School Board Attorney Kristy Gavin was still on the job this morning–as a School Board attorney. But uncertainty remains, even though the board has approved a new job description that would theoretically allow Gavin to step into a new role as staff attorney, or general counsel, answering to the superintendent.
Flagler County School Board
Flagler Students Violated Limited Cell Phone Ban 1,300 Times This Year; Principals Caution Against Total Ban
There’s no recommendation from the administration to go further than the current cell-phone ban in schools, which still allows students to use their phones between classes and at lunch. If anything, Flagler’s middle and high school principals are cautioning the school board against imposing a stricter ban, finding the current balance effective and educational.
Approval of Carver Center’s Joint Agreement Is Upended as School Board Has Late-Breaking Changes
In the works since June, a new, joint agreement on management and oversight of the Carver Center in Bunnell will have to wait until at least January before it is enacted, because a misstep at the school district delayed a legal review of the agreement. That kept the School Board from seeing the revised proposal for the first time until the County Commission had already approved the original version.
Moore Overruled Panel to Name Cari McGee, Outspoken Diversity Expert and Advocate, Bunnell Elementary Principal
Superintendent LaShakia Moore’s choice of Cari McGee as Bunnell Elementary’s next principal says as much about Moore’s willingness to buck recommendations and trust her own instinct as it does about McGee, a committed and–like Moore, opinionated and socially conscious–leader who a few years ago signed her name to an open letter condemning “inaction in the face of oppression” and lambasting Nancy Pelosi for using the language of white supremacy.
Winnie Oden, Peripatetic Educator In Flagler Schools With Foresight and a Passion for Security, Dies at 75
Oden–who was officially known as Juanita Winnie Oden–had a mind of her own, opinions to spare and the kind of foresight that led to champion safety and security well before the Parkland massacre. She was as outspoken as she was irrepressible, and did not mind ruffling a feather or two–going as far as suing her own school board when she was serving on it.
Flagler School District’s Poison-Pill Offer to Save Attorney Kristy Gavin’s Job Draws Warning of Lawsuit Ahead
The Flagler school district’s negotiations with Board Attorney Kristy Gavin have soured following the district’s condition that Gavin should give up the right to sue in exchange for her keeping her job. School Board member Cheryl Massaro says Gavin, who is not likely to accept such terms, is likely to be fired by year’s end, and to sue the district on numerous grounds including breach of contract, wrongful discharge, hostile work environment, age and sex discrimination and defamation.
Flagler Schools Again a ‘B’ District, With Only 2 Schools Notching A’s and FPC Improving to B
Twenty-nine Florida school districts–or 43 percent of districts in the state–scored an A this year. The Flagler County school district is not among them. The district notched another B, its ninth in the last 10 years that the state Department of Education has awarded school grades.. When a plurality of districts across the state score an A and Flagler does not, it makes it harder for the district to claim, as its motto likes to claim, that it is a “premier learning organization,” or that it promotes a “culture of excellence.”
School Board Saves Thanksgiving Week Off for 2024-25 Calendar, But at Cost of Extending High School Day
The school day for Flagler County high school students will be longer by seven minutes each day starting next fall, with a minute added to each class period so the instructional calendar can still meet the legally required total number of class hours per semester, while the Thanksgiving week holiday is not affected. Class periods will go from 47 to 48 minutes.
ER Physician Paul Mucciolo Files for Conklin’s School Board Seat, Citing Need for ‘Healthy Dose of Professionalism’
Dr. Paul Mucciolo, an emergency-medicine physician at AdventHealth Palm Coast, declared his candidacy for the District 3 seat on the Flagler County School Board to bring back “a healthy dose of professionalism” to the board, he said, and to return the school district to an A-rated organization. Mucciolo is running for the seat Colleen Conklin has held since 2000. Conklin has elected not to run again in 2024, as has Cheryl Massaro, though Massaro may not have entirely closed the door on another run.
