Equity PAC endorses Grand Rapids Public School board candidates

Equity PAC is proud to endorse three candidates for Grand Rapids School Board in Kimberly Williams, Chad Patton, and Kymberlie Davis.

“The three of these candidates bring strong experience around education and important systems that impact education. But most importantly, they have personally committed in their roles to building a stronger infrastructure in Grand Rapids that brings powerful community voices that are often missing to influence policy at Grand Rapids Public Schools,” says Russell Olmsted of Equity PAC.

Kimberly Williams was raised in Grand Rapids and attended Creston High School.  She earned a BA in Criminal Justice and Sociology from Western Michigan University and a Master’s Degree from Ferris State in Criminal Justice Administration. Kimberly began her career as a substitute teacher with GRPS, and she still holds an active substitute teacher’s license. She currently works as a civil rights investigator.

Chad Patton lives on the Southeast side of Grand Rapids. He graduated from Grand Valley State University in 2011 as a secondary educator and completed his student teaching at Union High School. He went on to teach in GRPS schools through the TRiO Upward Bound program. Chad decided to run for the GRPS school board after over half of Ottawa Hills High School’s teaching staff were laid off. He currently works as the director of Customized Workplace English at the Literacy Center of West Michigan.

Kymberlie Davis grew up in Greenville, MI, and currently resides on the west side of Grand Rapids. She graduated from Central Michigan University with a BA in education and a certification to teach at elementary, middle, and high school levels in Michigan. She also earned her Master’s Degree in School Counseling from Spring Arbor. She has served in administrator roles for school districts on Special Programs and Services and Instructional Effectiveness and currently is a music educator in Cedar Springs.

The nine-member GRPS school board has five open seats. Seven candidates are running for those five open seats. The five candidates with the highest vote totals in the election will serve four-year terms. 

Equity PAC encourages you to vote for Kymberlie, Chad, and Kimberly on November 6th.

Equity PAC is a Michigan-based political action committee. Our mission is to continually increase the number of equity-minded officials, policies, and practices in Michigan. To do this, we mobilize time and money to support equity-minded candidates and ballot initiatives, provide education and advocacy of equity-focused policies, and encourage direct citizen action to address a number of equity issues. For more on our endorsement process, read here.

Originally published October 17, 2018