Atlanta Board of Education member Cynthia Briscoe Brown is keeping her 2021 campaign promise: no fourth term.
Her departure opens the race for her citywide post, At-Large Seat 8, which is one of four Board of Education seats up for election on Nov. 4. Unlike the other three seats, for Districts 2,4, and 6, Brown’s is the only one that will be decided by all Atlanta voters.
So far, there are three candidates vying to replace her for a four-year term: Kaycee Brock, a college counselor and former first-grade teacher; Royce Mann, an education activist and recent Emory University graduate who ran in 2021; and Aisha Allen Stith, a social media professional.
Brown, who also serves as the Atlanta school board’s appointee to the WABE public radio board, hasn’t endorsed any of the candidates for her seat, but she says the responsibility is significant.
The school board has approved an Atlanta Public Schools (APS) budget for the 2025–26 school year of $1.85 billion, which is nearly double the city of Atlanta’s $975.4 million general fund. The vast majority of that comes from Atlantans’ property taxes. APS educates over 47,000 students every year and employs more than 9,000 teachers and support staff for both traditional and charter schools.
Brown spoke with Atlanta Civic Circle about what she’s learned from her 12 years serving on the Atlanta school board, and offered some advice for her successor.
The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Why did you promise not to run for a fourth term?
Nobody should be a school board member for life. I got involved because I was a parent in APS. My youngest graduated the year after I was first elected in 2013, so I haven’t had a student in the system for a while. It’s time to pass it on to someone more closely connected to the district.
What accomplishments are you most proud of?
I was elected in 2013 to clean up after the cheating scandal and the accreditation crisis, to restore trust in the system. I think we have come a long way towards doing that.
Personal highlights would be the equity policy that we passed in 2019 that I had a chance to be a primary author of. It was the first equity policy in the history of APS. What it says is that we understand that there are historic inequities in APS, and that we must actively seek to eliminate inequity in everything we do.
Roughly 85% of [APS] kids identify as other than white, and four out of five are on free or reduced lunch. We have kids from dozens of nations speaking dozens of languages. We have to serve the community that we are.
What advice do you have for your successor?
Always remember that behind every data point, behind every budget item, behind every decision is the face of a child. As long as they don’t lose sight of that and act accordingly, they will do the right thing.
What are the most pressing challenges school board members will face in the next four years?
Budget issues will be paramount. Commercial real estate is currently so undervalued in Atlanta, and that it is dramatically affecting our ability to pay for things that our kids need. Of course, we’re also unsure about the future of state and federal support for public education, which makes it difficult to plan.
I think the changing housing patterns for APS [students] is another — trying to deal with gentrification of certain neighborhoods and with other neighborhoods that are on decline. That creates [changing] enrollment patterns for us that we have to equalize and right-size [across the schools].
Housing affordability plays into that, because it limits the neighborhoods that our families can live in. Kids need places to live – and a surprisingly large number of our students qualify as homeless. [Roughly 1,800 in the previous fiscal year. -Ed.] That limits their stability. It means they move from school to school. It means they move from home to home. And that’s not good for anybody.
We don’t get the luxury of doing nothing but instruction, because we have to be the largest social service agency in the city. We provide food, we provide clothes, we provide after school care, we provide washers and dryers, we provide counseling, and we provide legal assistance.
We make sure that our kids are able to show up every morning, ready and able to learn. Because if you haven’t had a good breakfast, then it’s hard to concentrate – and if you haven’t had a bath, it’s hard to concentrate.
What’s next for you?
I am actively looking for my next opportunity to be of service. I’m not sure what form that will take, but I’m not done yet. I need to be in a relationship and in a community with people. This is not my last career move. I’m not cut out for sitting at home and eating bonbons.
This job has been the most significant thing I’ve ever done. This is hard work — the hardest job you’ll ever love.
Why do school board elections matter?
School boards and similar races are the last bastion of true democracy. That somebody like me — with no political experience — can get elected to citywide office on the same ballot with the mayor is just amazing.
These elections, which not many people vote in, are very important. They have a greater impact on the future of our city, because the kids that we are raising are the ones that are going to be running the city.
Three former school board members now serve on city council. One is a state senator. Courtney English, a former [school board] chair, is now the mayor’s chief of staff. And our last two mayors are APS alumni.
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