Martin Neuhaus, principal of Northview High School, waves to a photograph each morning before he starts his day. The photo shows Peter Zervakos, the founding principal who opened the school in 2002 and died in 2013 at age 55.

Each morning as he passes the photo, Neuhaus says hello to Mr. Z and tries to honor what he built. "He was one of … the most influential people in my life," Neuhaus told The Messenger, Northview's student newspaper, in a September feature.

Zervakos, a University of Georgia music graduate who started his education career as a band teacher at College Park High School in 1979, served as principal of North Springs High School before Fulton County Schools tapped him to open Northview. The school was built to relieve overcrowding at Chattahoochee High School. Its first students walked in on Aug. 12, 2002.

He brought staff with him. Bobby Macris became Northview's first assistant principal. Robert Hunter became its first athletic director.

Spanish teacher Zandra Horton, science teacher Anu Bhardwaj and teacher Stephanie McCall all arrived that first year and still work at the school 24 years later.

Zervakos wanted to name the school "Acropolis," envisioning it as "a star on the hill." A student vote chose "Northview" instead, but his Greek-rooted vision stuck.

The school's four pillars echo the columns of Greek architecture: compassion, integrity, positive attitude and personal responsibility. Teachers hand out Kudo Cards tied to those pillars, and students drop them in glass boxes outside the cafeteria for a prize lottery.

Annual Arete Awards honor students who best demonstrate the Greek concept of purest excellence. A Will Durant quote about Aristotle stretches across the cafeteria wall in blue letters.

McCall recalled a day when Zervakos spotted writing on the pillars outside the bus canopy, according to the Messenger feature. Staff assumed it was graffiti. Up close, it turned out to be calculus problems — students without paper had worked together right there on the columns.

Zervakos retired in 2009 after 30 years in education. His wife, Sally Zervakos, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 2013 that he wanted to return to band directing, calling it "his first love." He later led band programs at Milton High School and Roswell High School before Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), a neurodegenerative condition, ended his career.

He died March 17, 2013, according to Patch. The Peter Zervakos Foundation was established to raise awareness of CJD.

The school he built kept climbing. Northview has won more than 25 state championships in athletics, Neuhaus said. Its composite ACT score reached 26.9 for the 2026-27 school year, well above the state average of 21.4, The Creek magazine reported in August 2026.

Fulton County Schools chief communications officer Brian Noyes called Northview "one of our best-performing schools academically" in that same report.

Science teacher Pallavi Rallapalli was once a Northview student herself, part of what Zervakos called his "last freshman class." Seven original staff members remain on campus. The Principal Advisory Group Zervakos created so students could voice opinions on school policy held its first meeting of the 2026-27 year on Aug. 26.

On home football game mornings, Northview's drumline still performs in the courtyard, a tradition rooted in a founding principal's belief that band mattered as much as anything else in the building.