Dr. Anju J. Rupchandani
Leadership in Community-Based Learning '14
Bank Street provides an opportunity to learn from individuals who have been in the field, have experience, have connections, and are genuine and authentic. They are preparing you academically and they can also show you how to lead.
Dr. Anju J. Rupchandani is the executive director of Zone 126, a non-profit organization that mentors and supports children who are chronically absent and whose families live in public and temporary housing in Astoria and Long Island City, Queens. Services include after-school, arts-based, and mental health programming.
Dr. Rupchandani earned her master’s degree in Leadership in Community-Based Learning from Bank Street Graduate School of Education in 2014 and her doctoral degree from New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development in 2021. She has won many awards, including the 2017 NY Nonprofit Press Front Line Heroes Award, 2023 NYPD Community Leader of Distinction, and 2023 Power Player in Education, among other awards.
In her current role at Zone 126, Dr. Rupchandani deftly weaves city, state, and federal resources to support the progress of the program and its students and families.
Here are some highlights of our recent interview with her.
What has your career journey been, leading up to this current position?
I have been working in youth development for about 25 years now. I first started in an after school program when I was in my late teens in high school, tutoring third-grade students to ensure that they were ELA proficient. Over time, that grew into roles working in summer camps, as an assistant director and director of after school programs, as a community school director, and as VP of operations and programming. All have led me to the role of being executive director at Zone 126. My heart has always been in supporting young people with unique activities that are academically driven and that also support them holistically—for example, working with young people around college and career readiness, providing not only the traditional SAT prep program, but also the exposure to individuals who look like them, who have gone through the same path.
Is there one program that you’re especially excited about right now?
I think it’s our initiative called CARE, which stands for Community Action for Responsive Engagement. We do a lot of work around food insecurity and attendance improvement. Oftentimes, we see young people who don’t come to school because they don’t have access to food or clean clothes. We’re removing those barriers. We’re really thinking about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, which says we need to support young people at the base of the foundation. We ask: How do we remove those barriers and give them access to the things that they need in order for you to feel like they can come to school and participate? We have school-based food pantries at each of our three partner schools. We have a clean clothes laundromat program in collaboration with a local laundromat and funders like Hydro-Quebec and Champlain Power Express.
I’m super proud of these programs because I know what it’s like to grow up as a low-income child here in Astoria and Long Island City. I saw my mother trying to figure out how to piece together buying laundry detergent and washing our clothes, and figuring out how to get fresh fruits and vegetables for us.
What parts of your Bank Street education do you carry into your current work?
I really and truly enjoyed my entire experience at Bank Street. I was part of a cohort of students who stayed together throughout the program, and we had access to professors who had worked in the field of youth and community development. For example, Alison Overseth was one of my professors, and she has remained my mentor. She is the CEO of the Partnership for After School Education. We had access to professors and deans, including Fern Khan, who has been so influential with her work with youth and community development and supporting children living below the poverty line. These classes were all building blocks for my already established academic career and fueled me to get my doctorate in educational leadership.
In my final year at Bank Street, my Integrated Master’s Project with Peggy McNamara was a standout experience, too. It gave me the opportunity to dive deep on the subject of parent and family engagement and what it means to support young people. I’ve always deeply believed that even when a parent comes to you and they’re angry and they might be shouting,they’re just expressing the emotion of advocating for their young person. As I put my portfolio together, Peggy helped me to explore through literary materials and interviews how critical and important parent and family engagement is to supporting young people who are in temporary housing. It opened my eyes and has really been a foundation of the work that we do here at Zone 126 to make sure that families feel that they are part of the process, regardless of what their own academic attainment level is.
What advice do you have for current Bank Street graduate students?
Take advantage of the opportunity of connecting with your professors. Bank Street provides an opportunity to learn from individuals who have been in the field, have experience, have connections, and are genuine and authentic. They are preparing you academically and they can also show you how to lead. Bank Street gives us all an opportunity to become our full authentic selves as educators, and I think we can all take advantage of and model what we see in the people we interact with while during graduate school.
Listen to Dr. Rupchandani speak about her Bank Street experience.