Empowering everyday people

Meet LaKeisha

I feel Athens in my soul. Athens birthed and raised me. I grew up in Pauldoe (formerly known as the Jack R. Wells public housing community) which was demolished a decade ago. Where passersby may have seen “the housing projects,” I experienced a community that nurtured me. My home. The hardships of poverty didn’t prevent neighbors from looking out for each other, and I grew up feeling loved and cared for.

Beginning my education at the Maddox Center and Parkview Playschool, I graduated from Clarke Central High School. Teachers and elders prepared me for college and, ultimately, a doctorate from the University of Georgia. I’ve used my education to help future generations find their way forward, working in the Clarke County School District as a behavior specialist and as a career counselor. Watching my own four children move through Clarke County schools with success, I’ve guided students to similar paths. I’ve celebrated some of them striding across the graduation stage, and I’ve had fitful nights worrying about students struggling to succeed.

I have learned as much outside the classroom as within. Between growing up in a neighborhood steeped in poverty and attending classes in UGA’s hallowed halls, I’m intimately familiar with the beauty and strength brimming in our city alongside the pain and brokenness. Athens offers exceptional experiences for some and an endless series of struggles for others.

This city I love holds potential opportunities for all of us to live, work, and thrive. Working in the public school system, time and time again I saw how policy influenced student outcomes. The call to shape that policy motivated me to run for the Clarke County School District Board of Education. A few months after joining the school board in 2019, I was nominated and elected to lead the body as president. I was honored to be reelected president, and during my two terms as school board president, I worked to create a culture in which members can collaborate, respectfully disagree, and serve their roles with integrity.

While I am proud of the countless hours I’ve dedicated to helping Athens' schoolchildren, so often I found that the challenges in our schools are due to larger factors outside their doors. Whereas some children come to school rested, fed, and calm, others enter the classroom contending with hunger, unstable housing, unmet medical needs, or instability in their homes or communities. Whether face-to-face with a student in need or presiding over the District's $200 million budget, I see a complex web of factors that reaches into our schools. Now is the time to address these stubborn hardships head on.

I feel called to lead our local government toward shared prosperity. All of Athens benefits when hope replaces despair and new futures replace the past. It is time for Athens to harness its potential and become a place of opportunity for all. Athens is not just my home or my city. It’s our city. And now is the time for us to move our great city forward for everyday people to thrive.