Dominique Merriweather, Ed.D., is Atlanta’s youngest Black principal in recent decades, overseeing a school with 1,500 students. The story behind the HBCU grad’s journey from what was intended to be a courtroom into the classroom is leaving many in his wake inspired by his ambition.
The 30-year-old Merriweather is an Atlanta native who graduated from Westlake High School in 2010, a Morehouse graduate and the youngest principal in Atlanta in many decades and the first African-American to lead Sutton Middle School in its 50-year history.
“Everyone knows, as an African-American male, we have to give a thousand percent and more to truly succeed and make a name for yourself,” said Merriweather.
Merriweather may be making history in his newly appointed role as principal, but his journey into the principal’s office began while attending Morehouse College with his eyes set on a courtroom to become a corporate lawyer with an added interest in politics. “I had this love for the American presidency, I was a presidency fanatic,” Merriweather said.
The Morehouse grad’s ambitions began to shift after a friend encouraged him to read to elementary school students in the Atlanta University Center.
“I fell in love with the elementary school kids, and it became something like a weekly thing, and I came back, and I kept coming back and seeing the weekly progression with the kids,” Merriweather said.
Merriweather says he developed a relationship with the children he read to, which evolved into a mentorship. He says when he first met the young students, they often lacked focus and would get into trouble with their teachers, but after he began instilling in their young minds the notion that people care about their success in the classroom the students’ behavior improved and they became more focused on their studies.
The connection Merriweather developed with the students ignited a passion within him for teaching. By his junior year in college, Merriweather knew he had to figure out a way to segue from his intended focus of political science and corporate law into education. “I had to think of an alternative route into education,” he said of his desire to switch his career focus.
Merriweather looked to the Teach for America program, which helped prepare him for his teaching certification.
“I’ll never forget, I looked into the program, and I looked at the program and I saw the purpose and the mission, and I was like, ‘this sounds like me,’ and I went to through the process and got on, and I’ll never forget going to a hiring fair,” Merriweather said of the Teach for America career fair, which served as a turning point for his future.
While at the hiring fair, Merriweather met a principal of a middle school, which led to an interview and eventual job offer to become a full-fledged teacher. The 2014 Morehouse graduate began his teaching career in special education. It was there he developed a teaching style that led to students’ test scores improving and his superiors taking notice. He then worked his way from teaching students to teaching other teachers as a teaching coach.
“This was me, going home researching best strategies, how to engage kids and how to get them to have a love for this work, and I was an English teacher. I was hard on my kids, I’m not going to lie, I had high expectations for them,” Merriweather said.
Admittedly, Merriweather was regretful at times about the series of promotions he received in the first few years of his career because he felt the elevated roles took him away from teaching students in the classroom. But as his career grew he discovered his larger purpose, building up teachers and preparing students for life beyond the classroom.
“When you move into education, it’s not just about the teaching aspect, it’s the holistic child,” he said.
Merriweather spent the four years as assistant principal for Sutton Middle School in the Buckhead community of Atlanta before the school district appointed him on July 29, 2022, as principal of the school. Sutton Middle School has a mixed student population that is 29 percent Black, 35 percent white, 25 percent Hispanic, 3 percent Asian and 8 percent other. He acknowledges the impact he is making as the youngest principal in the district and first Black person to lead his school. He keeps himself grounded by focusing on the day-to-day work, which can be daunting at times.
“The role as principal, it’s a different beast, it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” Merriweather admits. “As the principal, you’re now over all grade levels, you’re over cafeteria, you’re over transportation, you’re over community relations and community outreach, you’re over support so while there are people in place for that, it’s the idea of knowing, when something goes left, you’re the one responsible for it,” he continued about his new role.
Although the school year just began, Merriweather has already received enough feedback to know his efforts of hard work and leading by example are paying off, he says students, staff and parents have taken notice of his media interviews and proudly say to him, ‘You’re making us look good.’
As Merriweather’s education career enters its ninth year, he hopes to continue to bring about positive changes to his middle school and his students and staff. He wants his legacy to be a motivating one where others can look to him as living proof, anyone can accomplish anything they put their minds to.
“If he’s determined, if he’s focused, what can I take from learning from Dr. Merriweather that I can instill in my own life and really have an impact, and for me, that’s what it’s about, having an impact,” Merriweather said of what he hopes will be his lasting impact.
