Teachers need a seat at the table when state policymakers make decisions affecting public schools, Atlanta’s top teacher says.

Scott Allen, a Latin teacher at Grady High School, was named Atlanta Public Schools 2015 Teacher of the Year. He’ll compete with teachers across the state to be named Georgia Teacher of the Year.

Allen, who says his next big project is to ensure Latin is taught at the elementary and middle schools that feed into Grady, recently spoke with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Q: What’s the value in teaching Latin?

It’s many fold. First of all, in terms of piecing together the language, most students look at Latin as a puzzle. The same skills that they’re using when they’re trying to figure out what a Latin sentence says are the same skills they’re using when they’re trying to figure out math and engineering problems.

I attract lots of kids who are good at writing and want to be better at writing. A lot of times they tell me they learn so much English in their Latin classes.

I think it also helps that you start to imagine a world that is so much like your own but that is otherwise so different, so it leaves a lot to the imagination.

If the goal is to help you communicate, you have to learn how to communicate in your mother tongue first, and Latin helps more so than other languages in learning better English syntax and vocabulary.

Q: As a public school teacher, what do you need to do your job successfully?

I just need people who are making decisions to understand what exactly as a classroom teacher I’m going through on a day-to-day basis. I need people who make those decisions to understand the repercussions of those decisions, in terms of realistic expectations and constraints on my time.

And of course we need resources too, like textbooks and things like that.

In the broader scheme of things, teachers need more of a voice at the table. You don’t get a sense that teachers have much of a say in decisions that affect teachers and affect students.

Q: If you were sitting at that table, what would you tell state policymakers?

I would try and let them know that teachers by and large are experiencing a lot of stress and pressure and we don’t seem to be doing very much to address the stress that the job is putting on us. We just keep saying, “Here are some new things, keep doing them, and everything will be OK.”

After a while, everyone will reach a breaking point.

I think a lot of the stress involves data, student achievement and standardized testing.

Another issue that a lot of people seem to overlook is that we’ve seemed to abandoned vocational education in Georgia.

If we try and box everybody into this one track of “you must go to college or you must pick a career that is dependent on college,” then we’re going to end up failing students.

Q: Are you hopeful about the future of the Atlanta school district?

It seems that we do have a better functioning school district. There seem to be some grand plans again, at least from a cluster planning standpoint and a building maintenance standpoint. We do seem to be making some positive strides for improvement.

Q: What surprises you about your students?

What surprises me is their willingness to take a concept that we discuss in class and without any prompting from me they’ll delve more deeply into it. I’m always so impressed that they care enough and are dedicated enough to want to do that. I’m not sure that I was always that kid in high school.

I’m just blown away by their ability to take information, synthesize it and ask questions that really make me stop and think. I really learn a lot from my students because they ask such great questions.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.