Three candidates vie for Savannah-Chatham school board's District 7 seat
Editor’s Note: This article is part of a series on incumbents and challengers running in the four upcoming 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 started April 29 and runs through May 17. The registration deadline was April 22.
Chatham County School Board District 7 - Michael Johnson, Incumbent
Introduction
District 7 Incumbent Michael Johnson doesn’t want “just the best school district in the area or the state, I want to have one of the best school districts in the country.” He has been working the past eight years toward that goal. When he ran four years ago, his aims were to allocate more resources for classrooms and support areas such as transportation, custodial, nutrition, safety and overall health services within the Savannah-Chatham County Public School System (SCCPSS). He said that since the last cycle of board elections two years ago, he feels those resources have increased, but feels “there’s still more work to be done.”
He considers himself a candidate who “votes on his principles.” He also prides himself on being accessible via his board email or the phone number listed on his board member page, which is his personal cell phone, because he “asked for this job.”
Background
Johnson’s SCCPSS board bio describes him as a Savannah resident of more than 20 years. While he obtained a culinary arts degree from Le Cordon Bleu and worked for a number of years in the food and hospitality industry, he now works as a realtor in the Savannah area for Keller Williams Realty. He specializes in assisting first-time homebuyers and those who have relocated due to military service. As Johnson has often noted at board meetings, his son attends Savannah Classical Academy, one of SCCPSS’s five charter school options, which he values in terms of families' access to school choice.
From his time on the board, Johnson counts three specific instances among his most noteworthy accomplishments. One is supporting the push for mandatory recess. “I 100% agreed that we needed to have those brain breaks where kids can be kids and learn how to socialize,” he said. The other achievement was helping to get New Hampstead K-8 approved for the last Education Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (E-SPLOST). The third is that he was one of the first board members to advocate for opening schools back up after the COVID-19 pandemic.
Platform
The main focus areas for Johnson in another term would be literacy, school safety plus mental health and counseling services as well as strategic capital project planning. As a realtor paying attention to housing trends, he also mentioned the need to get ahead of the growth on the west side of Chatham County and beyond Pooler into Bloomingdale. “We need to start looking at that before we can't buy any land,” he said.
Literacy has been cited as a key focus for every candidate across every race. When Johnson was asked what, to him, the sign would be to indicate that SCCPSS would have acceptably improved its literacy rate, he said, “When private schools no longer have waitlists.” Johnson knows that goal entails improved quality across many facets of the school system including increased access to transportation, improvements to quality of the facilities and further enhancement of support services. One aspect he hopes will help guide a move toward that goal is through stricter adherence to current policies and standards as well as implementing more strategic policies. An example he gave was his advocacy for a requirement that third graders (with exceptions for special education and English Speakers of other Languages students) cannot pass unless they are able to read on grade level.
Ahead of May’s elections Johnson hopes his work and voting record on the board will show what he’s accomplished to maximize the district’s personnel, financial and educational resources.
District 1: Get to know the candidates for Savannah-Chatham's district 1 school board seat
Chatham County School Board District 7 - Stephanie Campbell, Challenger
Introduction
Stephanie Campbell took most of last summer to decide on her run for the District 7 representative seat. She finally made the decision in September after friends who followed education in the community encouraged her. As a former pediatric emergency nurse, she said, “The whole reason I want to do this is for children, period. My life has been about children and their betterment.”
Another factor in her decision to run is that she feels public education has become complacent, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic. Her overall sense of the state of local public schools is that they do not broadly provide the quality of education that Savannah’s students deserve. For that reason, her own children attend private school.
She said that, if elected, being the District 7 board representative would be her full-time job as she thinks the position demands undivided attention. More information on her campaign and background can be found at electstephaniecampbell.com.
Background
Campbell is a Savannah native who attended Savannah Christian Preparatory School before heading to the University of Georgia. She then earned a master’s degree from the Medical College of Georgia. She spent her early career working as a nurse in the emergency rooms of Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and Yale University Medical center.
After spending time in Honduras for medical mission work and teaching English, she decided to shift into teaching as a career. She has taught health science students at Virginia College and South University. “Seeing people grow through education has brought me the most joy,” she said.
Platform
Campbell’s campaign site states that “she will work to boost literacy rates, enhance safety standards, and ensure fiscal transparency and accountability.”
