Charcella Green wants to do for the  Rockdale County school board what she’s been helping other school boards do for themselves. 

Green is  former nonprofit executive and instructor at Clark Atlanta University who’s running for the Post 1 Board of Education seat. This is her first time running for elected office.

 “I’ve worked with school systems, school boards. I thought I would run for school board because much of what I help other school systems with, I can do in Rockdale County,” said Green.

Green, a mother of one adult son who attended Atlanta schools, trained as a social worker but not in clinical social work. She said she spent more than 20 years in corporate America with companies such as Georgia Power. She recently spent the last 10 years in management positions of nonprofits such as Big Brothers Big Sisters of Metro Atlanta, where she was vice president of programs, the now defunct Samaritan Houses, as the director of programs. Her work with school boards, where she developed training programs, include the Atlanta Public Schools, the Griffin-Spalding Board of Education and Morgan County Board of Education. 

“My role has always been evaluating programs,” she said. She develops programs “that meet the needs of people in order to be successful,” she said. 

An Atlanta native, Green grew up near present-day Turner Field and lived in Decatur for 17 years until she moved to Rockdale in 2004.

“Rockdale has a good school system,” she said.  

One of her priorities, if she were elected, is to make schools “more parent friendly” and involved the community, she said. 

“Schools need the support. There’s a place for community groups to be engaged more with the school system. “

Another priority would be to see that the school system’s funds are budgeted in a way that “it gets to the children and those who work on the front line with our children,” she said. 

Green has also served on the Boys and Girls Club in Conyers and attends church in DeKalb County.

She faces Mandy North in her bid for the non-partisan, at large seat, on July 31.