Laura Glesby photo
Darnell Goldson at Monday's Board of Education meeting.
Darnell Goldson has officially ended his bid for reelection to the Board of Education, winding down a nearly eight-year stretch helping govern the school system — and leaving school board candidate Andrea Downer uncontested in her run to take Goldson’s place.
Since late 2021, Goldson — one of the board’s two incumbent elected members, along with Ed Joyner — had wavered on whether to run again after receiving a cancer diagnosis and then going into remission.
Though he made initial efforts to campaign in the primary election, he opted in July not to be a Democratic nominee after the local Democratic Party backed Downer instead.
On Monday evening, he confirmed that he has since dropped out of the race, and won’t be running as an unaffiliated candidate in Nov. 7’s general election for the school board’s District 2 seat, which covers the northern half of the city, from Amity to Downtown to Quinnipiac Meadows.
As a result, Democratic nominee Andrea Downer faces no known opponent in her quest to take his place on the Board of Education when Goldson’s current term runs out at the end of the year.
“After a while, you get tired of feeling like you aren’t making a huge difference,” Goldson said before the start of his fourth-to-last Board of Education meeting on Monday at Barack Obama School on Farnham Avenue. Though he’s proud of some of his accomplishments on the Board of Education — such as calling for more fiscal transparency and “bringing on a terrific new superintendent” in Dr. Madeline Negrón — he said he often feels like he’s “bumping up against a wall,” and that “we have not made a dent in achievement” among public school students.
Goldson first took office as one of the board’s two elected members in 2015, serving two four-year terms. He emerged as one of the board members most willing to openly challenge his colleagues and school administrators.
Laura Glesby photo
Andrea Downer, right, at the Democratic Town Committee Convention in July.
“I do wish Mr. Goldson the best in any endeavors in his life. It’s to be commended, the eight years that he’s sat on the board and the work he’s completed with the board,” Downer reflected on Tuesday. “I am still on the mission of reducing absenteeism, retaining those teachers, and supporting the parents and children of our district. … I look forward to working with the board members as we collaboratively get to our challenges.”
She added, “I want to encourage folks to come to the polls. It’s important to vote.” Downer is the only Board of Education candidate to have her name on the Nov. 7 general election ballot, although voters can still write in other names.
Goldson offered some advice for Downer as she prepares to take his place. “Don’t feel lost because of how big this is,” he said. “No matter how much you think you know, there’s a lot you don’t know.”
He said he doesn’t envy Downer’s position of coming onto the board just before an influx of pandemic-era federal funding runs out, right as the board faces the task of deciding how to reallocate resources — and what programs to shut down — in the face of an anticipated drop in funding.
Goldson said he eventually plans to work with young people in some other, to-be-determined form.
For now, though, he wants to spend time with his daughter, who’s about to graduate from college — and relax on the beach.
He’s thinking of going to the Dominican Republic or Puerto Rico. “Once I’m on the beach, I’ll be OK,” he laughed. “I’m gonna be focused on getting a tan somewhere.”