Runoff elections for the Atlanta School Board have begun.
Atlanta School Board Seat 7 At-Large candidates, Alfred “Shivy” Brooks and incumbent Tamara Jones participated in a runoff forum inside the Center for Civic Innovation as a last attempt to talk to voters and community Wednesday night ahead of runoff Election Day on Dec. 5.
Brooks is an educator and community activist. If elected, he would be the first active teacher to serve on the board. He currently teaches economics at Charles Drew High School and is the head football coach at Wesley International Academy. Brooks ran for Atlanta City Council Post 1 At-Large in 2021, losing to Michael Julian Bond.
His candidacy, according to the Atlanta Civic Circle, represents a unique and historic opportunity to bring much-needed change and representation to the Atlanta education system. For 150 years, Atlanta Public Schools has been educating children, but for those 150 years, there has never been an active teacher on the APS Board. Until this year, active teachers were excluded from serving on the board, regardless of the school district they taught in.
Brooks said he is running because he was brought up understanding he has a responsibility to his village.
“I don’t have the privilege of individuality, that my existence and the greatness of my existence is completely tied with the opportunities given to others, the outcomes for their lives, and they don’t measure myself based upon what is it that I do continue to impact positively is at or around? Where does that come from for your city,” he said.
Jones is the incumbent for the APS Board District 7 At-Large seat, seeking re-election for a second term. A Georgia native, Jones won her 2021 election with 67% of the vote against Kanesha Vennings. She also has a background in architecture and urban planning, according to the Atlanta Civic Circle.
“I have served in this seat for the past two years and have the experience and training that is required to meet the needs of this moment. I know what this job involves and what it doesn’t, and how to do it,” she said. “APS is hiring a new superintendent, and we need to polish up our basics: every child’s right to read; enough qualified staff in our schools; safe and welcoming learning environments, transportation, and nutritious food that kids want to eat. We need to fund school operations first before other projects so that the individual learning needs of each child can be met daily.”
Neither candidate received enough votes to win the local election outright, which preceded in a runoff. The two candidates were in a virtual battle, with Jones ahead by less than 1 percentage point.
Even with early voting, numbers remained relatively low. The Georgia Secretary of State’s office reported a total of 155,106 people voted early in-person or absentee by mail prior to Election Day. Georgia currently has over 7 million registered voters and around 5.5 million of them had local elections across 122 counties during this cycle. About 1% of residents in Fulton County had voted by the final week of early voting.
So many people, Brooks said, are not showing up to vote because they don’t know who their board is or what they do.
Additionally, Jones said voting is important and the future of the world.
“This is the future of our world and I think in a lot of ways, we have lost our sense of public education and what its purpose is as a public good,” she said. “We do this for the future of civil society and to ensure the flourishing here, it’s a responsibility that we have. Success is potentially infinite, and we should want success.”
Brooks said one of the biggest misconceptions he sees as an American government teacher is they don’t teach local government.
“There is very little focus for municipal government and local government. We hyper focus on three branches of the federal government,” he said. “We must do a much better job as a city, as an education system, as a society in making sure that our young people understand why it’s important to vote. I do believe that we must be on an intentional pathway to make sure that our young people know why it’s important to vote and become engaged. They’re not just voting for the school board; they’re voting for Alfred “Shivy” Brooks and Tamara Jones and knowing who those individuals are and not just casting a vote because they are supposed to.”
Early voting ends Dec. 1 and the runoff election is Tuesday, Dec. 5.