Urban Schools Council Names New Leadership

Minneapolis, San Francisco and Nashville Educators Elected to Posts

            WASHINGTON,  June 30 -- Judy Farmer, a longtime member of the Minneapolis Board of Education, becomes chair of the Council of the Great City Schools’ Board of Directors July 1.

            She will lead the urban education advocacy, policy and research organization for a one-year term, succeeding Superintendent Carlos Garcia of Nevada’s Clark County School District in Las Vegas.

            Representing 63 of the nation’s largest urban public school systems, the Council is governed by a board of directors composed of the superintendent and a school board member from each of the districts.  

            In 1999, Farmer won and shared the Council’s highest urban educator award with then-Houston schools superintendent and current U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige.

            “Judy has been an advocate for Minneapolis students for more than 20 years, and a voice for inner-city students nationally,” says Council Executive Director Michael Casserly. “We are proud to have her chair the organization this year.”

            Other new Council officers are Superintendent Arlene Ackerman of the San Francisco Unified School District, who becomes chair-elect, and George Thompson III, a board member of the Metropolitan Nashville School District, elected secretary/treasurer. He succeeds former superintendent Thomas Tocco of Texas’ Fort Worth Independent School District. 

            Founded in 1956 in Chicago, the Council is the only national organization exclusively representing the needs of urban public schools.  The coalition’s primary goal is to improve student achievement in America’s big-city schools.    

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