordinator and AmeriCorps Director at Youth Build in Newark. Today, he is the assistant principal at CPC High Point High School in Morganville, NJ, for those in need of an alternative learning environment, and also an adjunct professor at St. Peter’s University in Jersey City, teaching public policy as well as courses on the driving forces that underlie racism.
It is clear that Dr. Jones has been extremely successful in his post-RBR career. He has made a lasting impact with groups of people that are usually left behind by education systems, refusing to write them off as lost causes. I’m sure he is instilling the same concept of persistence begetting success in them that he showed himself.
He states of his alma mater “My experience at Red Bank Regional High School taught me that I was part of a long tradition of excellence and responsible for honoring and promoting pride through positive life choices by opening doors for future graduates.”
With his induction to the 2015 Distinguished Alumni Hall of Fame Dr. Jones is now formally enshrined as part of that proud tradition.