Woman again runs for School Board

Mary Brown, who came close to winning a Pinellas School Board seat in 1998, has decided to give it another shot.

Brown, a St. Petersburg resident, narrowly lost four years ago to Nancy Bostock. Brown won 48 percent of the vote in a bid to become the first African-American elected to the board.

This year, Brown is not running against Bostock. Brown is one of five candidates for the District 4 seat, which had been held by Tom Todd. Gov. Jeb Bush appointed Janice Starling to fill the remainder of Todd's term after Todd died, and Starling is among those running for the seat.

District 4 covers the southwest section of Pinellas County. The board member representing a district must live in the district but is elected countywide. The nonpartisan primary election is Sept. 10.

Brown said she wants to help carry out the district's school choice plan, which starts in 2003. She said she is afraid parents don't understand how choice will work, and she is concerned that questions have yet to be answered about the district's plans for busing students to their chosen schools.

"If parents are confused about where their children are going," Brown said, "then there is some confusion about what they are going to get when they get there. "I'm a believer that the whole community has got to get involved -- everybody -- to truly succeed," she said.

As she did in her first campaign, Brown says her community service and commitment to public education qualifies her to serve on the board.

Brown, 66, is a board member for the Pinellas Association for Retarded Citizens and a co-chairperson of the St. Petersburg Community Alliance, a citizens group. She has five grown children.

She also is a quality improvement specialist for Coordinated Child Care of Pinellas County, a private nonprofit organization that administers scholarships to the county's working poor. She is a graduate of Eckerd College with a degree in business management and human resources.

Brown also has served on the Pinellas County Schools Choice Task Force and the School Advisory Committee at St. Petersburg High School.

"I have a deep interest in public school education," she said, "and I believe we can have a system that will educate (students) in a manner that they can use to better themselves when they leave the system."

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