Meet the pastor helping to bridge gaps between Macon students, schools

With the new school year underway, the Bibb County School District is turning to a familiar face to tackle a persistent challenge: keeping students in class.

Dominique Johnson, pastor of Kingdom Life Church in east Macon, has been appointed as the district’s new truancy intervention specialist. The role, created this year and county-funded by revenue from automatic speed cameras at Macon schools, aims to support the district’s ongoing battle with chronic absenteeism, which affected nearly 30% of students in 2025.

In addition to working as a pastor for more than a decade, Johnson is no stranger to community engagement. He leads the Urban Community Empowerment Organization, a nonprofit that focuses on equipping urban communities to address critical needs and drive lasting impact.

Johnson said he is already deeply connected across Macon and that his community-oriented background will help shape his work in the new role.

“I’m just using what I’ve been gifted with to bring about change and add to it,” Johnson said.

The Bibb County Board of Education voted on July 31 and approved Johnson for the role, which is funded for three years.

Board member Myrtice Johnson, no relation, said Johnson’s deep roots in the community and ability to connect with both students and parents were key reasons for his selection.

“He loves people. He’s very concerned about the youth, and he gets them engaged. He’s just about getting things done, and he loves this school system,” she said, adding that his status as a longtime Macon resident and Bibb County schools graduate means “he knows what the district needs.”

Johnson said Superintendent Dan Sims recommended him for the position after the application process was complete.

‘How can we help?’

Johnson described his approach to truancy as restorative, emphasizing the importance of building relationships, understanding the root causes of absenteeism and empowering families to find solutions while holding them accountable.

“Having that deeper conversation, asking, ‘Hey, how can we help?’” he explained. “When we do that, and once a family tells us, then we try our best to meet that need.”

Johnson said he sees his work as a bridge between the school system and the wider community, creating what he called “an ecosystem of support” for students.

“I’m not a truancy officer … I’m not going to be jumping out of a car and running behind kids,” Johnson added. He emphasized that his role is one broader part of the district’s strategic response to truancy: addressing it not just as an administrative issue, but as a relational and community-driven one. Bibb County Schools already uses a multidisciplinary approach, including school counselors, social workers and a truancy task force, to support chronically absent students and reach a goal of reducing absenteeism by 50%, said Jamie Cassady, assistant superintendent of student affairs.

District attendance coordinator Takeysha Lewis, who supervises Johnson, said the district is also implementing state-mandated attendance review teams. The district will require the teams to meet weekly to monitor data and develop intervention plans for students with emerging patterns of absences, Lewis added.

Johnson’s work is expected to complement these efforts through early intervention and community engagement.

“Attendance is a need that not only impacts our schools but also impacts our community,” Lewis said. “So, we are committed to making sure we have our students in school.”

While the school year has just begun and students are still settling into routines, Johnson and Lewis said the attendance team has already started building local partnerships.

Looking beyond the classroom

Myrtice Johnson, who has served on the board for five years and has over 30 years of teaching experience, said students not showing up to school is not an unfamiliar topic to her but she does understand the complex barriers many students face: transportation issues, poverty and safety concerns among them. She said some students walk to school in unsafe conditions because they don’t qualify for bus service.

“We need to do better as leaders to remove barriers,” she said.

Chronic absenteeism — defined as missing 10% or more of school days — has slightly decreased across the state since the COVID-19 pandemic but remains high in high-poverty districts like Bibb.

Johnson said he hopes to help reframe the issue, especially with confronting the hard truths that exist in Macon and affect families.

“Generational poverty, mental health, trauma — are some of the hard truths behind these results we’re dealing with. It’s not all (on the) parents,” Johnson said, mentioning a lower life expectancy for some parts of Macon compared to others. “If you want to go deeper, you talk about Macon being the most redlined city in the United States …Those things add to the everyday life of the citizens that we’ll be dealing with so we have to talk about all the divides and bridge that gap.”

Balancing two callings

Johnson’s role will involve working with the district’s attendance teams, engaging community organizations, and developing new strategies to make school attendance a community-wide priority.

He said he will still serve as a full-time pastor while working for the district. As he steps into the new role, he’s calling on local organizations and residents to join in on the effort.

“We want everybody talking about it, not just truancy, but attendance as a whole community.” he said.

District officials say they’re not expecting overnight results, but they believe that with Johnson’s efforts and approach, Biib county can make meaningful strides in supporting student success.

This story was originally published August 11, 2025 at 2:48 PM.