The ‘blue wave’ of newly elected Democrats that made a splash in Cobb County Tuesday was not enough to flip the Board of Education. The three Republican members who were up for re-election held on to their seats to serve another four years.
Randy Scamihorn, David Banks and Brad Wheeler all appear to have defeated their Democratic challengers in the Nov. 3 election, unofficial results show. The school board, which has seven members, will continue to have a Republican majority. It is now the only county government body under Republican control since Democrats won victories in the races for the office of sheriff, county commission chair, district attorney and the District 2 commission seat.
While she conceded her race to the incumbent Banks, Democrat Julia Hurtado said she will continue to advocate for “safer and healthier schools.”
“I am going to be the airhorn that wakes him (Banks) up every time he snoozes on our kids and our teachers,” she said in her message she emailed and posted on her Facebook page. “And I hope you’ll join me. We’ve built an unprecedented movement and have already ignited so many important conversations that were never part of East Cobb before."
Democrat Lindsay Terrebonne, who lost to Wheeler, said she will continue working with and speaking up for residents "to ensure the best of Cobb is available to everyone in Cobb.”
“I hope the hard conversations Mr. Wheeler and I engaged in through the campaign forums will be a launching point for continued dialogue as he represents all of us on the School Board,” she said in a post on her Facebook page. “I’m so proud of the positive campaign we ran and the conversations that are happening because we dared to start them.”
Cobb voters in each of the Board of Education’s seven districts elect members to represent them on the school board. Post 1, represented by Scamihorn, covers northwest Cobb. Banks represents District 5, which encompasses northeast Cobb. District 7, which covers western Cobb, is represented by Wheeler.
All three districts are historically Republican-majority areas, and each race received between 52,000 and 56,000 votes. Out of Cobb’s 537,611 registered voters, 395,407 ballots were cast countywide in Tuesday’s election.
Both Wheeler and Scamihorn said their records of prioritizing educating Cobb County students helped propel them to victory. Wheeler added his supporters also played a role in getting him over the finish line.
“People move here because of our schools," Wheeler said. “They may not be perfect, but they are outstanding. They do a great job and I want to continue that.”
Both men said they also want to work with people who opposed their campaigns and have criticized their stances on issues that have come before the board.
“We need every effort to try and work together for the betterment of our community and our children," Scamihorn said.
The election results were disappointing for Jillian Ford of Stronger Together, a grassroots organization that’s pushed the school board and the Cobb County School District to acknowledge systemic racism and work to address inequity in its schools. The Cobb school board members did not pass a resolution condemning racism, as other school boards did.
Ford said she was “angry that other citizens in this county think it’s OK for school board members to ignore" the needs of students and parents in black and brown communities. However, Ford said she will continue to put pressure on the school board to address concerns that she and other residents raise.
“It’s reinvigorated our push and confirmed what we already knew,” she said. "There are a lot of people in this county who do not have black and brown kids' safety and educational quality in mind and don’t hold those two things as priorities.”
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