JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Three candidates are competing for a Duval County School Board seat this August as the district faces ongoing budget pressures, school consolidation decisions, and growing concerns about political influence in local education.
Donna Westrich, Terence Myers, and Donovan Bradley are all vying for the District 2 seat, which opens after current board member and Vice Chair April Carney announced in April that she would not seek a second term. Districts 2, 4, and 6 will appear on the August primary ballot.
News4JAX spoke with all three candidates about why they are running and where they stand on key issues.
Why they’re running
Each candidate pointed to a different priority that brought them to the race.
Westrich, a career educator, said two decades in the classroom are what pushed her toward the board.
“I’ve spent 20 years trying to fix education from inside the classroom and I’m ready to take my experience and passion for education to the next level and affect change at the district level,” she said.
Myers has 18 years of experience in education working in every level of education from elementary education to adult education. He said teachers and students are not getting the resources they need.
“There are different areas in the district that students need more support than others, and teachers need more support in the classroom and outside the classroom,” he said.
Bradley says education is very important to him as a Jacksonville native who went to Duval County Schools. He pointed to workforce preparation and testing practices as top concerns.
“One of the things that I’d like to see an increase on is better, stronger classroom-to-career pipelines for students,” Bradley said. He also called for expanding career and technical education, moving away from computer-based testing in favor of paper-and-pencil assessments, and increasing support for teachers and school resource officers.
Goals if elected
The candidates also outlined what they hope to accomplish on the board.
Westrich said community representation is her top priority.
“I want my community to feel like they have a voice at the table, and I want my community to feel represented,” she said.
Myers said he wants to direct more resources toward students with disabilities.
“I would want to put more emphasis on our disabled students, our ESE students. Those students are not getting the support that they need,” he said. Myers added that he also wants to highlight schools that are performing well across the district.
Bradley said his background in educational policy positions him to work with the state legislature.
“Working with our fellow board members and our state lawmakers to move things like smaller class sizes and anything else that’s a priority for our parents,” he said.
School consolidations and closures
The district has faced budget challenges for several years, and the candidates were asked how they would handle potential school consolidations and closures.
Bradley said transparency and community involvement are essential.
“Having parents know what opportunities are at each school and what they offer is going to help driving that enrollment up. But when it pertains to school closures, we do need to make sure that the community is involved with that,” he said.
Myers said consolidation should be a last resort.
“We want to make sure that we’ve done everything that we can to make sure that consolidation is not the first or best thing to do,” he said.
Westrich echoed the call for transparency.
“I want our community to know what we’re trying to do when something is happening and what possible solutions are. I don’t want anybody to be surprised,” she said.
Keeping politics out of the classroom
Florida school board races are officially non-partisan, but the candidates acknowledged that political influence has grown in recent years.
Bradley said the focus needs to return to fundamentals.
“I don’t believe that politics have any place in schools,” he said. “We need to stick back to the basics — ensuring that achievement is up, ensuring that our parents have the support that they need, that our teachers have the resources and the support that they need, that our facilities are secure.”
Myers agreed that schools should remain neutral ground.
“School should be a neutral ground. I do know that politics is playing a part in what’s happening in Tallahassee when it’s trickling down to all the cities in the state of Florida,” he said.
Westrich said she has deliberately run a non-partisan campaign.
“People over politics. Students need to come first,” she said.
The August primary for Duval County Schools also includes contested races for Districts 4 and 6. Voters will also decide on a 1-mill renewal in November.
Watch each candidate’s full interview below:
Donna Westrich
Terence Myers
Donovan Bradley