As a Poly Prep alumna, Cherkira Lashley is well-known for her love of the school and her deep devotion to basketball. Now that she has returned as an Upper School dean and assistant coach to the girls varsity basketball team, she is committed to bringing her wealth of experience to not only the Upper School, but the entire Poly community.
Lashley’s presence as a new faculty member in the school community allows her to reflect on her experience at Poly when she attended as a student. “I do feel like, in my first stint here, I was confined to the identity of a basketball player,” Lashley said. “So to be back more fully realized is exciting, and I think that I’ll be learning how to integrate all the things that I’m interested in and I feel that I’m gifted in as I go.”
Before transferring to Poly for high school, Lashley was predominantly “playing basketball informally” in the backyard with her siblings. Lashley said that “[basketball] felt like our love language, and so initially, me playing was just truly an expression of love and communicating with my siblings.” She had only just started playing on a team, and it was her coach, Michael Junsch, who motivated her to pursue the sport more seriously. Junsch is the girls varsity basketball coach and has been since before Lashley started attending Poly. Regarding his four years of working with Lashley, where she was a starter for Poly’s team, Junsch said that “she was just a delight to coach.”
Another large part of Lashley’s identity has always been her connection to her religion. Growing up, both of Lashley’s parents were pastors and this aspect of her childhood helped shape her into the person she is today. According to the Poly Prep dean page, “[Lashley] comes from a family of educators and storytellers, which is the root of her passion for education and the oral word.” She went to church at least twice on the weekdays during high school, and of this experience, Lashley said, “It was a lot of church, so I was anchored to the community in that way.” Her relationship with God and her Christian community gave her comfort and peace.
However, Lashley was not always able to bring this part of herself to her work. Throughout her time attending college at Wesleyan University, Lashley found it difficult to find a community that supported her same beliefs. Lashley said, “I definitely didn’t feel like my faith was being nurtured in that space. If anything, it would have been something that isolated me from social spaces at Wesleyan.”
But college was a new playing field for Lashley, and while her lifelong passion for basketball continued, she also fell in love with spoken word poetry. Slam poetry was a way for Lashley to make new connections and “it was definitely a way to build community with others, but also just understand my voice,” said Lashley.
Coming out of college, though, Lashley felt she needed to rekindle her relationship with her Christianity. According to an article published on the New Visions Charter High School website, Lashley explained, “I was focused on doing something entirely different when I graduated from college. I went on a 40 day fast and did not eat food for 28 days. I just drank juices and water and just prayed in isolation every day.” Lashley felt that by cutting off distractions and simple pleasures, she would be able to strengthen her spiritual awareness.
Lashley said she has adapted to her faculty position at Poly and has enjoyed meeting new people. The same is mirrored back to her by the faculty members she works alongside, one of whom is the chair of the Upper School deans, Emily Gardiner. Ever since the hiring process, Gardiner, with the rest of the interview and admissions team at Poly, found that Lashley was no ordinary candidate. Gardiner said, “I remember very clearly the way [the admissions team] all ran down the hall and said, ‘This is a very special person, this is a very special person.’” In the eyes of Gardiner, Lashley is a very positive asset to the Poly community and will bring everything that makes Poly stronger as a whole.
Gardiner continued, “I got the sense that her office was just a magnet for people, I got the sense that she helped fix situations that were difficult. Sometimes in our role… you sort of realize that someone is a reason the place is stronger.”
