Last year, Grady alum Nally Kinnane sat among her graduating class anxiously anticipating the conclusion of the ceremony. Before she could leave, however, Cecily Harsch-Kinnane, her mother and APS board member for Grady’s district, had to formally certify the graduation of this class. Harsch-Kinnane was already crying when she arrived at the podium.
Harsch-Kinnane said her emotions resulted partly because her daughter was graduating but more so because “it’s hard to see a class graduate, always.”
“It’s an unbelievably emotional thing,” Harsch-Kinnane said. “I know it’s supposed to be an exciting thing and a happy thing, but to me it’s a very sad goodbye to a group of people … who are very important to me.”
For the last eight years, Harsch-Kinnane has been serving these students as the board member for district three, which contains Grady and Alonzo Crim High School as well as all their feeder schools. Soon, however, it will be time for APS to say goodbye to Harsch-Kinnane since she has announced her intention to not run for a third term. Her last day on the job will be Dec. 31.
After spending two terms of four years each on the board, Harsch-Kinnane sees it as the right time to step down from her position. During her tenure, she worked through projects such as the transformation of high schools into small learning communities, the dismissals of APS employees after an investigation into standardized test erasures, the hiring of a new superintendent, the resolution of conflict between board members, the reinstatement of full accreditation to APS and the redistricting of schools.
“It just felt like this was the right thing to do,” Harsch-Kinnane said. “I think there are a lot of people that could do a good job [in my position] also, and it just felt like the right time to let someone else do it. It was not because I haven’t liked it. I’ve loved it, even when it was hard.”
Harsch-Kinnane believed her role on the board was as a parent, but soon she will no longer have children in APS schools. Her two daughters, Jamison and Nally Kinnane, have already graduated from Grady, and her third child, Archie Kinnane, is a junior. For this reason, too, Harsch-Kinnane said it is a good time to step down.
Nally Kinnane supports her mother’s decision to not run for a third term.
“I think it’s probably the best choice,” she said. “She’s been on the board for eight years. I think she wants to move on and do some different things. It has definitely been straining on her. My dad is happy that it’s going to be over. But even though it was hard, I think she definitely enjoyed her time.”
Yolanda Johnson, who became an APS board member at the same time as Harsch-Kinnane, has also expressed her own interests in not running for reelection.
“As with myself, eight years is a long time, and I think that’s a significant commitment,” Johnson said. “I think that should be recognized as a significant commitment. So it’s not stepping down; it’s just going on with the other parts of your life.”
Upon leaving the board, Harsch-Kinnane said she will work to find a new job that will conform to her background in education, though she is not certain yet what it will be. Nally Kinnane is confident her mother will still be involved in the school system and community.
Before Harsch-Kinnane even joined the board, she was already much involved in APS. At this time she was, in her own words, “being a mom in different advocacy roles and parent organization roles,” such as co-president of the Council of Intown Neighborhoods and Schools and president of the Morningside Elementary School Parent Teacher Association. Her work in these positions inspired her to run for a school board position.
“I am a very strong believer in the public school system,” Harsch-Kinnane said. “It was through my role as advocate for schools that I got the idea about running for school board. I had always been interested in education and educational policy.”
As soon as she joined the board, Harsch-Kinnane realized the job required both a lot of work and a lot of patience.
“The hardest part about being a board member is your responsibilities are huge on one hand, but on the other hand, they are very limited,” she said. “There are things that happen at schools; there are things that don’t happen at schools that you may feel one way or another about. It’s not under your responsibilities as a board member to necessarily do anything about that.”
Instead, Harsch-Kinnane said her primary role was to “bring the voice of the public to the administration and make certain that this voice is respected and responded to.” She said this aspect of the job—working directly with people in APS—was what she enjoyed most.
Harsch-Kinnane said the work, although it was enjoyable, was also often difficult and stressful. Her daughter noticed this, as well.
“There were lots of nights when she would come home at one or two in the morning and still be on the phone with someone discussing a meeting, so it definitely took up a lot of her time,” Nally Kinnane said. “But I think overall, even though it was hard and stressful on her, I think she enjoyed that part of it. The work paid off. … She was glad to put in the hard work.”
Harsch-Kinnane said her second term was even more stressful and characterized by turmoil. She said it was extremely painful for her when she learned employees had been changing students’ answers on the Georgia Criterion Reference Competency Test. Additionally, regarding the conflict between board members leading up to the time of APS’s accreditation probation, Harsch-Kinnane directly blames herself and other board members for their conduct.
Furthermore, one decision has bothered Harsch-Kinnane since the very beginning. During her first board meeting, Harsch-Kinnane allowed an abandoned building located next to the eighth street parking lot, which Grady owned, to be sold to the neighborhood for residence.
“Now, I realize that we should have saved it for when Grady got overcrowded,” Harsch-Kinnane said. “I did have an issue. I regretted it a lot of times. I don’t know if we could have ever done anything with it. It wasn’t necessarily a mistake, but I regret it.”
But despite these difficulties and regrets, Carver teacher Matt Westmoreland, who is running for Harsch-Kinnane’s position next year, appreciates her work during these last several years.
“I think she has worked incredibly hard to represent the kids in our district during some very tumultuous years,” Westmoreland said. “I appreciate all the work that she’s done and all the effort that she’s put in.”
