She was a Head Start teacher. Now she wants 1 of 3 Fayette school board seats in 2020.

A 29-year-old project coordinator for Lexington’s Community Action Council who was a recent Head Start teacher wants to be the next new face on the Fayette County Public Schools board.

Camisha Boyd has filed to run for the fifth district seat that covers south Lexington. The election will be Nov. 3. The term for the current board member in that seat, Daryl Love, expires at the end of this year. Love, who was appointed to the board in 2010 and elected in 2012 and 2016, said this week that “I have no plans on seeking re-election at this time.”

The terms of board vice-chair Raymond Daniels, who represents the third district, and Christy Morris, who represents the first district, also both expire in 2020. Morris, who was elected in November 2019 for a one-year term, and Daniels who was appointed and then elected in 2016, both said Tuesday that they will run for re-election. They had not officially filed as of Tuesday. The deadline to file for all three seats is June 2.

A former Head Start teacher at Lexington’s Community Action Council, Boyd is now the Interim Executive Project Coordinator at the Council where she works on agency-wide projects and serves as a liaison between the agency Board of Directors and staff.

Boyd said as a Fayette school board member, she would be “a voice for those that are not represented nor reflected on the school board right now as well as in the schools.”

After graduating from Lexington’s Tates Creek High School, Boyd attended the University of Louisville and earned both a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science and a Master’s of Education.

Before becoming a Head Start teacher, Boyd said she taught Kindergarten Prep classes for about 8 years.

When Boyd taught in a Kindergarten Prep center at Lexmark, she was honored in the University of Kentucky’s 2017 “Teachers who made a Difference Program” based on a nomination from former student Alex Nelson and his mother Amanda Nelson.

“He learned so much in her classroom...because of how enthusiastic she was,” Nelson said. “She was the type of teacher who made him excited about coming to school. He was a high energy child and she was able to match that energy and then some. She really captivated his imagination.”

Boyd, a Court Appointed Special Advocate volunteer for children, is engaged to be married to Damon Powell. Boyd said she wants their future children to grow up in a school district that values student diversity and inclusion.

As a kindergarten prep and Head Start teacher, Boyd said she noticed first hand how students tend to gravitate toward teachers who look like them and who share similar cultural experiences.

Boyd said that disciplinary policies disproportionately affect Black and Latino students in the education system and she is a proponent of restorative practices, which resolve conflict and prevent harm.

If elected, Boyd said she also would work to put more emphasis on farm-to-table school meals. The Community Action Council is already working on Fayette Superintendent Manny Caulk’s Promise Neighborhood Initiative to strengthen neighborhoods surrounding low performing schools. She wants to continue that work as a school board member.

The schools in District 5 include Clays Mill, Glendover, Lansdowne, Picadome, Southern, Stonewall, Veterans Park, and Wellington elementary schools; Jessie Clark, SCAPA at Bluegrass, and Southern middle schools; Lafayette and Tates Creek High schools and Fayette County Preschool.