The newly appointed Superintendent of Schools has just one week to gather thousands of signatures to run in the race to keep his seat as head of Georgia’s schools.

Brad Bryant has the governor’s endorsement, but he needs one percent of registered voters to sign a petition in order to officially enter the November contest for state superintendent.

Bryant is a Republican but he has to run as an independent because Governor Perdue appointed him after qualifying for the Republican primary already closed.

That means he has to collect 44,089 signatures by next Tuesday. He says, he’s half way there.

"We think we’re hitting our stride," says Bryant. "We knew at the front end this would be a sprint unlike anything I’ve been involved in my life and we’re going to be using every minute between now and Tuesday to try and get that magic number."

Collecting those signatures is no easy task. Take it from Ray Boyd who wanted to run for governor as an independent with $2 million of his own money to spend; he even hired a private firm to help collect the signatures back in April, but he quit the race last week after it told him the task was futile.

Tags: Georgia schools, Superintendent Brad Bryant, November 2010 elections