Nicole Roohi

DeKalb School of the Arts is a performing arts magnet school for grades 8-12. It also has a strong academic emphasis and is ranked by US News and World Report as the #8 school in the state of Georgia. Our makeup is 68% minority and 22% economically disadvantaged. DSA started in 1986 as a school within a school, and has been an independent school since 1999. It has been housed in several different locations and is currently in the old Avondale Estates High School. The building is old and in need of many improvements, especially in the library, so we are slowly raising money and using ingenuity and elbow grease to improve the environment.

The library is a hub of student activity and is used by more than 150 of our 430 students every day. Students gather to read, research, study, collaborate on projects, use the computers, rehearse for shows, and de-stress from all their activities. We try to provide several different areas so students have space to do all these activities, whether it's building a stage with parents help, fixing some old bookshelves and decorating them with student artwork to create study carrels, cleaning out back rooms with student help so they can use them to gather for group projects, turning a large counter area into a Chromebook charging station and study bar, or retrofitting our very old tables with wheels so students and teachers can more easily configure the library classroom area into a space that fits their needs for that day.

Now we're trying to address some of our lagging technology needs, and a large format color printer is at the top of the list. However, the price is too steep for our school's limited budget, so we are reaching out to the wider community to crowd source. Please help us provide the technology our teachers need so they will be able to create the essential materials to teach our high achieving students.

Our librarian, Nicole Roohi, received her Masters in Library Science from Clark Atlanta University in 2001. After working as an elementary librarian in North Georgia for four years, she relocated to Anchorage, Alaska where she was a middle school librarian for 12 years when she wasn't having amazing outdoor adventures. She was also the president of the Alaska Association of School Librarians for 3 years. Roohi returned to Atlanta in 2017 to work at DeKalb School of the Arts. She is a Nationally Board Certified Teacher Librarian. DeKalb School of the Arts is a performing arts magnet school for grades 8-12. It also has a strong academic emphasis and is ranked by US News and World Report... read more