The Alabama State Board of Education begins its monthly meeting on April 10, 2025 at the Gordon Persons Building in Montgomery, Alabama. Voters in SBOE Districts 6 and 8 in northern and eastern Alabama will see competitive primaries Tuesday. (Brian Lyman/Alabama Reflector)
Voters in two State Board of Education districts in northern and eastern Alabama will go to the polls Tuesday to select nominees for the board.
While four seats will be up for election later this year, only District 6, which covers Talladega, Marshall and Cherokee counties, and District 8, which covers Limestone, Madison and DeKalb counties, will have competitive primaries.
Board members make decisions on textbooks, curriculum, educator programs and review testing data during monthly meetings.
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Voters in District 6 will choose between incumbent Marie Manning and Cathi Bradford. Angela Morgan is the sole Democrat running for the seat.
Manning said she wants to give “excellent resources from the state department to the schools.”
“I think it’s very important that every person that works at the Alabama Department of Education have a have a great interest in what’s happening in the schools, and that if the schools have questions, if the schools have a need, then our people are able to reach out and address those needs and provide the help that they need,” she said.
Multiple messages seeking comment were left with Bradford.
Morgan, who is a retired educator, said she’s running to improve the image of public education and help families understand curriculum better.
“What I found very often, our curriculum is written on a collegiate level, and it’s written with education terms. … if we’re reading from entertainment, it’s on a seventh to eighth grade reading level,” she said in an interview earlier this month. “We need to be able to communicate what your child is going to be learning. So why is it that so much of a curriculum has been written at a level that a lot of the parents, to be honest, they’re not familiar with this terminology, and so it makes them question.”
The District 8 seat is currently held by Republican Wayne Reynolds, who is retiring.
Republicans running for Reynolds’ seat include Emily Jones, chair of the Madison County chapter of Moms of Liberty, a right-wing organization that campaigns against what they consider inappropriate school material, including books, movies or other media; William Matthews and Connie Spears.
Jones said in an interview Monday one of her priorities is to implement policies so the state Legislature passes fewer laws that affect public education.
“What’s happening is the Legislature is having to pass legislation and it’s having to be signed into law, and then it is affecting our public schools,” she said. “I want to get back to a point of where our state board is directly passing policy based on me sitting down with a superintendent and saying here are the issues that I’m seeing across the district, here’s where I think policy needs to change. Are you with me or against me? What do we need to tweak?”
Spears said she wants to focus on allowing families to explore options for high school graduates.
“I think we focused recently too hard on everybody’s got to go to college, not everybody is built or wants to go to college. We need to make sure that every student knows that there is a pathway to success for them, that is their very own, and that everybody’s is unique,” she said in an interview Monday.
Multiple messages seeking comment were left with Matthews.
The winner of the GOP nomination will face Shatika Armstrong, the only Democrat running for the seat, in the general election in November.
“I’ve been on both sides of the aisle being both a mom, both being an educator, and so I’ve been able to see first-hand over the last 10 years the growth, the places for improvement, and it’s important to have done all those things in that order, because as a parent you see through one lens, and being in the classroom as the educator, I was able to see from a teacher’s lens and all that made a difference over the years,” Armstrong said in an interview Monday.
Armstrong said her three priorities include safety for students and teachers, increasing teacher pay and curriculum instruction.
In District 2 in Lee, Pike and Randolph counties, Republican incumbent Tracie West and Democratic challenger Jamie McCurry have secured their nominations.
West said in an interview Monday she wants to continue with the state’s growth in literacy.
“We’ve got a lot of middle school children right now that we’re trying to get funding for,” she said. “We’ve gotten some in this most recent budget, but we’ve got some children between grades four and eight that we know are not reading well, so I would like to see us focus on those middle grades.”
McCurry, an 18-year-old currently attending Auburn University, said Friday he decided to run while he was in class on the last day of qualifying.
“I hadn’t really given too much serious thought to running, and I had just been following with what candidates had filed as the filing period went on, and on Jan. 23 the last day, there was no one from my district and the State Board of Education, so I was just sitting in class, and I just looked to see how hard it would be, and it wasn’t that hard. I just filled out the paperwork, and I just qualified to run really easily,” he said.
Yvette Richardson, the incumbent for District 4, which covers parts of Pickens County and Tuscaloosa and Jefferson counties, does not have any primary or general election challengers.
Fundraising
According to campaign finances, as of Monday afternoon, Manning has raised $48,650 and spent $64,300; Bradford has raised $38,300 and spent just over $45,000; Jones has raised $27,400 and spent $26,800; Matthews has raised $23,600 and spent $31,800 and Spears has raised $19,600 and spent $27,900.
On the Democratic side, As of Monday afternoon, Armstrong has raised just over $4,000 and spent $7,400.
West, Morgan and McCurry had not reported any filings as of Monday afternoon.
Meet the Candidates Age: 58 Residence: Auburn Occupation: B.A. Interior Design from Auburn University, 1991 Party: Republican Previous political experience: Alabama State Board of Education 2019-Present Campaign fundraising: No filings as of Monday afternoon. Age: 18 Residence: Auburn Occupation: Student Education: Student at Auburn University Party: Democratic Previous political experience: First-time candidate Campaign fundraising: No filings as of Monday afternoon. Age: 77 Residence: Pell City Occupation: Retired Superintendent of St. Claire County Education: B.S. Biology from Jacksonville State University, 1970; Master’s School Library Media from Jacksonville State University Party: Republican Previous political experience: Alabama State Board of Education 2023-Present; St. Clair County Board of Education, 2010-22 Campaign fundraising: Raised $48,650 and spent $64,300 Age: 55 Residence: Jacksonville Occupation: Retired educator Education: B.S. Biology from Jacksonville State University; Master’s in Education from Jacksonville State University Party: Democratic Previous political experience: First-time candidate Campaign fundraising: No filings as of Monday afternoon. Age: 44 Residence: Madison Occupation: Budget and Finance work for the U.S. Department of Defense Education: B.S. Accounting from Jacksonville State University; Master’s Business Administration from University of Phoenix of Hawaii Party: Republican Previous political experience: First-time candidate Campaign fundraising: Raised $27,400 and spent $26,800 Age: 62 Residence: Madison Occupation:Full-time campaigning Education: Bachelor’s in Business Management from Auburn University, 1986 Party: Republican Previous political experience: Madison City School Board 2009-2019; Madison City Council 2020-2025 Campaign fundraising: Raised $19,600 and spent $27,900 as of Monday afternoon Age: 42 Residence: Harvest Occupation: Executive Assistant at Alabama A&M Education: B.A. Communications from Alabama A&M University, Master’s in Educational Administration from Strayer University Party: Democratic Previous political experience: Democratic Candidate, Madison County School Board in 2022 Campaign fundraising: Raised just over $4,000 and spent $7,400. Efforts to reach Cathi Bradford and William Matthews were unsuccessful. Tracie West
Jamie McCurry
Marie Manning
Angela Morgan
Emily Jones
Connie Spears
Shatika Armstrong
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Author: Andrea Tinker