Four Atlanta School Board Races to be Decided in Runoffs

It’s hardly surprising that with 26 candidates vying for nine seats on the Atlanta school board Tuesday night, a lot is still left to be decided.

Unofficial results from the election indicate that voters will head back to the polls on Dec. 3 to determine the winner in four runoffs.

Among those is for the District 8 at-large seat, where Board of Education Chairman Reuben McDaniel, who garnered 36.74 percent of the votes in the five-person race, will face attorney and former co-president of North Atlanta Parents for Public Schools Cynthia Briscoe Brown (20.80 percent) in the runoff.

Also in a five-person race for the city-wide District 9 seat, attorney Jason Esteves (34.32 percent) and education business founder Lori James (30.72 percent) will face each other again next month.

In southwest Atlanta, Georgia State University program director Eshé Collins led a four-person race with 35.97 percent of the vote and will face Dell Byrd (25.33 percent) in a runoff for the District 6 seat.

And in west Atlanta, counseling center director Steven Lee (36.87 percent) and academic coach Mary Palmer (36.34 percent) are also headed for a runoff after being separated by just 45 votes in the four-person District 5 race.

Come January when the new Atlanta Board of Education convenes, it will consist of a majority of new board members. That’s because four current board members chose not to seek re-election Tuesday, and District 1 incumbent Brenda Muhammad, who has served on the board for 14 years, was defeated by small business owner Leslie Grant (57.09 percent to 42.79 percent).

District 4 incumbent Nancy Meister and at-large Post 7 incumbent Courtney English both scored easy victories in winning re-elections. Incumbent Byron Amos of District 2 and newcomer Matt Westmoreland in District 3 both ran unopposed.

The Atlanta Board of Education sets the education policy for the nearly 50,000-student school district.