Correction:
The location of Karmaya Kelly in a photo caption was corrected to Akronym Brewing.
At Missing Falls Brewery Tuesday night, the mood was buoyant as several candidates for the Akron Board of Education and their supporters watched the votes roll in.
Phil Montgomery, who hosted the gathering, led the pack of eight candidates from the time early vote totals began to come in. With all precincts reporting, Montgomery, the Summit County finance and budget director, won one of four seats to remake the embattled school board.
“This, my friends, is a mandate,” Montgomery said later from Rockne’s, where his watch party moved after Missing Falls closed. “This isn’t a fluke, this isn’t a one off. We are here to take our district back and do what’s right for our kids and our educators.”
The three other victorious candidates were incumbent Gregory Harrison and newcomers Karmaya Kelly and Nathan Jarosz, according to unofficial vote totals. Current and former school board presidents Carla Jackson and Diana Autry, who were both vying for reelection, lost their races.
“I don’t want to speak about results,” Autry said, when reached by phone as the vote totals were still being counted. “I had a long day; I just want to relax.”
Autry said she had not looked at vote totals. When she was told she did not appear to be returning to the school board, she said she had no comment. Later, in a Facebook post, Autry wrote that it was her honor and pleasure to serve.
“I am proud to have exercised my civic duty at such a level, ensuring our children have a public education system, during a worldwide pandemic up until our most recent federal challenges,” she wrote.
Jackson did not respond to a phone call or a text message seeking comment.
The reshuffling of the school board comes after a tumultuous period that saw the divided board decide to buy out the former superintendent, Michael Robinson, following accusations of bullying. Members then immediately appointed the current superintendent, Mary Outley, in a late-night meeting without vetting other candidates. All four winners criticized the process.
Barbara Sykes, a member of the school board who endorsed all four winning candidates, said Tuesday night that there were a lot of issues the group had to prepare for, but she thought they were ready to do so. The winning candidates were also endorsed by the Akron Education Association.
“I think that the people have spoken,” Sykes said. “We are ready to take on the challenges we have to face.”
Sykes praised Montgomery’s financial expertise, Harrison’s work as an appointed member of the school board since October of 2024, Kelly’s thoughtfulness and Jarosz’s leadership abilities.
She said she did not know if the contentious nature of the board would change with their election, but she hopes it will. In addition to Sykes, the remaining board members are Rene Molenaur and Summer Hall. Molenaur has been aligned with Sykes and Harrison, while Hall has been aligned with Jackson, Autry and Bruce Alexander, who did not seek reelection after 16 years on the board.
“I’m not a fortune teller,” Sykes said. “I just know these individuals are ready to take on the challenge.”
The other candidates in the race were Cynthia Blake and Gwen Bryant.
Jarosz, who at 30 is the youngest city-wide elected official in Akron, said Tuesday that it was an honor to win.
“What we’ve needed most on this board is collaboration, a common vision, stability and preparedness,” he said, “and I think that’s what I can bring to the board.”
Voter turnout countywide was 28%; 66,403 votes were cast in the race, according to unofficial totals. With just more than 17% of the vote, Montgomery was the top vote-getter among the candidates.
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Jackson, the incumbent school board president, got about 10% of the vote. An administrator at a local private Christian school, Emmanuel Christian Academy, Jackson came under fire for signing a “parent pledge card” for the local Moms for Liberty chapter.
The organization, which has a national reach, is branded as a far-right political group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The SPLC raised flags around Moms for Liberty’s anti-LGBTQ stances, efforts to ban books and push to abolish the federal Department of Education.
When contacted by Signal Akron about the pledge, Jackson somewhat distanced herself from “hateful ideologies” but did not disavow the pledge itself. She came in sixth in voting, while Autry was seventh.
Sykes said she expects the new board, which will be sworn in in January, will “do the very best they can to serve the children and the community.”
Kelly did not respond to a phone call seeking comment about her victory. Harrison said previously the district must still deal with the fallout from the toxic work environment Robinson’s leadership created.
“Not only are we going to improve the school district, but we are going to change the culture for workers, for students, for everyone in the City of Akron,” he said in a speech after the results were clear. “You will hear positive things coming from Akron Public Schools because that is what we are going to work to do.”
What did the newly elected members say they will do on the board?
Over the course of the campaign, candidates told voters how they would approach their tenure on the board. Each pledged to focus on students, but how that focus manifests varies among candidates and remains to be seen.
Montgomery said he will draw on his financial expertise to help guide the district through a troubling financial forecast, where APS will contend with a budget that could be $159 million in the red by 2030 if nothing changes. Montgomery manages Summit County’s budget, which is larger than the district’s, and he holds a school treasurer’s license.
Regarding policy, Montgomery said he would set “guardrails” within which Outley, the superintendent, and the district could operate. Beyond that, he promised to hold regular public meetings, outside of the board’s meetings, to hear the concerns of parents and students.
Jarosz said he would draw on his background in nonprofit work to help navigate board dynamics and turn down the heat when debate turns contentious. He founded Leadership Influencing Teen Empowerment, a nonprofit partner of APS that helps teens develop leadership and interpersonal skills.
He previously ran against former board member Derrick Hall for a seat in Ohio’s House of Representatives, coming up short in the primary. Now, after a successful campaign for the Board of Education, he’s positioned to add a youthful voice to the body.
Jarosz said he would work to support Outley and ensure the district’s leadership is stable following the premature exits of Robinson and former superintendent Christine Fowler-Mack.
Kelly is a newcomer to Akron’s political scene, entering the race because she felt called by the community to bring a new voice and perspective to the Board of Education. She said collective effort among the board members has not been on display over the past year, and that’s something she hopes to remedy.
She said she would bring integrity, honesty and transparency to her tenure on the board. She also pledged to let the superintendent do her job and not micromanage district administrators.