Educator to use prize money to take class to Obama inauguration

Nina Gilbert, the head of the state’s first charter school for girls, has won a national award for showing visionary leadership in education. And she isn’t planning to spend her $10,000 prize money on a school trip to Disney World.

Gilbert’s plaid-skirted girls are heading north — to the inauguration festivities of president-elect Barack Obama Jan. 20.

The Norcross school principal figures her students and the presidential family have a lot in common. This is Ivy Prep’s inaugural year, too.

“Obama has a daughter (Malia, 10,) the same age as our students,” Gilbert said,. “Our girls feel so connected to Malia. They are excited about being a part of history. We really want these girls to have this experience.”

Ivy Prep is a school of 160 sixth graders from practically every continent. More grades will be added each year until the inaugural class graduates.

Gilbert says she will spend some of the $10,000 grant to cover some of the cost of the inauguration trip. About 70 students and several parents are planning to go with her. Their next hurdle — finding tickets to the formal ceremony.

Gilbert began planning the trip to Washington D.C. after Obama won Ohio election night. Gilbert and Ivy Prep business manager Angelia Howell, the school’s co-founder, called bus companies and hotels searching for reasonably price accommodations for a large group. They weren’t exactly sure how they were going to cover the tab.

Then, Gilbert received a call from Maybelline. Officials at the cosmetics company told her that she won the Maybelline New York Beauty of Education Award, which recognizes educators who “motivate, mentor and make a difference in their community.” A school supporter nominated her. Nine other educators across the country also will receive the $10,000 award.

“Maybelline New York knows that education opens eyes… and doors,” David Greenberg, President of Maybelline New York Garnier said in a statement. “I am impressed with our Beauty of Education award winner, Nina Gilbert for her commitment to pushing more of those doors open through her work with Ivy Preparatory Academy.”

Gilbert and her students will be featured in a Maybelline ad celebrating the victory in Essence Magazine.

The school’s curriculum promises to prepare girls for college by exposing them to challenging classes and a longer school day, which stretches from 7:30 a.m. until 5 p.m and includes daily enrichment. Students are divided into homeroom groups named after colleges such as Harvard, Stanford and Princeton to get them to aim high. The girls will eventually visit those universities . A field trip to Harvard is being planned for the spring.

Maybelline will honor Gilbert on Dec. 4 at an awards dinner at the New York Public Library. Gilbert says she is humbled by the award.

“This is what I was called to do,” she said. “To be acknowledged for doing what it is you were born to do is an amazing feeling.”