Brooks positioned for growth
Shelby County school system’s new superintendent, Lewis Brooks, was sworn in Jan. 3. With more than 25 years of experience in education, Brooks is poised to step into his new role with ease.
Brooks began his career at the Bessemer Alternative School in the early ’90s, teaching sixth-grade science and physical education. He said his leadership abilities were encouraged and nurtured by the school’s principal at the time, Vickie Manzella.
“It was a very small operation, and so there were four other teachers in the building, and I was the only male,” Brooks said. “I was the youngest. So, when she was out of the building, she would give me the opportunity to make decisions, speak with parents and that kind of thing.”
From there, Brooks moved to the Shelby County school system to teach physical education at Vincent High School. In 1999, after pursuing a graduate degree, he secured his first assistant principal job at Thompson Middle School.
However, wanting experience in a high school, he accepted a position at Pelham High as its assistant principal for a few years. He later returned to Thompson Middle as principal.
He said an educator’s scope of influence changes when moving from a classroom setting to being a principal.
“It becomes not only focused on students, but your scope of influence is focused on adults as well,” he said. “As a principal, certainly you’re the instructional leader, you’re analyzing student data, you’re building relationships with students, but you’re also managing adults.”
While still working as Thompson Middle School’s principal, he received a call from the superintendent of the Talladega County school system, interested in interviewing him for some central office positions that were available. After two interviews, Brooks’ career as an educator made the transition to administration.
He served in the role of Talladega County’s elementary and middle school coordinator for four years, returning to the Shelby County school system as their middle school coordinator in 2009.
In 2012, Brooks became assistant superintendent of administration and pupil services and stayed in the role until he decided to pursue the superintendent position in 2018.
“Through all of my experiences, I’ve always found myself wanting to be in a position to grow,” he said. “And certainly in the role that I served in as assistant superintendent of administration and pupil services, I was granted a lot of opportunities to engage with community stakeholders, work with parents and students, school safety, so I got this full scope of leadership at a higher level. When Mr. Fuller decided he was going to retire, I just felt like it was probably appropriate for me to take the next step to pursue the opportunity.”
Brooks is focused on not only maintaining Shelby County Schools’ standard of being a “model of excellence,” but taking it a step further. He hopes “finding more innovative, instructional ways to create opportunities for students” will be a defining initiative for the district.
To do this, he hopes to connect the district to an organization called the Digital Promise, which is attached to the League of Innovative Schools.
“It’s a network of schools around the country that focus on innovative instructional practices,” he said. “Whether it be just strategy or digital tools, but it’s a network of leaders and teachers and researchers and business and industry, where everyone is connected and talking about ways to improve teaching and learning for students.
Talladega County school system is one of the nationwide systems involved with the Digital Promise. Brooks said his hope is that Shelby County will be able to follow suit. He is confident that being part of this network of schools would aid “students, teachers, leaders, and staff members in the continual pursuit of excellence.”