He began his teaching career in a kindergarten classroom, moved on to middle school and high school, and finally sat in the Superintendent’s chair. After leading the Clarke County School District for almost three years, Superintendent Robbie Hooker is hanging up his backpack at the end of the month.
“I’m in the fourth quarter,” says Hooker, 59, who coached basketball at Coile Middle School years ago. “Thirty-six years in education is enough.”
Goodbye to the responsibilities of various boards. Goodbye to the endless meetings, the closed-door discussions, the parental pleadings, the statewide conferences, the cheering at games and matches. He says he didn’t get to do a few things he hoped to do when he arrived in Athens, but he is proud of what the district has accomplished under his leadership.
First, he is happy that Jennifer Scott has been named the interim superintendent. She has been working in the school district for 26 years, and he believes she is more than capable to continue as his permanent replacement. In fact, he says he can think of no one better suited for the job—she knows the Athens-Clarke County community, she knows what students need and she knows the strengths of her colleagues.
Before joining the central office administration, Scott taught in Colbert and at Timothy Road Elementary, where she became the assistant principal before becoming principal at Barnett Shoals Elementary. As a central office administrator, she made literacy a priority and addressed school climate and culture issues. She has three degrees from UGA: a bachelor’s degree in speech communications, a master’s in early childhood education and a doctorate in education leadership. “There’s no one better,” Hooker says. “She knows and loves this community.”
He is pleased with the “systems and processes” now in place in the district. Testing has shown that more students are reading on grade level, and that there has been an increase in math scores.
On the Milestones standardized test, students in grades 3–8 raised their math scores by 2.5% and English language proficiency by 2.7%, outpacing growth statewide for the 2023-24 school year. CCSD’s four-year graduation rate rose almost six points to 81%. Class of 2024 students at Clarke County high schools scored an average of 1056 on their SATs, up 27 points from 2023, and higher than the state average of 1030 and the national average of 995.
Each school—elementary, middle and high—has a student advisory council that allows officials from the central office to learn what matters to students and how they feel about their school. “We’ve given students a voice,” he says.
Under his leadership, communication from the central office—about new policies, meetings, appointments, student accomplishments, parent concerns—has become a priority and has improved. He’s happy that members of all religious institutions greet students and parents on the first day of school.
Hooker wishes the school board could have made a decision about what should be done with the West Broad School, which has been deteriorating in limbo for years. The idea of the school buildings becoming a museum of Black history isn’t tenable because there are no state funds to pay for such a thing. There isn’t enough acreage for the site to become a state and federally funded early learning center, which was former superintendent Demond Means’ recommendation, and Means’ successor Xernona Thomas pivoted to an early learning on the Eastside that opened last fall.
Hooker says he would like for the historic segregation-era Black school to become a recreation center for youth. At the very least, he says, the land where neighborhood residents grew plants could be reclaimed and used for a community garden. As it is now, the rich land is covered in weeds.
“In a lot of urban areas, you see community gardens,” he says. “A recreation center would be great for the neighborhood. But that’s up to the board to decide.”
Means ended an Athens Land Trust community garden and farmers market on the property, and the board had no interest in Athens-Clarke County’s offer to fix up the decaying buildings for an ALT-run youth and community center. Four superintendents now have wrangled with the site’s fate over the past 15 years; maybe the fifth try will be the charm.
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