Proposed Joint Agreement on Bunnell’s Carver Center Governance Gives Sheriff’s PAL New and Larger Role
A proposed joint agreement on governing the Carver Center in South Bunnell–the area’s only recreation and community center–gives the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office’s Police Athletic League a broader presence and a much more prominent role in the management of the facility, especially in programming and running the gym.
Belle Terre Elementary’s Jessica DeFord and Matanzas High’s Sara Novak are Top Administrators of the Year
Flagler Schools announced today, in an unusually terse release, that Jessica DeFord is the District Principal of the Year and Sara Novak is the Assistant Principal of the Year.
Muddled Flagler School Board Has Only Vague Ideas Who Would Handle Legal Needs If Its Attorney Were Fired
School Board Attorney Kristy Gavin isn’t fired yet, with a Dec. 31 deadline looming. But the school board’s 50-minute discussion on what sort of legal representation it needs accented a chasm between two veteran board members focused on pragmatism and bottom lines on one side, and, on the other, the board’s three newest members’ willingness to improvise as they go, with little heed for consequences. The district administration is left to pick up the pieces.
Zealotry Takes the Gavel at the Flagler County School Board
It’s an indication of the Furry-Chong-Hunt majority’s churlishness that the school board member with the most experience, the most education, the most legislative, parliamentary and institutional knowledge by far (Colleen Conklin, who is in her last year), is being passed over as chair on Tuesday for Will Furry, her polar opposite in every respect, and a rookie.
Jason Wheeler, Calm and Cheery Spokesman in Flagler School District’s Capharnaum, Is Outta Here
Jason Wheeler, the former television reporter hired eight years ago to build and anchor the Flagler County School district’s communications hub, will be leaving the district at the end of the year for a similar job in the Panhandle. His departure adds to a continuing erosion of veterans with deep institutional knowledge of the district, with a brand new superintendent at the helm.
Flagler School Board’s Will Furry Criticizes District for Following Public Records Law
In a long diatribe at a workshop today, Flagler County School Board member Will Furry repeatedly implied that the district should have redacted an investigative report about a teacher at Buddy Taylor Middle School even if redactions went against the state’s public records law.
When Even Ed Danko Is Right
Ed Danko is right to resist Mayor David Alfin’s proposal to have all council members sign “Code of Conduct,” including a pledge of civility. It is not an elected board’s place collectively to regulate or codify its members’ behavior, or government’s place to force pledges of any kind on anyone.
As School Board Risks Wrongful Termination Suit, Value of Attorney’s Contract Is Close to $500,000
The three-member majority of the Flagler County School Board that wants to fire Attorney Kristy Gavin thinks it can do so at the cost of 14 weeks’ pay. The remaining board members say that risks incurring a wrongful termination lawsuit, with the value of Gavin’s remaining 20 months on her contract nearing half a million dollars, according to an analysis not disclosed until now.
Teachers Union Blisters School Board Over ‘Fiscal Irresponsibility’ and ‘Unjust Actions’ in Attorney’s Pending Firing
In a letter to her membership, Elisabeth Dias, president of the Flagler County Education Foundation, the teachers union, calls attention to what she terms the potential “wrongful termination” without due process of School Board Attorney Kristy Gavin, which would set a precedent and pose “a serious threat to the rights and well-being of our members, as well as the financial stability of our school district.”
School Board Attorney Gavin Fends Off Firing Squad as Superintendent Will Negotiate Possible Transition
The Flagler County School Board Tuesday evening again stopped short of firing Kristy Gavin, its attorney, after it was sharply cautioned by Superintendent LaShakia Moore against taking such a vote without counsel and risking serious financial consequences. The board voted 4-1 to allow Moore to negotiate moving Gavin to the position of staff attorney, answering to only to Moore.
