DeKalb County, you have new school board members
Replacements fill seats of board members suspended by governor
- Joeff Davis/CL File
- Gov. Nathan Deal
Gov. Nathan Deal this morning named six new DeKalb County Schools board members he wants to help lead the troubled 99,000-student system.
In a press conference this morning, Deal released the names of six people recommended by a nominating committee to fill the seats of board members the governor suspended late last month over governance issues. They’ll be sworn in in... about 30 minutes.
District 1: John Coleman
District 3: Michael Erwin
District 5: David Campbell
District 7: Joyce Morley
District 8: Karen Carter
District 9: Thad Mayfield
We’ve included their bios after the jump.
In late February, Deal suspended six board members after the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, a private accreditation firm, alleged the school board suffered from governance issues such as nepotism and infighting. The governor appointed a committee to quickly vet replacement candidates. In addition, Deal basically asked county residents for their resumes. More than 400 people volunteered for the jobs.
In addition to touchy questions over whether the governor should be allowed to suspend elected officials, the issue of race has been present throughout the debate. The DeKalb school board is majority black, as is the county.
The NAACP of Georgia said Deal told them in a meeting earlier this week to “find some good black people to run” in next year’s elections when they raised concerns over African-American representation on the board.
The next day, Deal said he was disappointed that the community members who attended the sitdown expressed concerns just about race, not accreditation. The governor today said the racial makeup of the new board members “corresponds” with the six board members he suspended.
“We think it truly reflects the districts these individuals will be asked to represent,” the governor told reporters.
The new board members don’t include any of the suspended officials. Deal considered reinstating them, but he said the “consensus was that it’d be best if we started with a clean slate.”
After the jump, bios of the new board members, courtesy of the governor’s office.