Will Atlanta’s new school superintendent bring a new era of equity? – Capital B News

Atlanta Public Schools is preparing to enter a new era with the selection of its next superintendent this week.

Dr. Bryan Johnson, who was announced Tuesday as the “sole finalist” to be the next superintendent of Atlanta Public Schools. Johnson, former superintendent of schools in Hamilton County, Tennessee, was most recently executive vice chancellor and chief strategy officer at the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga. He still faces a 14-day vetting period in which he will meet with parents, educators and district stakeholders before board members vote on his hiring one final time in early July.

On Tuesday, APS detailed a recruiting process that included a strategic plan, board interviews, one-on-one interviews, focus groups, APS meetings and a stakeholder survey. The district says it worked with more than 60 groups, ranging from student-led organizations to the Atlanta City Council and mayor’s office to parent-led groups, to identify what the community wanted in a leader.

APS Board President and District 5 Representative Erika Mitchell said the district conducted an extensive search that included intense community engagement and extended until the district was in able to find the right person for the job.

“We found the best fit for our district,” Mitchell said. “Our process was thorough…we assembled a pool of high-quality candidates and selected the one who best fit our leadership program.

Still, Atlanta residents and parents hope Atlanta Public Schools’ new superintendent will make the district more equitable by improving outcomes for its 50,000 students.

Paulette Montague is the mother of a rising ninth grader who is preparing to join her junior at Carver High School’s Early College this fall.

“My hope is the same as it’s always been: to level the playing field,” Montague said. “It’s drastic and unfortunate, and I feel like we’re paying the same taxes as people up north.”

Some who participated in the hiring process said there was still a lot of room for improvement.

“I wish we could have facilitated different types of conversations as community leaders, that the board trusted, that the board couldn’t have had alone,” said Kanesha “KaCey” Venning , co-founder and general director. of Helping Empower Youth (HEY) Atlanta, who was among the Atlanta residents selected to participate in the research process.

“I just think we need to do the work to understand why within our system we can never look for someone who can lead our system, having been cultivated by APS,” Venning said. “Year after year, we have to go outside our own city and our own system to be able to find a leader. We have to understand this.

APS first announced its superintendent search in June 2023, after the district declined to renew the contract of then-superintendent Dr. Lisa Herring beyond June 2024. The board he administration then voted last August to hire Dr. Danielle Battle as interim superintendent, a contract that was extended twice. during the research process.

A native of Nashville, Johnson led Hamilton County Schools from 2017 to 2021. He was named the Tennessee Organization of School Superintendents’ Superintendent of the Year in 2020. Hamilton County Schools serves the largest metro of Chattanooga, with more than 45,000 students in 78 schools.

According to a presentation shared with community members at Tuesday’s press conference, Johnson helped turn around his former district, increasing first-year teacher retention by 18 percent and helping the district move from the 130th district in the state to the second highest performing district in Tennessee in terms of student academic growth. He briefly left the industry to serve as chief of staff at US Xpress, a Chattanooga-based trucking and logistics company, before being appointed to his most recent position at UTC.