The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Clarkston elects new councilman in special election
Only about 4.7% of residents took part in Tuesday’s vote.
Clarkston voters elected a business owner to City Council during Tuesday’s special election.
Mark W. Perkins, who owns the consulting company Leadersolve, was elected with about 56% of the vote, according to results provided by Dekalb County. He will fill the seat vacated by Yterenickia “YT” Bell, who qualifified to run for mayor during a 2020 special election but lost to Beverly Burks.
Perkins received 174 votes, while the other candidates, Dean Moore and Shana “Tiny” M cal lister, received a combined 134 votes. The city, which has a population of nearly 13,000, has more than 6,500 registered voters, meaning only about 4.7% of residents participated in the special election.
According to his campaign
website, Perkins graduated from the University of Alabama with a degree in interdisciplinary studies. He served on the Clarkston Community COVID- 19 Task Force and cited pandemic recovery as one of his top priorities.
“Few t hi ngs have hi ghlighted the importance of good leadership and collaboration like the COVID- 19 pandemic,” he said on his website. “... I plan to leverage my experiences leading and working on diverse teams and in complex contexts to help Clarkston survive, recover and rebuild from our current crisis.”
The elec t i on results are expected to be certified by the county March 26. Perkins will hold the seat on the six- person City Council until the end of this year, when Bell’s term was set to expire.
A couple thousand more Atlanta students plan to return to campuses during the last quarter of the school year.
More than 15,000 students opted for face-to-face learning starting Monday, the beginning of Atlanta Public Schools’ fourth quarter. The district will teach other students virtually for the remaining nine weeks of the school year.
AP S will continue to reserve Wednesdays as an independent work day during which all students learn remotely.
The number of students choosing to learn in person represents roughly 41% of students who attend the district’ s traditional, non- charter schools, according to data obtained this week by The Atlanta Journal- Constitution through an open- records request.
That’ s up from about 13,000, or roughly one- third of students who said they planned to go back when campuses first began to reopen in late January.
The sites with the highest percent of in- person learners are all elementary schools in the district’s North Atlanta and Grady clusters. Return rates vary widely by school, from a high of 86% at Morris Brandon Elementary School on the city’s north side to a low of 13.4% at Carver Early College, a southeast Atlanta high school.
District offifficials previously said if a large number of students choose to return to a specifific school, the school may switch to a hybrid schedule to lessen the number of people in the building at any one time.
Only one school, Mary Lin Elementary School, will take that approach. Nearly three- quarters of the school’s students said they plan to return, but only those with the greatest academic, social and emotional needs will learn in person four days a week.
Other students who selected the in- person option will go to Mary Lin two days a week and learn virtually the other three.
The remaining Atlanta schools with high percentages of returning students will implement “other creative solutions to accommodate students,” APS spokesman Seth Coleman said in an email.
There are several reasons more families may be willing to send their children back now.
Local COVID- 19 case numbers have fallen signifificantly in the last few months, and more people are eligible for the vaccine. APS plans to offer employees the first dose of the vaccine March 24, 26 and 27 at Mercedes- Benz Stadium.