Dejunne’ has dedicated her career to understanding and improving education across the state. She holds three master’s degrees in Teaching, Counseling and Guidance, as well as a MEd in Dyslexia Therapy. At the core of all her work she believes in the power of community and the talents students have and hopes to aid them in that journey. 

“I feel like the work I do is a piece of the pie,” She explains. “That’s what community is about. It’s not about the one solution to the one problem. There are multiple solutions to one problem, and education is one of those highly multifaceted, solution oriented problem solving areas. I’m trying to solve the problem of literacy but I can’t do that without students being there. So then I’m touching truancy, and I can’t do that if they’re not healthy, so I’m touching wellness and mental health. And so there’s just so many opportunities to bring together the layered challenges of a community that we all can contribute to finding solutions for.” 

As a Louisiana native but Baton Rouge transplant she thanks the Alliance for creating a space to access resources and be engaged in education. As a former teacher she came into the advocacy field with a different perspective than others but says her time with the Alliance as a CHANGEMAKERS and partner helped her make informed decisions as a parent and become deeply involved in the advocacy for other students and families. 

“I was able to learn so much from the Alliance about the landscape of Baton Rouge and the history of Baton Rouge that I was not privy to because I didn’t grow up here. That helped me as a parent understand how I make choices for my kids. My oldest son was the catalyst to a lot of the switching from just involvement to engagement to real deep, intimate advocacy and work.  It started from needing to find services for him. Additionally in my work, they helped me understand where we could put our resources into, what areas we should focus on, and the ‘whys’ behind some of the challenges that we were running into with providing services across the parish.”

Her message to our city is that we should utilize the power of parent engagement as a tool for student success. She urges schools and organizations to directly engage with parents and guardians. “This is highly impactful and needed in Baton Rouge, that is the power of parent engagement. Intentional, strategic, parent engagement and communication. And I think that’s an area that is underestimated here. Now I understand that there are lots of opportunities to engage the community, and parents are part of the community right? Community roundtables, town hall meetings, etc, but utilizing parent engagement at the school level can alleviate some of the burden at the district level.”

DeJunne’s current leadership includes serving as President of The Reading League Louisiana and state leader of Decoding Dyslexia Louisiana. She serves on many boards including: Louisiana Literacy Advisory Commission, Special Education Advisory Panel, Early Childhood Care and Education Commission, and BRCC Program for Successful Employment. DeJunne’ has the honor of being selected to the Louisiana Department of Education’s Dyslexia Bulletin 1903 Workgroup, and is the co-author of The Speech Language Pathologist’s Guide to Dyslexia.

Justin is a proud Baton Rouge native and has always had a desire to improve his community since he was young. He considers himself fortunate to have attended a private school on scholarship growing up but didn’t realize how different his education experience was compared to his friends from around the city. 

“I attended Christian Life Academy and had a really good educational experience there,” he explained. “Getting involved with the Alliance was a moment where I realized that I kind of had an education experience that was in a bubble. Going to private school is much different than everything else. I did have a lot of friends in the public school system, and even the charter school system, which gave me a broad perspective. But tapping into the Baton Rouge Alliance for Students really is what helped me get true understanding of what the education landscape in Baton Rouge looked like, and how novel my experience was.”  

Wanting to leave his “bubble” Justin applied and was selected to be a member of the CHANGEMAKERS VI cohort. He recalls his time in the CHANGEMAKERS class as an opportunity to expand his knowledge of the education system and to build lasting relationships. 

“CHANGEMAKERS is one of those programs you could tap into and really broaden your awareness and understanding of what education truly looks like in our city. Because it’s easy to say, ‘Oh, yeah, we need education to be better. We need to serve our kids better’. But if you have no understanding of what the ecosystem looks like, then you actually tangibly cannot impact change. You can’t make it happen if you don’t have an understanding of it. I think CHANGEMAKERS was the perfect onboarding vehicle for gaining an understanding of our education landscape and then knowing the areas I can put my effort into to make an impact that our community can feel.”

His hope for our community is that we can continue to serve students well “ I think that sometimes we lose sight. Me as a civilian, as somebody in the community, I only care about one thing, and that is serving our students well. I can care less about what form it comes in, whether it is charter, public, private, whatever it may be. My only commitment, the only thing I care about and want to hold our leaders to, is, can you adequately state and actually show proof points of how you’re serving our students well?” 

As Justin reflected on his experience navigating the education system as a student and now visiting the options that exist as a parent, he encouraged students to take control of their narrative and create the story they want. “I would love for students to understand the importance of where they’re at and every single day showing up to school, what it does for them. You may not know it, but while you’re a student, you’re literally writing your story with a wet pen.”

Justin serves on the advisory board for Power Pump Girls and was recently honored in 225 Magazine’s 20 in their 20s edition.

She is a graduate of Louisiana State University where she received her doctorate in Musical Arts and non-profit management. Sinella was born and raised in Tehran, Iran and migrated to the United States when she was 18. She moved to Baton Rouge in 2016 when she began her doctoral studies at LSU and has since made it home. She is deeply committed to the Baton Rouge community and specifically the children of our city. 

“Education has always been my thing, especially arts education,” she explained. “All the roles that I have had expanded on providing those programs, whether it’s with after school organizations or music and arts programs, and in my current role now. A very big part of my goals for our immediate future is to expand our educational offerings for K-12 students in the area.”

Already having a hunger for educational advocacy, Sinella was excited when she first heard about the CHANGEMAKERS program. Being relatively new to the area, she sought ways to get involved in the community and help implement the change she knew was needed and possible for our city. In 2021, she was selected for Cohort IV of the program and recalls her favorite moment in the program as the City Visit to Atlanta. 

“What I gained the most out of the CHANGEMAKERS program is that it just gave me another lens, another depth of understanding of how to prioritize the students, the schools, and to ensure the services we provide to students are equitable. I think another aspect of that is better understanding of policy and how to follow it.”

Sinella says that since her involvement in the program she tries to attend as many school board meetings as possible, whether virtually or in person.

She says that her biggest hope for the students in our city is having equitable access to anything that can help them be successful long term. “Education is definitely the first stepping stone in the livelihood of a person. When we think about K-12 education, some people think about students as kids, but I think of them as the people that I will be working with in a decade. So how are they going to be affecting my community and the institutions that I interact with everyday?” 

In her strive to continue the conversation about educational access in the city, she encourages more people to become involved in these discussions even if they aren’t parents. 

Sinella serves on several boards including: Louisiana America 250, Dream Teachers, Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Foundation, and Leadership Baton Rouge Alumni. She is a 2025 Panelist at Business Report’s Women’s Leadership Symposium and currently a member of the Louisiana Tourism Leadership Academy 2025.

If you are interested in learning more about Dr Sinella Aghasi follow her on Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/aghasimoshabadsinella/