Get to know the candidates for Savannah-Chatham's district 1 school board seat

Editor’s Note: This article is part of a series on incumbents and challengers running in the four upcoming Savannah-Chatham County Board of Education district representative elections. The non-partisan school board elections will be held on May 21 in conjunction with county primary elections. The advance voting period is April 29 through May 17. The registration deadline was April 22.

This article has been updated to correctly acknowledge that Barbara Hubbard received her undergraduate degree from the University of South Carolina.

Chatham County School Board District 1 - Incumbent

Introduction

Denise Grabowski feels her time as a Savannah-Chatham County Public School System (SCCPSS) school board member has really just begun.

Her first term started in January 2021, which demanded that she and the board react to the brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic. She now wants to help the district tackle the pandemic’s lasting impacts, particularly learning loss. She also believes that fallout from the isolation imposed by the pandemic affected how students related to one another and their teachers.

The impetus for her interest in serving on the school board is that she grew up in a family of educators. Her campaign kickoff press release stated, “Her mother and both maternal grandparents were teachers, and the early years of Denise’s career focused on community education.” As a parent of children in SCCPSS schools, Grabowski joined the Charles Ellis Montessori school council, eventually serving as school council president for several years. Around the time she was planning to step down from her council role, former District 1 board representative Julie Wade announced she was not running again. So, Grabowski sought the seat and won.

She has hired DeMink Communications to manage her campaign. More info about her credentials and reelection bid can be found at electdenise.com.

Background

Grabowksi attended public schools in the Atlanta area and obtained a Bachelor of Science from Furman University. She then graduated with a Master of City Planning degree from the Georgia Institute of Technology and now owns Symbioscity, a Savannah-based urban planning firm. Her campaign announcement states that “as an urban planner, her work is often focused on community engagement and building consensus around complex community issues.”

In addition to her academic background, she has served the community on a number of boards and councils. In addition to having been the school council president at Charles Ellis, she has also served on the Savannah Technical College Council, Healthy Savannah Steering Committee, and Georgia Planning Association Board of Directors, among others.

As a member of the SCCPSS board, she fulfills a number of duties, including acting as the legislative liaison. In this role she communicates the legislative priorities of the district to local and state lawmakers.

Platform

In her role as District 1 school board representative, Grabowski wants to continue to guide changes and choices that restore students’ ability to resolve conflict and be a “part of the social network that a school represents.” She feels resolutions to most of the district's challenges require more than “throwing money and more people” at them. "We've really got to be mindful of understanding what the root cause is," she said.

Her website highlights three of her key priorities that would serve as her priorities during another term:

• Coordination with local governments and community partners

• Active engagement of teachers, administration, and youth

• Healthy buildings for healthy students

She also spoke of school cultures, particularly related to teacher burnout and absenteeism that need to be addressed as much as students’ burnout and absenteeism. One idea she offered was considering the use of underused buildings to provide early childhood education options that teachers could be first to sign up for should they need childcare services. She was quick to assert that board members can share ideas but are "not to meddle in the day to day, we are to stay big picture." Grabowski cited how back in 2017 the SCCPSS board members were under review by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools due to allegations of interfering in district operational matters. She made this point to underscore that she understands how to work from a policymaking context and "be effective."

She ultimately considers herself a collaborative leader who seeks to represent the interests of District 1 while also addressing the broader needs of the entire school district.

Early voting updates: What you need to know for May's state and local primaries, for which early voting begins next week.

Chatham County School Board District 1 - Challenger

Introduction

Anyone who looks at Barbara Hubbard’s resume may simply see her as a 30+-year educator. She doesn’t necessarily view herself that way. “I never thought that teaching was a job,” she said. “I just got up every morning, got dressed, went to school like everybody else, and I was the oldest one in the class, but I was learning as much as they were.” She said that she embraced every new role along her journey up the professional ladder as a learning opportunity, never viewing herself as a leader either ― until others saw in her the ability to lead.

One of the first instances where others acknowledged her leadership skills occurred when she was chosen in the third Jim Williams trial to be the jury foreman. Williams was a local antiques dealer who was tried four times for the murder of Danny Hansford, for which he was ultimately acquitted through a self-defense plea. His trials became the inspiration for John Berendt's "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil."

Background

Connections to infamous Savannah socialites aside, Hubbard’s record of educational and community leadership is vast. She obtained her undergraduate degree from the University of South Carolina and a master's degree in education from Armstrong State University. She went on to receive a Doctor of Education at Georgia Southern University (GSU), where she produced a dissertation on gifted elementary service in Georgia schools.

Her career as a member of a SCCPSS teacher and administrator spanned decades and multiple schools. She advanced into positions as a Gifted Facilitator and then principal before serving at the district’s central office. Her final role before she retired was as the district’s director of Gifted Education Programs (GEP).

In retirement, she moved into teaching undergraduate and graduate-level courses at her alma mater from 2008 through 2021. That journey came full circle when she served as GSU’s Georgia Teacher Academy for Preparation and Pedagogy (GaTAPP) Supervisor in partnership with SCCPSS’s TEACH Savannah Learning Academy, which the district defines as a 12-18 month alternative route teacher certification program.

Platform

Her core message is that she knows the system, inside and out, unlike most other candidates. “I've been in education long enough to know the battles to fight and not, but I also know that we've got some improvements to make.” She said she is still in the schools, working part-time with the district’s THRIVE Learning and Development department, which has allowed her to know students’ struggles and teachers’ frustrations.

She cited teachers telling her while new initiatives are mandated, old ones are not removed, ever-increasing the burden on what she views as the district’s most valuable resource. “They’re building the plane while its in the air,” she said of district leaders. She envisions opportunities to alleviate teacher burdens and improve retention by instituting programs to bring back retired teachers in part-time capacities, as well as pay full-time teachers stipends over the summer for professional development initiatives rather than pile them onto teacher's already stacked school year workloads.

Another focus of hers would be to bridge the gaps between the central office and the schools as well as the schools to the teachers and the teachers to the parents. “We have to bring people together and talk about concerns and solutions…for the betterment of the school system and our children,” she said. One step she feels she could take as a board member would be to examine strategies that would essentially “boil down to teacher salary,” which means addressing the “explosion of people at 208 Bull Street [the district’s central office] who are non-education based.”

She acknowledged the need for people in human resources, finance and nutrition among other areas, but feels there are too many people who are drawing budget funds from the teachers and schools. During an interview with the Savannah Morning News, she cited GADOE Georgia Insights data that indicates nearly $90 million of SCCPS's 2023 budget went toward central office staff salaries and benefits in fiscal year 2023.

Hubbard wants voters in District 1 to know that, if elected, being a school board member would be a full-time commitment. "This will be my life...and I will do my homework," she said.

Hear the candidates in person

A candidate forum, hosted by Voices for Schools and Deep Center, will take place Sunday, May 19 at Front Porch Improv, 210 West Victory Drive, Savannah. District 1 will start at 2:00 p.m. District 3 will start at 3:15 p.m. District 7 will start at 4:30 p.m.

Joseph Schwartzburt is the education and workforce development reporter for the Savannah Morning News. You can reach him at JSchwartzburt@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Meet Savannah's District 1 school board seat contenders