Roughly halfway through the qualifying period for the May primary election, 13 people have picked up paperwork to run for one of the five seats on the Hamilton County school board that are up for election.
Of the five incumbents up for reelection in 2026, school board members Ben Connor, D-Chattanooga, and Gary Kuehn, R-Ooltewah, have both publicly confirmed they are running again.
The other three — Karitsa Jones, D-Chattanooga, Joe Smith, R-Hixson, and Larry Grohn, R-East Ridge — have each said they do not plan to seek another term. Jones, the board’s longest serving member, was first elected in 2014, and Smith joined the board in 2016.
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