Matt Westmoreland, 2006, Politics and Education
October 12, 2022
Matt Westmoreland’s impact on APS lasted much longer than his four years in high school from 2002-2006. As a Morningside native, he advanced through Inman Middle School and Grady, making his way to Princeton University and back to APS as a teacher and school board member. He now serves as an Atlanta City Councilman.
“My time at Grady, especially my junior and senior years, sparked my interest in education that kind of stuck in the back of my mind during college,” Westmoreland said. “Ultimately, it is what drove me to come back to Atlanta Public Schools and be a teacher at Carver (High School) for four years before I ran for the school board.”
During his time on Grady’s E and C hallways, Westmoreland filled his schedule with challenging academic courses, worked as a Managing Editor of “The Southerner,” the highest position at the time, competed in mock trials and was the 2005-2006 SGA class president.
“My experience in AP US History and on the Southerner staff ultimately prompted me to major in history in college and serve on the Daily Princetonian,”Westmoreland said.
Westmoreland’s time at Midtown created life-long mentors, like Dave Winter, the Southerner’s advisor at the time, and Jeff Cramer, his physics teacher, who taught him many lessons inside and out of the classroom.
“So many of the teachers I had all four years built frankly unbelievable relationships with students,”Westmoreland said. “They all pushed us hard and out of our comfort zones but served as a support system when we needed it.”
Connecting with the school through extracurriculars, Westmoreland said he appreciated the racial and socioeconomic diversity of his surroundings as a teenager.
“It was a special place to go to school, with the diversity of thought and level of freedom you got, where high schoolers get to run a paper that no administrator ever tries to censor,”Westmoreland said.
Westmoreland saw how these differences impacted the educational experiences for his peers. He recalled a time when he was talking to his two mock trial teachers and looked over either of their shoulders into two classrooms with completely different demographics. Larry McCurdy’s AP Literature class had about 15 students, and all were white but one while Maron Sorenson’s ninth on-level literature class had twice as many kids, most of whom were Black.
“That stark visual of division that existed made me realize that my experience in APS and at Grady was different even than the experience of some of my classmates,” Westmoreland said. “It planted a seed in the back of my mind that once I graduated from college, I wanted to go into education and be a teacher that would try and create opportunity and spark passion in students the same way that had been done for me by my teachers.”
As he carried these observations and life lessons into a successful career, Westmoreland believes that it served as a foundation for how he has been able to give back.
“All my time as a teacher, on the school board, and on the city council can be tied back to my experiences at Grady,” Westmoreland said. “My entire outlook on life and the values that I care about evolved from my time there.”