Dr. Jeremiah Newell is the Chief Executive Officer of the Mobile Area Education Foundation (MAEF), MAEF Public Charter Schools, and Ignite Public Schools. Together, the organizations operate with a combined annual budget of $25 million and advance public education transformation, charter school development, and career-connected learning across South Alabama. Under his leadership, MAEF secured an $18 million U.S. Department of Education Full-Service Community Schools grant, and Dr. Newell has raised more than $15 million to support charter school development and expansion. He founded MAEF Public Charter Schools, Alabama’s first charter management organization, which includes two public, tuition-free schools: Accel Day and Evening Academy, Alabama’s first public charter school, serving grades 9-12, and Accel Preparatory Academy, serving grades 6-8. Together, the schools serve approximately 1,000 students. Through Ignite Public Schools, he is leading the development of Ignite Academy for Advanced Careers, a career-connected public charter school focused initially on advanced manufacturing and healthcare. The school is scheduled to open in August 2027 and serve 875 students at full capacity in grades 6-12.
Earlier in his career, Dr. Newell led districtwide dropout-prevention and recovery efforts in Mobile County Public Schools, helping increase the district’s graduation rate from 55 percent to 82 percent in four years. The improvement represented more than 1,000 additional graduates annually. He has also taught at the middle and high school levels, served as a founding high school principal, and served as a Harvard Fellow and division chief of staff at the Rhode Island Department of Education.
Dr. Newell was named to Mobile Bay’s 2010 40 Under 40 class and graduated from Leadership Mobile in 2012. In 2025, he completed Leadership Alabama’s Class XXXIII and the Aspen-Pahara Fellowship.
Dr. Newell holds a Bachelor of Science in Secondary Education/Language Arts and a Master of Science in School Leadership from the University of South Alabama, as well as a Doctor of Education Leadership from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He is currently pursuing a Master of Accounting at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and completed additional graduate study in Instructional Design and Development at the University of South Alabama.