For the first 13 weeks of school, the freshman biology classes at Grady did not have a permanent teacher. Grady was unable to find someone to replace biology teacher David Olorunfemi, who retired right before the school year began. The biology classes were taught by a substitute teacher who had some experience in biology, though many of the students struggled to learn without a regular instructor teaching the subject.

“I wasn’t learning,” freshman Djourdan Gomes-Johnson said. “[The substitute] would just show us a few videos, and then we would do a little book work and that was all.”

Grady’s biology classes may have still been lacking a permanent teacher, were it not for Pierre Davis transferring to Grady from B.E.S.T. Academy.

Davis did not begin with a career in teaching. Finding a fascination in how things worked, such as the body, he received a degree from Fort Valley State University in biology. His first job was at Quest Diagnostics, a company that conducts medical lab tests, but he did not feel fulfilled by his position.

“[I] really did not feel like I was making any difference,” Davis said. “So, I tried to figure out something that I could do that would make my life meaningful and make a difference in other people’s lives, and naturally that led me to teaching.”

After Davis got a master’s degree in education from Walden University, he worked at an alternative school, now Forrest Hills Academy, for four years. While Davis found it difficult to teach at an alternative school, he learned a lot from the experience.

“It was crazy,” Davis said. “[Teaching at an alternative school] taught me how to deal with a lot of things that can go on in the classroom.”

After working at the alternative school, Davis taught at Washington Early College. The school had just been created by the division of Booker T. Washington High School into smaller schools.

In 2014, Atlanta Public Schools decided to consolidate Washington Early College back into a single high school with the rest of Washington and Davis was relocated to the all-male B.E.S.T. Academy where he taught seventh grade life science.

“[Teaching] middle school itself was an experience,” Davis said. “That environment was a challenge.”

Davis’s passion was always for teaching high school, not middle school; he even had applied for a job at Grady at the beginning of the school year. The principal of B.E.S.T. Academy, Dr. Timothy Jones, knew that Davis wanted to teach high school and arranged for Davis to be moved to Grady.

“Somehow — through a miracle — my principal at B.E.S.T. was able to … contact Mr. Guiney here at Grady,” Davis said. “They allowed me to transfer in the middle of the semester from B.E.S.T. to Grady.”

Davis started teaching at Grady on Nov. 9. Gomes-Johnson said that he immediately felt a positive impact and could tell Davis was passionate about improving the Grady biology program.

“He made a really good first impression,” Gomes-Johnson said. “We have only had him for a few days, and so far I’ve learned a lot.”

So far, Davis’s reaction to the Grady community has been positive. He has been impressed with all the support he has received.

“It has been great,” Davis said. “Everyone here — from the students to the staff … anyone I’ve come in contact with — has been welcoming and nice. Everyone has been rushing to ask what they can do to help.”

Davis says that his main goals at Grady are to make a difference and to also create “positive productive citizens.” He hopes that by teaching biology and being a positive role model he can accomplish those goals.

“If you can touch one student — make a difference in one student’s life — that student can touch someone else and make a difference in their life; it’s a chain reaction,” Davis said.