Education Advocate

Woman of Impact

by John McCosh

May 1, 2008

K athleen (Katy) Barksdale Pattillo is a dedicated public servant, particularly in education, a field in which she has been copresident of the PTA at her children's elementary school and a member of the Atlanta Board of Education, where she is in her second term and recently served as its chairwoman. And while she tries hard to work with all the partners at the education table, she did have to disappoint a classroom of students at Sarah Smith Elementary School. It seems her son promised his classmates that his mother's victory in her race for a seat on the Atlanta Board of Education would guarantee pizza for lunch every school day! Pattillo's devotion to public education began when her children entered Sarah Smith Elementary, an Atlanta public school near the Pattillo's Brookhaven home. She served on the Sarah Smith Parent Teacher Association, and her increasing leadership role in community organizations led her into the political arena.

With the 2001 elections for the Atlanta school board looming, members of the Atlanta business community courted Pattillo in late 2000 to run for her district's seat. Winning the election against a two-term incumbent was only the beginning of the hard work ahead. "I have increased respect for people who go into public service," Pattillo says. "I've done some challenging things in my life, but I've never faced anything as challenging as this idea of education. People have so many different ideas, and you have to sort through them to find the things that work."

Her priority is raising achievement by all students throughout Atlanta Public Schools. Pattillo is in her second term on the Atlanta Board of Education and just completed a two-year term as its chairwoman. She also sees gaining public trust in the public school system as another priority for not only the Atlanta Board of Education but also for public school systems throughout the country.

But the greater task – the one for which she was recruited – was to join a board that would provide the school system's new superintendent with a comfort level that would encourage her to remain in Atlanta. Beverly L. Hall had recently joined the system, but there were rumblings that a fractious school board had her already listening to pitches from other cities.

Hall, of course, remains the superintendent of Atlanta schools, and Pattillo is able to quickly rattle off improvements in the system during her years here.

• Atlanta Public Schools is the only one of 11 Trial Urban District Assessment districts to demonstrate significant, consistent improvement in all grades and test areas measured since 2003.
• Hall, with the support of the board, brought in a program emphasizing quality teaching and protégé development in elementary schools. That program is now being applied to middle and high schools.
• The system is three years into its New Schools at Carver program, which created five theme-based smaller schools within what had been one of Atlanta's most underperforming schools. The goal is to better prepare students for college or immediate entry into the workforce. The school has already experienced a 50 percent increase in enrollment and a 25 percent increase in the graduation rate.

"At the first graduation I went to at Carver, it struck me that nobody was very happy," Pattillo says. "Usually there are people screaming and yelling and happy, but at that graduation people wouldn't look you in the eye. I went back to the Carver graduation last year, and kids were smiling and shaking hands. They seem to have hope, and they have optimism." Dr. Stephen D. Dolinger, president of the Georgia Partnership for Excellence in Education, believes Pattillo is an effective leader for education. "From my observations and what I hear from various stakeholders is that Katy Pattillo was one of the early leaders who stepped forward to serve on the school board and to help forge a clear vision for the school system," he says. " Through her leadership on the board, and particularly as the board chair, she helped to stabilize the school system, gave support to Dr. Hall as their new superintendent, and helped to implement solid reform strategies. The results are clear – the students in Atlanta are doing as well or better than students in any urban school system in the country." Pattillo says she held a strong interest in education issues while she was growing up in Conyers. Her mother and grandmother were both teachers. Her father served on the State Board of Education, where he worked to make Georgia's education system more accommodating for children with special needs.

After graduating from Rockdale High School, Pattillo majored at first in special education before switching to political science and graduating from the University of Georgia. That public policy background led her to Washington, D.C., where she worked in the press offices of Sen. Herman Talmadge and Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker.

When she returned to metro Atlanta in 1983, she worked at Southern Co. and later at CNN while she pursued a law degree at Emory University. She married Bob Pattillo in 1988. Between 1990 and 1994, she and Bob had three children, Kathlyn, Gus and Ali.

Her commitment to the children of metro Atlanta goes beyond education, and she is also on the board of directors of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro Atlanta. In fact, this month she was named a Hometown Hero, an annual honor given by the Boys & Girls Clubs to individuals and organizations "who are local leaders who represent excellence and integrity and strive to make a positive impact on youth in the community." Pattillo was in Las Vegas a few years ago to attend a national Boys & Girls Clubs convention. While shuttling around the city in a taxi, she made small talk with her driver. "He asked me why I was in town, and I said I was there for the Boys & Girls Clubs,'" Pattillo says. "And he said, ‘The Boys & Girls Clubs saved my life."

She says he proceeded to recount his years as a youth growing up with a single mother and the many times when it would have been easy to give way to temptations that would have led him away from a productive life. But instead, Pattillo says, he fondly remembers that a community leader with the Boys & Girls Clubs was always there, day after day, waiting for him to come by after school.

She met a woman who had started a club in her garage in East Atlanta. "She showed me the influence that one person can have in a child's life," Pattillo says. "I saw that was a way to get involved, not only with the after-school programs but also through their youth camps. I learned a lot about children's issues through that experience, and I learned a lot about poverty throughout metro Atlanta."