Issues in schools raised by the coronavirus pandemic have brought out many new faces into the Greenville County school board election this year.
Sixteen people were running for the six seats up for election on the Greenville County school board this year. Two of those people have since dropped out.
Of those, five mothers of Greenville public-school students are running for seats on the school board. All five of these mothers, Dollie Collins, Ashley Martin, Angie Mosley, Jennifer Tanner and Sarah Dulin, are pushing for schools to return to five days a week of in-person instruction.
“COVID-19 really appears to be driving a lot of the energy behind these candidates,” said Anna Mitchell, a Greenville Politics Reporter with the Post & Courier.
She said the coronavirus pandemic has laid bare some of the issues that spurred several of the candidates to run., such as not enough focus on kids in special education.
“What I saw that was unusual was you had two challengers for two of the seats that the incumbents are staying, and you actually had three challengers for another one,” Mitchell said. “I’ve talked to most of them, not all of them, but I did talk to most of them. And it looks like the biggest reason most of them are running is because they want their children in school five days a week.”
