Today, we are excited to profile the extraordinary Lagra Newman, Founder and Head of School, Purpose Preparatory Academy.
For Purpose Preparatory Academy, this spring marks a full-circle moment more than a decade in the making. Unanimously authorized by the Metropolitan Board of Education, the school opened its doors to an inaugural class of 90 Kindergarteners in fall 2013. Those scholars are now graduating from high school, proving that a bold act of belief was worth the risk.
To honor that milestone, Purpose Prep gathered families, alumni, community members, staff, and board leaders at a celebratory gala in early April, pouring belief and pride back into the scholars who made the school possible in the first place. For Founder and Head of School Lagra Newman, it was a validation of purpose.
The evening celebrated former students like Gavin Walker, who graduated high school early and is now a junior at Austin Peay State University after earning his associate degree through dual enrollment, and Janelle Dones, who is heading to Belmont University to study nursing. Their stories are testaments not just to academic success, but to the power of sustained community.
“The celebration is about more than milestones; it is about acknowledging who those students were when they arrived and what they made possible for those who followed,” said Lagra.
What set that first class apart was belief before data, before outcomes, before proof. When Lagra reflects on Purpose Prep’s first class, the emotion is immediate.
“Those first founding scholars were just paving the way in a dynamic way,” she said. “They will always hold such a really special place in our hearts.”
A Calling to Educational Justice
Lagra’s path to education began in Nashville when she attended Vanderbilt University for undergrad. Through work study programs, she tutored students in underserved communities across the city. It was there that she first encountered the opportunity gap and saw how early inequities shape a child’s trajectory.
Her understanding of belonging and access had been forming for years. She and her brother were the only students of color in their private elementary school, an experience she would later recognize as formative. After moving to Savannah, Georgia, she attended a predominantly black middle school and saw how the environment influences a child’s confidence and identity. In high school, although the student body was diverse, she was often one of the few black students in advanced classes, a pattern that stayed with her.
At Vanderbilt, tutoring elementary students in North Nashville brought everything into focus. Lagra saw children as young as four and five already behind, not because of ability, but because of unequal access to opportunity. That realization shifted her path.
“For me to see children at such a young age already on a trajectory that was not leading to success, it felt deeply unfair,” she said.
Lagra joined Teach For America and taught in Washington, D.C., where she learned about charter schools. Wanting to better understand what makes schools successful against the odds, she was selected for Linda Brown’s Building Excellent Schools. Her goal was not to start a school, but to learn from high-performing models across the country and continue teaching. While traveling and studying at schools nationwide, she decided to open up Purpose Prep right back in Nashville, where she started tutoring years before.
“I was not going to do this work if it wasn’t excellent,” Lagra said. “That spirit of excellence… really has pushed me to make sure that I’m doing high-quality work day after day, year after year, and now decade after decade.”
Belief That Delivers Results
Under Lagra’s leadership, Purpose Prep’s vision has translated into exceptional, measurable outcomes. The school has earned the prestigious Level 5 distinction, the highest rating for growth and performance in Tennessee, and ranks in the top 8% of all charter schools statewide for reading proficiency. Economically disadvantaged scholars rank in the top 1% in the state, and the school is ranked #1 and #2 among elementary schools serving African American students in English Language Arts and Math. Within the Pearl-Cohn Cluster, Purpose Prep performs in the 100th percentile, with scholars achieving three times the cluster average in math, results that reinforce what families believed long before the data confirmed it.
A Vision Held Together by Non-Negotiables
From the beginning, Lagra was clear that Purpose Prep would be built intentionally and without compromise.
“When I started Purpose Prep, it was really important for me to make sure that a non-negotiable for myself as a school leader was really having a clear vision,” she said. “Really making sure that I knew what I wanted Purpose Prep to look like from the scholar perspective, from the staff perspective.”
One of Purpose Prep’s deepest commitments is acknowledging and validating students’ identities.
“We wanted to make sure that we were a school that affirmed our children’s identity,” Lagra said. “There are definitely certain aspects and elements of our model that we just held as not negotiable… this was a consistent part of who we are as an organization year after year.”
That commitment extends to staff and families as well, from rigorous hiring practices to early academic expectations. That philosophy has guided her for over a decade. North Nashville is a predominantly African American community that, for years, has been failed by the public school system. As a black charter leader in a predominantly black community, Lagra’s leadership is unique in her understanding.
Lagra spoke with Jed in 2022 about her experiences on the CharterFolk Oxygen bar.
“I think that it is important for schools to create spaces where black and brown children feel validated, feel their worth, feel their power, and understand that,” said Lagra.
Lagra is deeply engaged in Nashville’s charter school community and serves as a mentor and thought partner to other charter school teachers and leaders of color through informal mentorship and involvement in the National Charter Collaborative and the Tennessee Charter School Center.
Healing Through Purpose
“I had a student tell me that, you know, she felt that in high school there were moments where she was starting to lose her way,” Lagra said. “She had to go back to her core… I’m bold. I’m brilliant. I’m outspoken.”
Purpose Prep isn’t just transformative for students; it has been deeply healing for Lagra herself. In building a majority-black school rooted in affirmation, she found restoration.
“When we give affirmations about who we are, like I’m saying that too,” Lagra said. “Yes, I needed those messages when I was young, but I still need those messages, and I’m getting them even more so given the work that I do.”
That healing extends to her own child, now a first grader at Purpose Prep. For Lagra, it is particularly important for her to create a space that she believes in and models with her own children.
“She walks in, and she knows she belongs,” Lagra said.