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Elections

General election dates for Georgia school boards were dependent on whether the board was partisan or nonpartisan. In both cases, special elections were held in conjunction with some general elections to fill vacancies.

Nonpartisan boards held their general elections on May 24, 2016. In races where no candidate won a majority of votes cast in those elections, runoffs were held on July 26, 2016.

Partisan boards held primary elections on May 24, 2016. In primary elections where the majority requirement was not met, a primary runoff was held between the top two vote recipients on July 26, 2016. The general election date for partisan boards was November 8, 2016. Again, a majority vote was required, and general runoffs were held on December 6, 2016.

Thirty-eight of the 40 Georgia school districts among America's largest school districts by enrollment held school board elections for 132 seats in 2016.

Here are several quick facts about Georgia's school board elections in 2016:

• The largest school district by enrollment with an election in 2016 was the Gwinnett County Public Schools with 169,150 K-12 students.
• The smallest Georgia school district among the nation's largest with an election in 2016 was the Colquitt County Schools with 9,668 K-12 students.
• Bibb County School District had the most seats on the 2016 ballot with six seats up for election.
• Six of Georgia's largest districts tied for the fewest seats on the 2016 ballot with two seats up for election each.

The district listed below served 1,191,657 K-12 students during the 2013-2014 school year, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Click on the district names for more information on each one and its school board elections.

Issues

Constitutional amendment put to voters on state intervention in failing public schools

See also: Georgia Authorization of the State Government to Intervene in Failing Local Schools, Amendment 1 (2016)

Voters across the state of Georgia were asked to approve a legislatively referred constitutional amendment on November 8, 2016, that would have allowed the state to intervene in failing public schools.^[1] The amendment was defeated with over 59 percent of voters against.^[2]

Education policy is a major issue in Georgia. To learn more, see "Public education in Georgia."

If the amendment had been approved by voters, it would have triggered the implementation of Senate Bill 133, which provided for three governance models of schools under an "Opportunity School District" (OSD) agency:

1. direct management by the OSD,
2. shared governance between the OSD and local board of education, and
3. transformation of the school into a charter school.

SB 133 was also written to give the OSD power to close schools as the “intervention of last resort.”^[4]

The measure was sponsored by six Georgia state legislators, including five Republicans and one Democrat. It was also supported by Gov. Nathan Deal (R) and the organization StudentsFirst Georgia. The measure was opposed by the Georgia Association of Educators, the Georgia Parent‑Teacher Association, the Georgia Federation of Teachers, and the Georgia AFL-CIO state chapter.^[5][6][7]

Supporters of the measure said it would help students in the state's poorest-performing schools and rescue children from poverty. They said they wanted to get rid of public education's one-size-fits-all approach and stop failing schools from hiding behind "bureaucratic excuses."^[7][8]

Opponents argued that taking the responsibility of teaching away from teachers, communities, and local school boards would set "a very dangerous precedent." They suggested converting failing schools to community schools rather than charters and working with the local communities to make those changes.^[7][9]

The proposed amendment would have added the following Paragraph VIII to the end of Section 5 of Article VIII of the Georgia Constitution.^[1]

Election trends

Trends in Georgia school board elections

See also: School boards in session: 2014 elections by the numbers

The following sections analyze competitiveness and incumbency advantage in school board elections held in Georgia's largest school districts by student enrollment. Details of the data discussed here can be found in the table below.

Competitiveness

A total of 132 school board seats in Georgia's largest school districts by enrollment were up for election in 2016. In 2014, 131 seats were on the ballot, and 243 candidates ran in the elections. That created an average of 1.85 candidates per seat, which was lower than the 2014 national average of 1.89 candidates per seat. A total of 46.56 percent of school board seats up for election in Georgia were unopposed in 2014. Nationwide that year, 32.57 percent of school board seats were unopposed.

Incumbency advantage

See also: Analysis of incumbency advantage in the 2014 school board elections

A total of 79.39 percent of the school board incumbents whose terms were on the ballot in Georgia in 2014 ran to retain their seats, and 86.54 percent of them won. Nationally, 81.37 percent of incumbents won re-election in 2014.

