As the season of academic studies begins in many institutions across parts of the world, including New York City where I have spent many years working with charter schools to open their doors to children and families, it’s a flashback moment for my guest and me to the days when she was first granted a charter to begin her social enterpreneurship journey as a school leader and founder. Dr. Elaine Ruiz Lopez is the Founder and the Chief Executive Officer of the International Leadership Charter High School, a rigorous college prep charter high school in the Bronx, New York where over 95% of its scholars graduate within four years enrolling in the college of their choice. In 2024, she expanded her vision opening a middle school in 2024.

Having worked in the field of education since 1980, over ths course of her career she has held various leadership positions in public schools and universities. In 2017, she was one of the recipients of the Distinguished Women Award (Mujeres Destacadas) presented by El Diario, the largest Spanish daily newspaper organization in the country. In 2022 as one of 100 Bronx Power Women. In 2023 she received the Educator of Excellence Award from the Black Latinx Asian Charter Coalition (BLACC). She is a founding member of the Latino Charter Leaders Roundtable and its current Chair.
Her first book, The Fight for Equity in the Bronx: Changing Lives and Transforming Communities One Scholar at a Time was published last summer and stands as a testament to years of focusing her vision as a servant leader as well as the manifestation of generations of purpose driven living and adaptating to new shores, creating home in other lands.

Where to find Dr. Ruiz Lopez and the International Leadership Charter High School?
Buy her book @ here!
Saturday (and weekends), September 13th - October 12th, 2025 at the Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition as part of “the art of Nuyorican Soul: A Love Letter from the Diaspora to the Island” exhibition.
International Leadership Charter Schools
On LinkedIn
On Instagram

What’s Elaine reading, watching and listening to?
Island Beneath the Sea by Isabel Allende
My Grandmother’s Hands by Dr. Resmaa Menakem
Lupin on Netflix
CeCe Winans
Yolanda Adams

Other topics of interest:
About Historical Puerto Rico
On Immigrants and Migrants
The Bronx is Burning and other stories about struggle and settlement in The Bronx
What is the Jones Act?
Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. on PBS
Find our more about charter schoos via the New York City Charter School Center

Special Guest: Elaine Ruiz Lopez.