Four Savannah-Chatham school board seats are up for grabs: See who qualified to run

Editor's Note: This article has been updated to clarify that Stephanie Collison Campbell and James "Jay" Jones are both residents of Pooler, Georgia. A previous version of this article stated that Campbell was "the only candidate on the school board ballot to have Pooler listed as their city of residence."

Candidates qualified last week for the Savannah-Chatham County Public School System board seats that are up for election this year.

Districts 1, 3 and 7 have at least one challenger to the incumbents who are seeking another term.

Non-partisan general elections will be held on May 21, the same day as the general election primary. Board members serve four-year terms. The positions of board president and district 4, 5, 6 and 8 school board representatives will be up for re-election in 2026.

County Board of Education District 1

Incumbent

Denise Grabowski is an urban planner with two children in the public school system. She is the founder of Symbiocity, an urban planning consulting firm. She has served many community and education related roles, such as the President of the School Council at Charles Ellis Montessori Academy, Chair of the Friends of Massie for Massie Heritage Center, Board of Trustee of the Ossabaw Island Foundation member and as a member of the Metropolitan Savannah Rotary. She is seeking her second term as the District 1 representative after having won in June 2020 to succeed long-time board member Julie Wade.

Challenger

Barbara Hubbard earned a number of degrees throughout her 47-year career as a professional educator. Her highest degree is a Doctorate in Educational Administration from Georgia Southern University. Most of her time as an educator was spent employed by SCCPSS from elementary school teacher to assistant principal to roles in the district's central office that included Acting Associate Superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction and Director of Gifted Education Programs. After she retired, she moved into higher education holding positions at the University of South Carolina Beaufort and the College of Education at Armstrong State University. She also serves on the Altar Guild (Chancel Society) and has been a member of the Junior League of Savannah, Junior Achievement and the College Board. Her husband Carter Hubbard announced her candidacy on his Facebook page on March 5.

County Board of Education District 2

Current District 2 Representative Dionne Hoskins-Brown is running unopposed. She has been on the board since September 2011 when she was appointed to serve the rest of Floyd Adams’s term after he stepped down to run for Mayor of Savannah. Hoskins is a research fishery biologist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) fisheries and director of NOAA-sponsored programs at Savannah State University. She is also a Beach High School graduate with a degree from SSU and a Doctor of Philosophy in marine sciences from the University of South Carolina.

County Board of Education District 3

Incumbent

Cornelia Hall served as an assistant principal and principal in South Carolina’s Beaufort and Jasper Counties until 2007. She retired and then worked at SCCPSS’s Thunderbolt Elementary as a Reading Resource teacher through 2010. In 2012, Hall was appointed to finish out Alexander Luten’s term after he stepped down due to health concerns. She is currently serving her third full term as the District 3 representative.

Challenger

Tanet Taharka Myers is currently a campus liaison at South University. Prior to that she has served as an assistant city manager for the City of Brunswick, Georgia and as an executive assistant at SSU. She also worked for over seven years within the City of Savannah as a revenue manager and a deputy city clerk. She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing from Morris Brown College and a Master of Public Administration from SSU.

County Board of Education District 7

Incumbent

Michael Johnson is a local realtor with Keller Williams Realty where predominantly focuses on first-time home buyers and military relocation. Prior to working in real estate business, he had earned a Culinary Arts degree from Le Cordon Bleu and spent more than a decade in the food service industry. He is seeking his third term as the District 7 representative, a post he has held since 2016. He has been a Savannah resident for nearly 30 years and has a child who attends Savannah Classical Academy.

Challenger

Stephanie Collison Campbell resides in Pooler, which has been one the fast-growing towns in the coastal Georgia region. Western Chatham County has seen the most growth in new developments over the last decade, which has begun to impact the school district's facilities and transportation offerings to that side of town. Families and school leaders were at odds throughout most of the end of last year upon release of SCCPSS’s Long-Range Facilities Plan Phase 1, which has redrawn school attendance zones in West Chatham.

Challenger

James “Jay” Jones is another Pooler resident seeking the district 7 seat. He is a local business solutions consultant and co-owner of Adventures of Botanical Boy, which he started with his son who attended Virginia Heard Elementary School. Jones has been heavily involved in the Savannah-Chatham community through a number of organizations from Chatham Area Transit to the Chatham County Democratic Committee as well as the local NAACP chapter. He has also served in the past as a Chatham County Commissioner for District 6 from January 2017 to December 2020. His most recent attempt to win a public office was for Georgia Senate District 1 in the 2022 midterm elections.

Jones launched his campaign on Facebook on Tuesday, March 12, with a post proclaiming that he is a "Proud product of Savannah-Chatham County Schools." He attended SCCPSS institutions 1st through 12th grade.

This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: See qualifiers for 2024 Savannah-Chatham school board elections