For literacy, she thinks the district could do more to look closer at the “Mississippi Miracle,” which refers to Mississippi’s concerted effort to address early literacy woes. The state went from one of the lowest ranked for fourth grade reading scores in 2013 to 21st by 2022. Campbell feels we should be doing what Mississippi did but better. One way she sees to do that is by getting secondary schools involved by having them offer the appropriate teacher training that aligns with the science of reading approach. “We should be advocating for that at the highest levels, trying to figure out how, within the next three to four years, we're turning out people who know how to do this.”
Her assessment of the current state SCCPSS schools comes from looking at the data as a parent and through discussions with parents and teachers in her community. She claimed that teachers she knows have told her that they “don't trust putting their children in their district’s public schools.” She said former teachers have also talked to her about doing “five-to-six-year stints” but ultimately felt they could not teacher forever. She wants to help instill standards aimed at attracting and retaining talented teachers as well as address disciplinary needs and educational excellence.
To help the Savannah community thrive is important to Campbell. “I really do think that my whole life has led me to this place,” she said. “I’m not complacent in the least because I haven't been there [on the board] and all I can do is gain more competence.”
Chatham County School Board District 7 - Jay Jones, Challenger
Introduction
Each school day for the last five years, James (Jay) Jones has gotten up at six o’clock in the morning to drive his son 30 to 45 minutes from Pooler to Virginia Heard Elementary School at 414 Lee Blvd. The commute is a taxing one and all the more so given the recent construction around the Interstate-95 and Interstate-16 interchange. He pointed out that West Chatham does not offer choice elementary programs, which is why he sees transportation as one of biggest issues facing the school system.
He believes SCCPSS "needs to have the guidance and the leadership to make sure it's working on behalf of the kids." He sees the system working more in the favor of families with two-parent households at the moment.
“My son has a structured system…and we know the underwriting of how the schools work…but for that parent who may not be in a situation where they can adjust and make that those things happens, [the system] becomes problematic,” he said.
Background
Jones proudly shares that he is a product of SCCPSS, graduating from Alfred E. Beach High School. He obtained an undergraduate degree of applied science from Shaw University and attended Savannah State University for a master’s of city/urban, community and regional planning. He taught biology for one year at Herschel V. Jenkins High School around 2007. He has served as a Parent-Teacher Association president at two elementary schools. He has also been a youth pastor and served as a board member for many local community organizations such as Chatham Area Transit, Chatham-Savannah Authority for the Homeless, and the Chatham County Democratic Committee (for which he was chair).
Jones is also no stranger to running for public office. He was the Chatham County Commissioner for District 6 from January 2017 to December 2020. He also ran for the Georgia Senate District 1 seat in the 2022 midterm elections, but did not win. He has also served as a political consultant for others who have sought local offices.
He spoke about how his previous public service background would inform his leadership as a board member. “I've approved a school board budget four times from a county commissioner’s perspective. So, I understand…how much of that budget is tied to our taxation,” he said.
He wants to take a close look at the SCCPSS budget through that lens, although he said Superintendent Denise Watts has done a “phenomenal job as far as crunching numbers,” according to his interpretation of the last few school board meetings.
Platform
Jones’s bottom line is reimagining schools. As a board member he would want to help the district better understand what school is and what it can be. That would include making all schools in the district “enjoyable for young people.” One way he sees that can be done is expanding the Choice Program beyond its “infantile phase" so they are more accessible across the entire district.
In relation to accountability, Jones gave the example of the district’s recent firing of a principal who had started out as a janitor in the school system. He understood that the situation was nuanced, but he felt the board’s decision was “hasty.” His position is that the board should be supporting staff who put in the effort to grow within the district up to the highest levels. With stronger support. he believes such a situation could have been prevented.
Another major point driving Jones to run is Pooler’s need for a high school. “We’re going to outgrow the high school we have at New Hampstead,” he said. He felt that the last E-SPLOST should have accounted for that. He also thinks the incumbent candidate has not been fostering enough public dialogue about the matter. Jones wants to further that conversation to get a school built well before his son, a fifth grader, graduates high school.
District 2 candidate unopposed: Hoskins-Brown pursues fourth term on Savannah school board after 13 years in office
District 3: Meet Savannah-Chatham County's District 3 school board candidates
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.
The positions of school board president and district 4, 5, 6 and 8 school board representatives will be up for re-election in 2026.
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 7 school board candidates
