School board districts 1, 3, 5, 7 and 9 are up for reelection in 2024, and some incumbents are already endorsing possible successors. This will be Nashville’s second partisan school board election following 2021 legislation that allows partisan labels in district school board races.
District 3 representative Emily Masters will not run for reelection, instead choosing to endorse Zach Young, a Democrat and former District 10 councilmember who lost a 2023 reelection bid to Jennifer Frensley Webb. Republican Stephen North pulled a petition to run for the district but did not qualify for the ballot. The district encompasses parts of northeast Davidson County, including Madison and Goodlettsville.
District 5 incumbent Christiane Buggs has also confirmed that she won’t run for reelection and is instead endorsing TK Fayne (a Democrat) as her replacement. Democrat Marilyn Slaughter pulled a petition to run for District 5 but did not qualify, leaving Fayne as the lone candidate to represent District 5, which is at the center of the county and includes Hume-Fogg High School, Martin Luther King Jr. High School, Nashville School of the Arts and Pearl-Cohn High School.
The most crowded race is in District 1, which encompasses North Nashville and Joelton. Incumbent Sharon Gentry has held the seat for 15 years but is not running for reelection. One Republican candidate, Demytris Savage-Short, is running for the District 1 seat against three Democrats: Dominique McCord-Cotton, Robert Taylor and Latonya Winfrey. John Little, who was elected to temporarily fill the District 4 school board seat after its previous representative Anna Shepherd died in 2020, pulled a petition for the district but did not qualify.
District 7 incumbent Freda Player is running for reelection uncontested. Her district covers Antioch and contains Glencliff High School, Valor Charter Schools and Paragon Mills Elementary School. District 9’s Abigail Tylor is uncontested in her run for reelection, representing the West Nashville and Bellevue area.
This story has been updated to reflect which candidates ultimately did not qualify to make the ballot.
