Atlanta Public Schools is beginning the new school year with a new leader at the helm. The district selected Bryan Johnson to take the reins of the 50,000-student school system. 

The longtime educator most recently served as executive vice chancellor and chief strategy officer at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.

From 2017 to 2021 Johnson led Tennessee’s Hamilton County Schools, where he launched the Future Ready Institutes career academies in the district’s high schools. That initiative won him recognition from EdWeek in 2020 as a “Leader to Learn From.” The countywide district includes Chattanooga. 

In a news release, Atlanta school board Chair Erika Mitchell said the board is thrilled at the prospect of collaborating with someone as accomplished as Johnson. “His diverse leadership roles throughout his career will be a tremendous asset, as he helps propel our district by pushing students toward success while advocating for the district’s needs.”

“The board's been very clear with guardrails and goals which we'll lean into, a lot of focus around literacy, a lot of focus around whole-child social [and] emotional support for students,” Johnson said in an interview on Good Day Atlanta.

Johnson succeeds Danielle Battle, who was the district’s interim superintendent from September 2023 until Johnson’s appointment. 

New Leader in East Baton Rouge

The new superintendent of Louisiana’s East Baton Rouge Parish School System is LaMont Cole, who previously served as mayor pro tem of the parish’s metro council and as chief academic officer of CSAL Inc., a charter school network based in Baton Rouge.

“Whether or not you are a family with a child in a public school here in the city of Baton Rouge, public education matters,” he stated in a district news release.

“It matters for the greater good of our city because public education touches every aspect here in our city, and we have to make sure that we engage, we invite, we collaborate, we communicate, and we listen to every member of this community who is concerned about public education.”

Cole succeeds Adam Smith, who was the interim superintendent and is now serving as the district’s deputy superintendent. 

In San Diego, Fabiola Bagula has been named interim superintendent of the San Diego Unified School District after the departure of superintendent Lamont Jackson. Bagula, who was the district’s deputy superintendent, is the first Latina to lead California’s second-largest school system.

Jackson was named schools chief in 2022 after more than three decades in the district, beginning as a teaching assistant, teacher, and coach.

Millicent Borishade has been named interim superintendent of Saint Louis Public Schools, with schools chief Keisha Scarlett on a temporary leave of absence. 

Scarlett arrived in the district in July 2023 from Seattle, where she had served as chief academic officer and assistant superintendent of academics at Seattle Public Schools.

Borishade has been chief of schools in the St. Louis district for the last year, appointed by Scarlett. She previously was chief academic officer in the Tukwila Public Schools, a district south of Seattle.