A special election will be held on Tuesday for the District 2 seat on the Atlanta Public Schools school board. Nine candidates filed to run in the election. They had until July 10, 2019, to file for the seat and, if needed, a runoff election is scheduled for October 15.

 

The special election was called after Byron Amos resigned his seat in January 2019 to run for the Atlanta City Council. He was defeated in the runoff city council election in April. Amos served on the board from 2011 to 2019, most recently winning re-election in 2017. The winner of the special election will fill Amos’ unexpired school board term, which ends in 2021.

 

In a June 20 article, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution wrote that the vacant seat “could be a critical swing vote on the board.” Due to the unoccupied seat, the board has had at least one vote end in a 4-4 tie, which led to the automatic defeat of a motion.

 

The nine candidates vying for the seat are Aretta Baldon, Christopher Brown, Keisha Carey, Will Chandler, Nathaniel Borrell Dyer, Davida Huntley, Ed Johnson, Chadd Jonesmith, and Paula Kupersmith. Carey challenged Amos in the 2017 election, losing the general runoff election with 49.51% of the vote. Dyer and Johnson also previously sought election to the Atlanta school board. Brown was previously a candidate for Atlanta City Council, and Chandler sought election to the Georgia House of Representatives.

 

Atlanta Public Schools served 60,133 students during the 2016-2017 school year.