Story #14: Ayanna Johnson, from SUP Director, to Teacher, to Principal

“I truly believe that was one of my life-defining, life-changing moments — going into that Open House,” Ayanna A. Johnson ’93 said of attending PBHA’s Open House her freshman fall. 

Ayanna would embark on four years of public service through PBHA, transforming programs and exploring pathways she never would’ve considered otherwise. Her time at PBHA prepared her for a career as a teacher, school founder, and principal. Today, she is the principal at Vision Academy Charter School of Excellence. 

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Ayanna first discovered PBHA while playing cards. 

During Freshman Week, a classmate mentioned that students could get paid to do volunteer work at PBHA. Intrigued, Ayanna went to PBHA’s Open House — a semesterly event where each program presents their work to prospective volunteers — the next day. 

That tangentially mentioned Open House ended up being pivotal for Ayanna. Immediately, she felt like she connected with the Directors who were stationed to represent their programs. 

“I went to that open house and totally changed my life,” she said. “I signed up for so many activities it was crazy.”

Most of Ayanna’s time volunteering was spent with the afterschool Inner City Outreach — also known as Franklin IO. When summer rolled around, Ayanna became a Senior Counselor for Franklin IO’s Summer Urban Program (SUP) camp. Ayanna would go on to run SUP camps for three more years, including the summer after her graduation. 

At FIO, counselors lived in two housing projects in Dorchester — the same projects that many of their camp attendees lived in. For Ayanna, living with the community was “amazing” and “powerful.” The families became well acquainted with Senior Counselors and kids would come early in the morning. 

“It was a 24 hour job, but so fun,” she said. 

Ayanna was inspired by several older campers who had come to her lamenting that there was nothing for them to do after they “aged out” of SUP. Ayanna met with Action for Boston Community Development — a Boston-based nonprofit that helps low-income individuals and helps 14-year-olds find employment — to learn more about their programs. After investigating further, she launched a Junior Counselor program to employ teenagers at camps. 

Today, Junior Counselors are at all but one of PBHA’s SUP camps. 

In addition to FIO, Ayanna also joined Big Brother/Big Sister, Cambridge Afterschool Program — commonly known as CASP —, and Magic Community. She was the PBHA Receptionist, a member of the Programming Committee, and even PBHA’s Assistant Bookkeeper. 

“I pretty much lived in PBH,” Ayanna joked. “My technical house was Cabot House, but I was at PBH so much that everybody in Cabot House started calling me PBH.” 

Though Ayanna did not initially enter Harvard planning on becoming a teacher, her work volunteering inspired her to consider it as a career. 

“Going in to the different communities and starting to work with kids — something just clicked. I knew that was going to be my thing,” Ayanna said. 

“I struggled for a bit because I was like: I think I want to be a teacher. And I didn’t come to Harvard to be a teacher,” she said. “But I’ve never looked back.” 

Then PBHA Executive Director Greg Johnson had given Ayanna an application to the Echoing Green fellowship. While working at FIO, several families at Franklin Hill and Franklin Park had complained that they needed a daycare. Energized, Ayanna sent off a proposal. 

To prepare for her daycare’s launch, Ayanna spent a year working at a daycare first. Though starting a school was uncharted territory for Ayanna, she felt prepared to tackle the project. Four years of working at SUP had equipped her with skills most twenty-two-year-olds could never dream about. As a Director, Ayanna had learned hiring, interviewing, and curriculum development. 

“I felt very prepared. I know that was all part of PBH’s doing,” she said. “All the things that I do now as a school principal, I did first at Franklin IO and through PBH.” 

As a head-of-school at twenty-three, Ayanna was sure to stick out in district meetings for schools. Yet, she was up for the challenge, continuously surprising her older peers with her experience and sharp thoughts.

“I would make comments or say things and people would come up to me like, ‘How do you — you’re so young! How do you know this and how are you doing that?” she said. “And I’m like, ‘Oh, I did that when I was a student in college!”

“I think one great thing about PBH is we get so much experience doing real things,” she added. 

Eventually, Ayanna expanded her daycare up to the fifth grade. Afterwards, she became a daycare director at the Knowledge Learning Corporation for nine years, taking failing schools and transforming them into “a number one school in the district.” Today, Ayanna is the principal of Kuumba Academy Charter School in Delaware. 

Throughout it all, serving young students in low-income neighborhoods or working with turnaround schools has been a passion of Ayanna’s. 

“I don’t believe that just because kids come from a certain zip code that their education should be any different than anybody,” she said. “I believe in high quality for all my kids.” 

Written by Darcy Lin '27