Royce Mann
From Ballotpedia
Royce Mann is running for election to the Atlanta Public Schools school board to represent At-Large Seat 8 in Georgia. He is on the ballot in the general election on November 4, 2025.[source]
Mann completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2025. Click here to read the survey answers.
Biography
Royce Mann was born in Atlanta, Georgia. He earned a bachelor's degree from Emory University. His career experience includes working as a deputy state director, youth engagement coordinator, legislative aide, legislative director, intern, and community organizer.[1]
Elections
2025
See also: Atlanta Public Schools, Georgia, elections (2025)
General election
The general election will occur on November 4, 2025.
General election for Atlanta Public Schools school board At-Large Seat 8
Kaycee Brock, Royce Mann, and Aisha Stith are running in the general election for Atlanta Public Schools school board At-Large Seat 8 on November 4, 2025.
Candidate | ||
 | Kaycee Brock (Nonpartisan) | |
 | Royce Mann (Nonpartisan)  | |
| Aisha Stith (Nonpartisan) | ||
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| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
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Endorsements
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Campaign themes
2025
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Royce Mann completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2025. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Mann's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
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I am a native Atlantan, a proud APS graduate (Grady High School class of 2020), and a longtime education advocate. I served on the School Governance Team at Grady, where I helped lead the successful effort to rename the school to Midtown, and was a member of the district’s LGBTQIA+ Task Force. I have also worked directly for the Board of Education as a policy intern and have extensive experience advocating at the state level in support of equitable school funding, mental health services for students, and affordable higher education. I have worked in nonprofit education advocacy, including most recently as Deputy State Director for Rise (risefree.org), where I led organizing and advocacy efforts focused on making higher education more affordable and accessible. My passion for public education is inspired by my father, an arts educator, and my late grandmother, Connie Stewart, who helped lead the effort to create the U.S. Department of Education. As a product of APS and lifelong resident of Atlanta, my commitment to the district is rooted in my years of advocacy as a student in the system.
- Public education is under attack, and now more than ever, we need a strong first line of defense for our public schools. We need leaders at the local level who will fight back against efforts to censor our classrooms and defund our schools.
- Atlanta's students deserve someone on the Board of Education who understands their experiences. Our board consists of nine members, but there is currently no one on the board who was a student in our schools within the last two decades. I am running to be the youngest person ever elected to a citywide office in Atlanta because this moment requires fresh and bold leadership.
- Strong public schools are key to ensuring economic mobility. On the board, I will fight to prepare students for success in today's world by working to double the number of counselors in our schools, expand afterschool and job training programs, increase wraparound services, achieve universal Pre-K for all families, and provide free MARTA access for APS high schoolers.
I am passionate about supporting public education, expanding workforce development and job training programs, protecting the civil rights of students and educators, promoting community health and wellness, and dismantling the school-to-prison pipeline.
My late grandmother, Connie Stewart, is my guiding inspiration in this work. Along with being the most loving and supportive grandmother any kid could ask for, she was also a lifelong educator who helped lead the effort to create the U.S. Department of Education as the Policy Communications Director under then Assistant Secretary of Education Dr. Mary Frances Berry. Her work was driven by the belief that public education can be a great equalizer to provide opportunity and eliminate systemic inequities. While we are still working to deliver on that promise, I share my grandmother's vision, and it is because of her that I am inspired to fight every day on behalf of Atlanta's students, families, and educators!
I believe the best elected leaders are those who are honest, transparent, accessible, and accountable to the people they were elected to serve, not to special interests.
Simply stated, the role of the Board is to set the district’s vision and goals, to empower the superintendent to carry out that vision in pursuit of those goals, and to hold the superintendent accountable to the values of the community during that pursuit. In other words, it is up to the Board to dictate the direction of the district based on the desires of the community, and it falls on the superintendent to guide the district’s day-to-day operations to move in that direction. To do this, the Board must act as a vehicle for the concerns of students, educators, families, and taxpayers. As an at-large board member, I will be especially focused on gathering input from all communities and ensuring the concerns of one neighborhood are not taken more seriously than those of another. This means investing time and resources to engage low-income communities, especially in Southwest Atlanta where residents’ concerns are too often ignored. In addition to being the voice of the community, the Board also must serve as a first line of defense for our district against attacks on public education at the state and federal levels. This role is especially crucial in the midst of ongoing efforts to defund public schools, censor curriculum, and retaliate against educators for simply teaching the truth. By working in coalition with board members from other districts in Georgia, including rural districts, we can more effectively advocate for the support and funding that our schools need.
A board member's role is to leverage the voice of students, guardians, educators, and community members in pursuit of improving outcomes for students and eliminating disparities in opportunity, achievement, and discipline. To do this, the board must set goals for the superintendent, fund strategic initiatives to support these goals, and hold district and school leadership accountable to student outcomes.
My constituents are Atlanta's students, families, educators, and residents who believe that our city deserves great public schools.
We must ensure we are working with families, educators, and community members to identify and address the diverse needs that exist across our district. From students with disabilities to families experiencing homelessness, we must center the voices of those who need the most support and direct the additional resources to meet these needs. This includes increased wraparound services, expanded afterschool programs, and additional per-pupil funding for students from low-income backgrounds.
