East Baton Rouge Parish School System Superintendent
Hometown: Homer
Age: 64
Warren Drake considers himself a teacher first. It’s this mentality that helps him see so clearly what East Baton Rouge Parish schools need.
“As teachers, we don’t see our product as quickly as in other businesses,” he says. It might take 10 years, but that moment when a teacher receives a thank-you letter from a student whose life he or she positively affected—that’s what makes it all worth it, he says.
When Drake started his tenure last June, he visited every school in the district. He emphasized people, not programs. He wanted to ensure the right leaders were in the right positions, because when leaders take pride in their work, he says, you can feel it the moment you walk in the building. “Great teachers want people to come to their class. Great principals want people to come to their schools,” he says.
Within his first two weeks, he’d named 19 new school principals and released a new Central Office organizational chart eliminating 34 positions. Not long after, he hired a communications director, Adonica Duggan, to rebrand the school district. Drake plans to foster an educational environment so strong that parents won’t think twice about sending their children to public school.
“Citizens of East Baton Rouge Parish pay taxes,” he says. “We owe them the best we have to offer.”
• Drake’s plan for his first 100 days prioritized implementing technology in schools, improving school safety, strengthening board relationships and local support, meeting with parent and teacher organizations, assessing organizational structure and creating a well-rounded education including athletics, arts, academics and extracurricular activities.
• This is not Drake’s first superintendent job—beginning in 2002, he served as the first superintendent of the Zachary Community School System. During his time in Zachary, student enrollment grew from 2,500 to more than 5,300, and the district became the top performer in the state. He has also worked as a state network leader, helping 20 school districts implement the Common Core Curriculum.
• He taught history for 12 years, served as a principal at Tara High School and assistant principal at Broadmoor and Zachary high schools, and was an adjunct professor at Louisiana State University.
What’s to come in 2016:
“I’m looking forward to a renaissance in East Baton Rouge Parish schools. … The better our schools are, the better our community is going to be. The entire community is coming together to rally around our schools.”
“Including weekends, I don’t think a day has passed since he became superintendent that he has not been out meeting with or speaking to different groups in our community. Warren has led this district by walking beside our educators and encouraging them.”
—Barbara Freiberg, vice president of the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board
