2022-2023 | CLASS ACT 5
From the Superintendent
Dear CCSD Families,
Education is the work of optimism.
Every August, we open our schools’ front doors to
welcome our future in the form of the children we teach,
support and care for each day.
Among these smiling faces shine our future leaders,
doctors, artists, builders, police officers, scientists, bankers,
plumbers, writers, entrepreneurs, engineers and
every other role imaginable … and even those we can’t
imagine yet. And teachers, as some of our students will
be so inspired by their days with us and by our amazing
educators, that they will choose to follow their path.
Our teachers amaze our students, but they also amaze
me.
Over the past year, our students have earned our
school district’s highest SAT and ACT scores, graduated at
our highest rate and left more prepared than ever before
for success, whether at college or in the workplace. We
earned another five years of accreditation and achieved
our highest-ever score through the rigorous independent
review process. This success is a credit to the excellence
and dedication of our teachers, as well as our support
staff, volunteers and partners who support them, our
administrators who lead them, our School Board whose
policies guide them and our community who invests in
them.
The past two years have shown us all, more clearly
than ever before, how important educators are to the
success of our students and our community. Together, we
continued to achieve despite the obstacles in our paths.
The year ahead offers many reasons for optimism,
beyond the 42,000 we will welcome to school. We will
celebrate the expansion of our Cherokee College & Career
Academy and i-Grad Virtual Academy, two innovative
initiatives designed to offer more school choice in our
community and better prepare students for future success.
We will move forward with two significant construction
projects: the replacement Cherokee High School and
the replacement Free Home Elementary School. We will
bring back the graduation coach program, which has been
renamed the High School Student Success Coach program,
to ensure every student receives the support needed
to graduate on time and future ready. We will see our
third high school graduate its first class of AP Capstone
Diploma finishers, an elite program that offers a higher
level of college preparation.
These are just a few of the developments you will read
more about in this magazine and hear more about over
the next year. We’re very proud of this magazine, our
third to be published with the support of the Cherokee
Tribune Ledger-News. All of the content comes from us,
and we hope the information is useful to you now and
over the coming year. We’re grateful to all of the businesses
that purchased advertising to pay for its printing
– thank you for your support. In addition to printing
copies for all of our students’ families and our employees,
the Tribune also created a digital version of the magazine
available on our website at www.cherokeek12.net.
We can’t wait to celebrate the new school year with
you.
Sincerely,
Dr. Brian V. Hightower
Superintendent of Schools
As Superintendent of Schools for the Cherokee County School District, Dr. Brian V. Hightower
continues to take great pride in leading its 42,000 students and 6,000 employees in
“Educating the Emerging Generation.” Most recently, Dr. Hightower was appointed by Georgia
Governor Brian Kemp to serve on his Superintendents Advisory Council, selected to serve
on Cognia’s Georgia Advisory Committee, honored with the President’s Award by the Georgia
School Superintendents Association and honored for the sixth straight year being named to
the Atlanta Business Chronicle’s “Who’s Who” in Education list.
For the 2022-23 school year, Dr. Hightower will continue to serve on the State Superintendent’s
Advisory Council and as immediate past-chairman for the Georgia Education Coalition,
a legislative lobby consortium of large and growing school districts in Georgia. Dr. Hightower
will also serve as the Board of Control Chair for the North Georgia RESA districts and
continue to serve as a National Research Fellow with the Educational Research and Design
Institute and as a charter member of Leadership Circle, a national coalition of Superintendents
dedicated to researching and addressing some of the most important issues facing public
education today.
/www.cherokeek12.net