First active teacher to hold a seat on Atlanta school board

ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) – Alfred “Shivy” Brooks will be the first active teacher to hold a seat on the Atlanta Board of Education.

Brooks is currently a teacher at Charles Drew High School in Clayton County and will now also have a voice and a vote on Atlanta’s school board.

It is a position Brooks calls important because for so long teachers have had policies made about them without being directly involved.

“We now have the ability to have a voice of someone who is a practitioner,” he said. “Not creating policy out of ideas alone, but policy out of what we understand is actionable.”

Being on the board is also a vital role for Brooks, who is an Atlanta Public Schools parent himself.

After tragically losing his son, Bryce, earlier this year, Brooks told Atlanta News First it was even more important for him to keep pushing as a teacher and father.

“For every Black boy that looks up when they’re dealing with an issue or being celebrated, they now have someone up there who looks like their father, looks like them,” Brooks said.

Copyright 2023 WANF. All rights reserved.