Jermaine Dawson, an experienced educator who has held high-level positions at major school districts from Houston to Philadelphia, will be the first new leader of Baltimore City Public Schools in a decade.

The city school board unanimously voted to approve his contract Monday morning in a special meeting. He begins July 1 but will be in Baltimore shadowing outgoing CEO Sonja Santelises beginning as early as this month, he said. Santelises is leaving the district after more than 10 years at its helm.

Dawson, 51, is the deputy superintendent of academic services for the School District of Philadelphia, a system more than twice the size of Baltimore’s.

“He’s enthusiastic. He’s exuberant,” Baltimore City school board Chair Robert Salley said. “He possesses a sense of possibility that I think is really critically important for leaders of urban systems.”

A crowd of elected leaders, state education leaders, school children and city school staff were in the room when the board voted to approve his contract.

The new CEO, which is what the school system calls its superintendent, said he’s ready to build on the momentum in Baltimore, where historically low test scores have risen faster than in the rest of the state.

“This is a ministry for me: to ensure that every single child in City Schools is afforded the same opportunities that I’ve been given,” Dawson said.

Dawson, like Santelises, has focused his career on improving academic achievement. But the two leaders have different styles and personal backgrounds. Santelises is an Ivy League-educated woman from a close-knit family; Dawson survived a tough childhood.

Dawson said he grew up in “severe abject poverty” in Atlanta, where he was homeless, eating out of trash cans and sleeping on porches. He eventually became an elementary and middle school principal.

Dawson said he’ll be the best steward for Baltimore’s children because he sees himself in them.

“I can identify with many of what our young people have to deal with just to go to school every day,” Dawson said. “I know the power of what it means to have great leaders and teachers in your life.”

Dawson said he plans to continue Baltimore’s nearly decade-long record of improving literacy scores. He’s a former math teacher and wants to see those proficiency rates rise, too. As he’s done in Philadelphia, he said, he’ll monitor students to make sure they graduate from high school into one of what he calls the four E’s: enrollment in college or a trade school, enlistment in the military, employment or entrepreneurship.

He also intends to keep a close eye on the district’s spending. Dawson currently oversees 16,000 of his district’s 21,000 employees and $2 billion of its $4.6 billion budget. That’s on par with the $1.9 billion budget Baltimore recently proposed for the upcoming school year.

Dawson started in Philadelphia after three years as chief academic and accountability officer for Alabama’s Birmingham City Schools, a much smaller district. He’s also held senior leadership positions in Houston; Jacksonville, Florida; and Atlanta.

He did a one-year stint with Charter Schools USA, which runs publicly funded, privately operated schools in several states. Baltimore’s school system has the highest number of charter schools in Maryland, though the relationship between the district and the charters has often been fraught.

“I am confident that Dr. Dawson is the right leader for this moment. He shares our vision for city schools, making sure that all of our young people have the resources and support they need to reach their full potential,” said Mayor Brandon Scott, who sat next to the school board chair during the vote. “Dr. Dawson understands the situation, the conditions and the realities of what our young people are growing up in.“

Dawson comes to Baltimore after it’s had unusual stability in leadership. Santelises has been in the job longer than most major school district leaders in several decades. And she’s held the job longer than any other superintendent in 80 years in the city.

“We all know that many transitions do not happen this fluidly, this thoughtfully, this intentionally. We are an outlier because of the thoughtful work that you all did, engaging community and making the high-quality selection in Dr Dawson,” said Santelises, referring to the nine-month search. Santelises said she and her husband have invited Dawson and his wife to their home for dinner.

There have been few instances of corruption or scandal during Santelises’ tenure, and her focus on academic achievement has paid off in rising test scores.

Despite that growth, math and English achievement in Baltimore remains among the lowest in the state.

During Dawson’s time in Philadelphia, students’ average math scores on a state test rose to their highest level in nine years, while reading scores in Philadelphia and across Pennsylvania fell.

Philadelphia’s high school graduation rate is over 10 percentage points higher than Baltimore’s. Dawson said he and his team made improvements by talking to kids about their futures in elementary school and then tracking their grades, attendance and where they’d like to go after high school starting in ninth grade.

Dawson will face significant challenges, including bringing down Baltimore’s chronic absence rate, which indicates that 46% of city students missed at least 18 days of school last year. Dawson said attendance has risen “exponentially” in Philadelphia over the last three years because he’s gotten community partners, including churches and businesses, to help incentivize kids to go to school.

He’ll also need to address ongoing strife over school closures, which often target small or underperforming schools. The city has closed dozens of schools to keep up with a 20-year decline in enrollment, which has plateaued. But there are many schools with fewer than 300 students, particularly on the West Side.

Dawson said he’s “battle tested” on those issues. He and Philadelphia district leaders have faced community backlash for proposing to close over a dozen schools. But he joined union, city and school district officials this year in calling on Pennsylvania to increase funding for his historically underfunded school district plagued by aging buildings — just like Baltimore.

Dawson will need to figure out how to get kids to school safely and on time. The city’s middle and high school choice program means as many as 25,000 kids take unreliable public transit to school, a detriment to their attendance, grades and futures. Philadelphia faces similar problems, Dawson said, and he’s worked with its public transit system and state legislators to secure routes for kids.

Dawson said he meets every month with student advisory councils and the teachers and principals unions. When he visits schools, he sits in on classes, eats lunch with the kids and sits among the youngest learners at circle time in his suit and tie.

Dawson said he survived a tough childhood only because he had teachers who helped him. So he’s tried throughout his career to provide the same support for former students, even attending their graduations and weddings.

Baltimore school board Vice Chair Ashiah Parker described Dawson as warm and said he will be more in the public eye than his predecessor.

“He’s very eager to build relationships,” Parker said.

Dawson earned a bachelor’s degree at Morehouse College, a master’s at Kennesaw State University and a doctorate at Northcentral University. He has been considered for superintendent positions in St. Louis; Columbus, Ohio; and Hamilton County, Tennessee.

The father of three plans to move to Baltimore with his wife, Tawnjai (pronounced Tanya), and a rising sixth grader who will enroll in a city public school. He has two adult children. The oldest lives in Atlanta, and his middle child is a first-year special education teacher in Philadelphia.

Dawson has done several short stints in education administration throughout his career, staying in each place no more than a handful of years. He said that was intentional, setting him up with insight from several districts to tackle any problem he encounters. His goal all along was to become a superintendent, he added.

Dawson said his family plans to make Baltimore its permanent home.

“There’s no moving after this. My daughter will be in the sixth grade, and she will be graduating from City Schools in the next six years,” Dawson said.

Because Santelises stayed for 10 years, Dawson said, he plans to stay for at least 10 years and one day.

About the Education Hub

This reporting is part of The Banner’s Education Hub, community-funded journalism that provides parents with resources they need to make decisions about how their children learn. Read more.