Mayor Scott appoints newest member to the Baltimore City Board of School Commissioners

By Kyle Erway
Baltimore Watchdog Staff Writer

Mayor Brandon Scott has appointed an educator, non-profit advocate, and community leader to a spot on the Baltimore City Board of School Commissioners.

Scott said Ateira Griffin brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to the board, explaining that while she was a student at the Baltimore Polytechnic Institute, she helped lead a campaign for funding for more textbooks for science, math, and engineering classes. He also described Griffin as a community leader and education pioneer for Baltimore.

“Ms. Griffin’s fierce advocacy for young people and her cross-sector experience — and understanding of the complexities of cross-agency collaboration, by extension — will advance our collective ability to equitably strengthen our public education system,” Scott said in a news release.

Griffin taught Algebra at the Baltimore Leadership School for Young Women from 2011-2016 and served as Dean of Students from 2013-2016. Eventually Griffin became the founder and CEO of BOND, Inc., Building Our Nation’s Daughters, a non-profit organization dedicated to creating effective communication strategies for single mothers and their daughters.

Scott said the Board of School Commissioners is “one of the most important leadership platforms we have in Baltimore for improving the lives of our children and youth.”

Griffin attended Medfield Heights and BPI before enrolling at Morgan State University and later  Johns Hopkins University.

The board is responsible for raising the level of academic achievement of the more than 80,000 students enrolled in Baltimore City Public Schools, and for improving the management and administration of the city’s public school system, Scott said.

Griffin will fill a vacancy created by the fall 2020 departure of Andy Frank whose term expired last summer.