I have worked as a policy advocate at the local, state, and federal level to support safer schools, educational equity, and affordable higher education. In this work, I have built coalitions with community organizations, stakeholders, and elected officials. I am proud to have the support of organizations including the Working Families Party, the School Board Project, and EducateUS. I am also endorsed by multiple members of the Atlanta City Council as well as leaders in the Georgia legislature and neighboring municipalities. On the board, I will continue the work that I have done to build coalition by collaborating with community organizations, neighborhood associations, PTA and PTO chapters, labor unions, and School Governance Teams to develop policy which is guided by the real experiences of students, educators, caregivers, and community members. I will also support the expansion of district partnerships with the City of Atlanta and Fulton and Dekalb Counties as well as programs like ATLlink which connect families with wraparound services offered by existing organizations. Lastly, I will work in coalition with board members in other districts to advocate for shared state-level policy priorities, including the addition of a poverty weight to Georgia's QBE (Quality Basic Education) funding formula.
Like in any profession, teachers need support to continually improve, and this support must go beyond good wages. They also need resources and programs that help them grow and progress in the profession. To achieve this, I will support expanded mentorship programs for new teachers, initiatives to promote the sharing and implementation of best practices across schools, and investment to help more teachers receive their National Board Certification. I will also support the expansion of proven approaches including co-teaching models.
We can address budget gaps by making those with the most pay their fair share, not by squeezing families or closing schools that are seeing real improvements for students. This should include demanding Fulton County properly appraise commercial properties so that large landlords and luxury developers are fully taxed and rejecting unnecessary TAD extensions so that rising values flow back to classrooms. We can do this while protecting low-income seniors and homeowners with needed relief. We must also use our tax revenue carefully by keeping E-SPLOST for buildings and tech, and we should look to capture one-time revenue from big events so that visitors, not working Atlantans, shoulder more of the cost. We can also maximize state dollars by pushing for fair QBE funding, aggressively pursuing equity-focused grants, and promoting the PEACH Education Tax Credit so businesses and residents can redirect state taxes to our highest-need schools. In addition, we should continue to build transparent philanthropic partnerships that fund wraparound services in underserved communities, and we should work to increase transparency around vendors, end wasteful contracts, and reinvest savings directly into our classrooms. Finally, equity must guide our budgeting decisions. The Student Success Funding Formula used by the district provides a framework for equitable funding, yet the funding weights within the formula fail to adequately support our under-resourced and under-enrolled schools. On the Board, I will support an increase to the formula’s poverty weight to get more funds to our schools with the greatest need.
As a co-founder and former Legislative Director for the Georgia chapter of March for Our Lives, I have extensive experience advocating for gun violence prevention, mental health support, and safer schools. On the board, I will remain committed to addressing the root causes of violence in our schools. To do this, we must expand school-based mental health programs and partner with organizations like Chris180 to bring trained violence intervention specialists into our schools. I also support a restorative approach to school discipline that centers evidence-based and trauma-informed approaches to address conflict and promote healthier behaviors.
One of my top priorities is to double the number of certified counselors in our schools. Currently, we have only one counselor for every five hundred students. This means many students are not getting the guidance and support they need. Additionally, I will work to open a Student and Family Support Hub in each school cluster to provide wraparound supports, including mental health services, via community partnerships.
There are numerous policies that I believe should be changed and implemented. A few priorities of mine would be to update the district's policies around charter and partner schools to ensure that special education services are audited at every charter and partner school annually. I also support the implementation of policy to ensure all vendor contracts are aligned with the district's goals for student outcomes in order to reduce unnecessary spending. I support revising existing policies, such as expanding the district's recess policy to all grade levels and revising our restorative practices policy and the student code of conduct to mandate that exclusionary discipline practices be avoided whenever possible and that students not be referred to law enforcement for minor, nonviolent offenses.
I am proud to have the endorsement of organizations including the Working Families Party, Run for Something, the School Board Project, and EducateUS. I have also recieved the Moms Rising seal of approval in recognition of my commitment to early education. Leaders and elected officials who have endorsed my campaign include Former Mayor Shirley Franklin, Councilmember Liliana Bakhtiari, Councilmember Antonio Lewis, Councilmember Michael Julian Bond, Commissioner Ted Terry, Gwinnett Board of Education Member Dr. Tarece Johnson-Morgan, State Sen. Nan Orrock, State Rep. Bryce Berry, State Rep. Park Cannon, State Rep. Eric Bell, State Rep. Gabriel Sanchez, former National PTA President Otha Thornton, and Civil Rights Leader Charles A. Black.
My ideal learning environment is one where all students are empowered to be their full selves, where creativity and collaboration is encouraged, and where educators are supported and able to teach the truth without fear of retaliation.
I will continue showing up to PTA and PTO meetings, School Governance Team meetings, and neighborhood association meetings to hear directly from parents and guardians. I will also host weekly office hours to allow students, parents, teachers, and community members to share their concerns, with options for virtual and in-person engagement.
We must create a strong culture of support for teachers and staff and continue to pursue wage increases for all educational and support staff. We can recruit high-quality educators by providing competive wages and benefits, clear opportunities for advancement, engaging professional development that is guided by teacher and staff input, and the flexibility to be innovative at the school and classroom level.
I will work to promote curriculum that truly prepares students for today's world, including financial literacy, life skills, media literacy, civics, and vocational education.
We should look to limit the role of Artificial Intelligence in classrooms while recognizing that we will be unable to completely eliminate it. Instead, we can integrate AI in certain lesson plans and assignments to help students learn how to use this technology responsibly. At the district level, we should assess with caution any areas that AI can be utilized to reduce spending and streamline bureaucratic processes.
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.
See also
2025 Elections
External links
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Candidate Atlanta Public Schools school board At-Large Seat 8 |
Personal |
Footnotes
- ↑ Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on October 2, 2025
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