{ MEMBER SPOTLIGHT LIFELONG LEARNER, VOICE FOR OTHERS: CLINTON VICKS LEADS DOUGHERTY COUNTY ASSOCIATION OF EDUCATORS
The former teacher with the New York City Board of Education summed those factors up as, “Continuous experiences that I had as a teacher in my school system where I knew for a fact if I had access to my union as well as a visible strong teacher-union presence, I would not have had the experience that I was dealing with.”
By Shandra Hill Smith Early in his teaching career, Clinton Vicks recognized the importance of being part of a teachers union, though at the time he opted out of joining one. He vowed not to repeat that decision, and while working for nearly seven years in his hometown of Putney, a suburb of Albany in Dougherty County, Georgia, Vicks made it a priority to connect with the local champion for teachers in his area — the local chapter of the Georgia Association of Educators. “GAE has been prominent from day one when I reached out to them when I was attempting to separate from the school system and being told that I was not going to be able to be released from my contract,” said Vicks, who joined GAE in 2017 when he began working as a teacher in Dougherty County. Vicks turned his attention to leading the county’s GAE chapter — the Dougherty County Association of Educators. Vicks has served as president of the Dougherty County Board of Education in 2024-2025. “I’m always going to be a teacher. I teach people of all ages because I’m a life learner. Venue and location doesn’t limit my ability to be able to teach and impact, so I’ll always be a teacher.” 16 | KNOW • Volume 22 Issue 2
These experiences, Vicks added, include “unprofessionalism when it comes to direct communication from
administration to teachers and lack of morale amongst teachers and staff due to the culture that is established by the academic leader within the academic community.” Other experiences he said
Clinton Vicks
he faced are a “lack of opportunity for upward
mobility and professional development as a teacher directly related to the student population as well as the workforce in our immediate area” and issues with “tone and word choice from administrators to teachers.” Vicks shared of a time that he’s “experienced a principal using profanity when talking to me. I’ve had a principal point their finger at me in front of another district-level administrator. I’ve been called in the office and accused of not being a team player — just things that would break and chip down at morale of any teacher that was maybe new or not strong in their abilities as a teacher,” he said. “I’ve had situations where disagreements have maybe risen between myself and another teacher in a toxic work environment just because of the energy and the morale and the culture established within that building.” The owner of The Vicks Estate, Farm & Fishery, a boutique farm-to-table bed and breakfast, Vicks was born and raised in the Albany area, where some of his family members — five generations strong — are pillars in the community.
He said his cousin, Gladys Ward McCullough Sapp, wrote the alma mater for Albany State University. His aunt, Christine Bennett Brown, he shared, is a charter member of Sigma Gamma Rho sorority at Albany State University; and each of his three brothers graduated from Albany State. A Howard University graduate with a bachelor of arts degree in communications and culture, Vicks received his master’s degree in education, with a concentration in educational leadership and management, from Albany State University. During his two-year term, he plans to propose to association members that the term of president be increased from two to three years, as he believes more than two years in this position are needed to make “necessary changes.” “I’m always going to be a teacher,” he added. “I teach people of all ages because I’m a life learner.” He pointed out that in 1999, then a college student, he taught students older than him through Turner Job Corps Center in Albany. “Venue and location doesn’t limit my ability to be able to teach and impact, so I’ll always be a teacher.”
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