Dr. Tauheedah Baker-Jones, Chief Equity and Social Justice Officer for Atlanta Public Schools (APS), was recently presented with the first-ever “Championing Equity” Urban School District Equity Leader Award at the Council of the Great Schools’ Curriculum, Research and Instructional Leaders Meeting in Portland, Ore. 

Sponsored by Amplify, the award honors an equity leader in a Council member district who has demonstrated leadership in developing strategies designed to dismantle inequities within their district.

“This work is in my DNA,” Baker-Jones said. “I am very honored to receive this award and proud to have a team of phenomenal equity leaders who lean into this work with me despite the ever-growing challenges presented to us daily. We remain proud and passionate about the work we have done and are doing, to advance educational equity in the district, and now, APS is a national model for intentionally, explicitly, and sustainably addressing challenges of equity in education.”

Baker-Jones has served as the first chief equity and social justice officer for APS since 2020 where she leads the district’s efforts to build a culture of inclusion and advance educational equity. She has spent more than 20 years working to ensure that every child is provided with an excellent and equitable learning environment and has held diverse leadership roles across the K-12 spectrum within the district, charter, and non-profit sectors.

“This award recognizes Dr. Baker-Jones for her contributions in leading, embedding, and operationalizing equity principles throughout Atlanta Public Schools,” said Dr. Akisha Osei Sarfo, the Council’s director of research. “As the role of equity leaders in school districts is still fairly new, Dr. Baker-Jones stands out as exemplary and a model for other equity leaders across urban school districts.”

Baker-Jones began her teaching career in the Los Angeles Unified School District, and has also worked as a teacher, principal, and district leader in Newark, N.J., a non-profit leader in New York City, and an adjunct professor at the Harvard University Graduate School of Education. 

She has received numerous awards and recognitions, including a recognition by President Barack Obama as a White House Community Leader in Education and a 2020 recipient of the Harvard University Afolabi Award for Commitment to Educational Justice. Her work in education equity and social justice has been featured in the New York Times and on the CBS “Early Show.”  

“This award is bigger than me,” Baker-Jones said. “It is a collective effort of my team in the APS Center for Equity and Social Justice, the cross-functional efforts of true equity champions within our district, our partners, and an amazingly supportive Board that boldly and courageously adopted an equity policy to authorize the work we are doing. This is a blessing that I do not take lightly.”