To understand Sonia Morris, you have to understand her story. Born in the West Indies, her earliest memories are of her father taking her to school at age 3 in a uniform and sharing lunch with her. Sonia skipped a grade, two separate times, while in grade school in the British school system during her formative years.

In her early teens, Morris’s family moved to the United States. She attended Central Junior High School and Greenwich High School in Greenwich, Connecticut. After high school, Morris attended Syracuse University for a year. Unfortunately, financial challenges interrupted her studies, and plans for full-time study turned into full-time work alone.

Her first significant job was at Analysis & Programming Corporation (”APC”), where she worked in data analysis. Morris eventually oversaw the PREMIS operations, an address data cleanup system for phone companies. That system is the precursor to today's 911 emergency contact system, which enabled emergency personnel to find the right address and get help to those in need. From there, Morris moved on to IBM’s ROLM Corporation to payroll administration and then to Information Technology where she excelled at solutioning system problems. Before she moved to IBM Endicott, she was entrusted with closing the entire White Plains, NY operations center.

Morris eventually took a buyout package from IBM Endicott and went back to school to complete her undergraduate degree at SUNY Binghamton in New York. There, she earned her B.A. in the Philosophy of Politics and Law, graduating magna cum laude. Then ...

On January 26, 1995, there was a drastic change in Morris’s life. She had a sudden massive brain hemorrhage which led to a stroke. Her family was told that surgery was imminent, if she survived the bleeding due to an arteriovenous malformation (AVM), about the size of a plum. Morris went from completing her undergraduate degree in December to, within five weeks, laying in a hospital bed as a paraplegic with best case expectations of living in a vegetative state for the rest of her life. The situation was dire -- Morris either had to fight with God-given strength and trust God with the medical process or succumb to a new reality of dependency.

Through a long and arduous process, which entailed working with California specialists and local doctors in Connecticut, Morris eventually had brain surgery from a top specialist at Yale New Haven Hospital, about 4 months after her brain bleed and stroke. She had to relearn everything: how to walk, how to speak; and everyday tasks like dressing, reading, and writing. Morris essentially had to fight to rebuild her life.

This part of Morris’s journey is essential to understand why she is so committed to giving all students true opportunities for an excellent education. Morris wants them to have an excellent educational foundation, with critical thinking skills, where they exercise good choices that position them for personal and professional successes. She knows what it is to struggle when the odds are against you, and others count you out. This can be likened to the latest rankings in U.S. News and World Report, where South Carolina is ranked 41st of the 50 states. Morris believes this is unacceptable. She insists that the students and their families deserve better, a stronger education system. As an educator in South Carolina, she knows that teachers work very hard, but she is also aware of something being terribly broken where immediate solutions are desperately needed.

Morris is certain that she can use her M.A. in Public Policy, especially her gift for policy analysis; JD in law, in particular her Dispute Resolution, Business and Contracts knowledge, and operational business background to bring effective systems, people, and policies together that make sense. The goal is to position the students of South Carolina for the best outcomes.

That’s why we are asking you to get behind Morris’s campaign of fight to the finish. That finish is a public education system that South Carolinians can be proud of where students receive an education that can serve them their whole lives. Morris had to fight hard to finish well by relearning everything. She had to go back and finish her education; and now she wants to use all that she has experienced, earned, and learned, to address the mediocrity that permeates public education in South Carolina. These factors work to keep us far south in many of the national education metrics.

As a South Carolina educator through the PACE program, whose students ranked best in the district on a benchmark test during her first-year teaching U.S. History and Constitution EOC’s, Morris has seen firsthand the relentless pressure and brokenness of the current administrative processes and its effects on teachers. She is ready with experience, knowledge, and practical ideas to turn things around in South Carolina. Morris will use her experience in Corporate America, higher education administration, and technical and business solutions background to help to solve and fix the state of education in South Carolina.

Please join Sonia Morris, who is already super, in this fight! Help to position Sonia so she can fight to the finish, for near one-fifth of the entire SC population (800K+ school age children), their families, and the people of South Carolina!