Forty-one newcomers were elected to school boards in the state in 2014. They took 31.30 percent of the seats on the ballot, which was lower than the 38.19 percent of school board seats that went to newcomers nationally in 2014.

The map below details the success rates for incumbents who ran in the 2014 school board elections that were held in the largest school districts by enrollment in the U.S.

Data table

Academic performance

See also: Public education in Georgia

The sections below do not contain the most recently published data on this subject. If you would like to help our coverage grow, consider donating to Ballotpedia.

Education terms
For more information on education policy terms, see this article.
School board elections portal Glossary of education terms School choice on the ballot Education on the ballot

NAEP scores

See also: NAEP scores by state

The National Center for Education Statistics provides state-by-state data on student achievement levels in mathematics and reading in the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The chart below presents the percentage of fourth and eighth grade students that scored at or above proficient in reading and math during school year 2012-2013. Georgia's scores were below the national average nearly across the board in the 2012-2013 school year.^[11]

Graduation, ACT and SAT scores

See also: Graduation rates by groups in state and ACT and SAT scores in the United States

The following table shows the graduation rates and average composite ACT and SAT scores for Georgia and surrounding states during the 2012-2013 school year. All statements made in this section refer to that school year.^[11][12][13]

In the United States, public schools reported graduation rates that averaged to about 81.4 percent. About 54 percent of all students in the country took the ACT, while 50 percent reported taking the SAT. The average national composite scores for those tests were 20.9 out of a possible 36 for the ACT, and 1498 out of a possible 2400 for the SAT.^[14]

Georgia schools reported an average graduation rate of 71.7 percent during the 2012-2013 school year, lowest among its neighboring states.

In Georgia, more students took the SAT than the ACT in 2013, earning an average SAT score of 1452.

Dropout rate

See also: Public high school dropout rates by state for a full comparison of dropout rates by group in all states

The high school event dropout rate indicates the proportion of students who were enrolled at some time during the school year and were expected to be enrolled in grades nine through 12 in the following school year but were not enrolled by October 1 of the following school year. Students who have graduated, transferred to another school, died, moved to another country, or who are out of school due to illness are not considered dropouts. The average public high school event dropout rate for the United States remained constant at 3.3 percent for both school year 2010–2011 and school year 2011–2012. The event dropout rate for Georgia was higher than the national average at 3.9 percent in the 2010-2011 school year, and 3.9 percent in the 2011-2012 school year.^[15]

State profile

State profile

Presidential voting pattern

See also: Presidential voting trends in Georgia

Georgia voted Republican in five out of the six presidential elections between 2000 and 2020.

Pivot Counties (2016)

Ballotpedia identified 206 counties that voted for Donald Trump (R) in 2016 after voting for Barack Obama (D) in 2008 and 2012. Collectively, Trump won these Pivot Counties by more than 580,000 votes. Of these 206 counties, five are located in Georgia, accounting for 2.43 percent of the total pivot counties.^[16]

Pivot Counties (2020)

In 2020, Ballotpedia re-examined the 206 Pivot Counties to view their voting patterns following that year's presidential election. Ballotpedia defined those won by Trump won as Retained Pivot Counties and those won by Joe Biden (D) as Boomerang Pivot Counties. Nationwide, there were 181 Retained Pivot Counties and 25 Boomerang Pivot Counties. Georgia had five Retained Pivot Counties, 2.76 percent of all Retained Pivot Counties.

More Georgia coverage on Ballotpedia

• Elections in Georgia
• United States congressional delegations from Georgia
• Public policy in Georgia
• Endorsers in Georgia
• Georgia fact checks
• More...

See also

Georgia	School Boards	News and Analysis
Public education in Georgia List of school districts in Georgia	School board elections, 2016 Georgia school board elections, 2015 Georgia school board elections, 2014	Education reform at the state and local levels (2016) School boards in session: 2015 in brief Analysis of spending in America's largest school districts Ballotpedia's school board candidate survey

Footnotes