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Clarke County School Board Approves Bonuses, Elects New Officers

Outgoing BOE president LaKeisha Gantt (left) with new president Mumbi Anderson. Credit: CCSD

The Clarke County Board of Education approved $1,250 retention bonuses for full-time employees and $650 for part-time employees last week, expanding on the $1,000 bonuses for teachers and other state employees that Gov. Brian Kemp announced last month.

The Clarke County School District received $1.5 million from the Georgia Department of Education to cover Kemp’s pledge, but it does not extend to all CCSD employees. The district added another $1.8 million, which will be covered by reserves and funding from the federal American Rescue Plan Act. Superintendent Robbie Hooker said the bonus is $1,250 because that will come out to around $1,000 once taxes are taken out.

The BOE also elected Mumbi Anderson as its new president and Mark Evans as vice president at the Jan. 11 meeting.

Anderson, elected in 2020, is a professor at the UGA College of Public Health and represents District 6 on the Westside. She was unopposed for BOE president.

Evans, an education professor at Piedmont College, was elected in 2022 to represent District 9, the Winterville area. He received six votes to succeed Linda Davis: himself, Anderson, Davis, LaKeisha Gantt, Nicole Hull and Heidi Hensley. Patricia Yager and Claudia Butts backed Tim Denson for the position. Yager was also nominated, but her name did not come up for a vote once Evans received a majority.

New president Anderson replaces Gantt, who guided a starkly divided board through the tumultuous Demond Means years and an accreditation investigation, then led the search that resulted in Hooker’s hiring once Means departed.

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