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Politics & Government

Read Claims BOE Chairmanship

The current member of the Cherokee County Board of Education will lead her peers next year.

Cherokee County Board of Education member Janet Read came out victorious in an election that .

According to unofficial results from the Cherokee County Elections and Voter Registration Office, Read defeated Georgia Charter Educational Foundation board member Danny Dukes for the position of chairman of the Cherokee County Board of Education. Read received 20,144 votes or 56.75 percent of the vote to Dukes’ 15,325 votes or 43.25 percent.

Neither Read nor Dukes answered their phones after the final numbers came in Tuesday night.

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This was the first time the school board chairman was elected by Cherokee County voters. A controversial redistricting measure approved this year by Gov. Nathan Deal changed the seat to an elected position and drew current board chairman Mike Chapman out of his district. The redistricting bill also drew Read, who currently serves on the board, out of her district as well, prompting her to run for chairman.

One of the issues discussed by both candidates before the election was employee furloughs. This year, school system employees will have eight furlough days, and that was something Dukes had said he hoped to eliminate if elected by cutting spending in other areas.

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However, Read said that moving money around isn't the answer to fix budget woes that have been plauging the school system for the last several years. In that amount of time, the school district's budget has been cut by $121 million.

Read will be working with two new colleagues next year. Two seats were up for grabs in the newly-created districts. Board members previously ran county-wide. In the District 1 race, Kelly Marlow defeated Kyla Cromer with 2,971 and 2,946 votes respectively; and in the District 2 race, newcomer Patsy Jordan ousted incumbent Kim Cochran. Jordan received 3,742 votes to Cochran's 3,665 votes.

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