School Board and Attorney Kristy Gavin Explore ‘Mutual Agreement’ Breakup Ahead of Oct. 26 Decision
Stepping back from a brink that had School Board member Sally Hunt ready to make a motion to fire attorney Kristy Gavin this evening, the board and Gavin agreed at a workshop today to what amounts to a pair of mediation sessions, one behind closed doors and one in a public meeting, to explore a severance on mutually agreed terms. The terms are not known, nor is Gavin’s willingness to agree to them.
Superintendent LaShakia Moore’s $175,000 Salary Is Significantly Less Than a Predecessor’s, When Adjusted
The four-year contract with Superintendent LaShakia Moore the Flagler County School Board is ratifying tonight calls for less compensation than that awarded the two other executive of the county’s largest governments, even though Flagler schools have more employees than both combined, and it is less, in adjusted numbers, than the starting pay of Bill Delbrugge, who in 2005 became superintendent, like Moore, without previous such experience.
Matanzas Brawl Was Long Simmering: Parents Had Alerted the School and Sought Mediation, To No Avail
The Matanzas High School brawl last week did not occur out of nowhere. According to eight of the parents involved, several of them had been warning the school administration of problems well before, asking for a series of measures, all neglected or turned down outright by the administration, to an apparently unaware principal, Kristin Bozeman, who would tell several of the parents that she was unaware of the issues until the day of the brawl.
School Board Members’ Questions to Outside Counsel Reveal Worry of Lawsuit If They Fire Their Attorney
Three Flagler County School Board members have submitted nine questions to two attorneys the board hired for at least $5,000 to examine how it could fire Board Attorney Kristy Gavin without getting sued. The board members wrote the questions and circulated them outside of a public meeting. The questions had not been disclosed publicly until this article.
With District Financial Procedures Ensnarled, School Board Pursues Firing Attorney, But With a Lifeline
The board’s discussion took an unexpected turn as the possibility of saving Kristy Gavin’s job in a different capacity–she would answer to the superintendent as a staff attorney–gelled around a consensus that perhaps reflects the board’s leeriness at fostering either more controversy or more difficulties for its new superintendent, who already relies a great deal on Gavin and her unparalleled institutional history.
With $719,000 Almost Certainly Lost to Fraud, School District Turns to Insurance in Hopes for Recovery
Flagler County Sheriff Rick Staly this afternoon confirmed that the amount of money the Flagler County school district lost in a wire-transfer phishing scheme is $719,583, but that “it’s close to 100 percent long gone.” The district made the payment on Sept. 22. Its fraudulent nature was not detected until Tuesday morning–11 days later, an eternity of comfort for phishing scams to evade controls and make it out of the country.
Flagler School District Loses ‘Significant Amount of Money’ in Apparent Phishing Scheme Involving Vendor
The Flagler County Sheriff’s Office is investigating a case of fraud, or phishing, targeting the Flagler County school district and one of its vendors. The district may have lost as much as $700,000 intended for one of the contractors building the Matanzas High School addition. If it is a case of phishing, the likelihood of recovering the money is not high, especially since the district may not have been timely either in discovering the fraud or in reporting it.
Here Are the 3 Lawsuits Against the District the School Board Will Discuss Behind Closed Doors Tuesday
When the Flagler County School Board meets behind closed doors early Tuesday afternoon, a meeting that may at least in part be in violation of state law, it will discuss three pending lawsuits against the district, and potential settlements in two of them, including an employment discrimination lawsuit scheduled for trial in federal court in December.
Flagler School Board Wants ‘Standing’ Closed-Door Meetings Every 3 Months. That Would Be Illegal.
The Flagler County School Board directed its attorney to schedule “standing” closed-door meetings every three months to get updates on litigation facing the district. Such meetings would be illegal, as was the board assuming the authority to set such meetings, according to Florida law and a veteran local government attorney.
Sally Hunt Raises Questions About Using Schools as Shelters During Hurricane Emergencies
Flagler County School Board member Sally Hunt questioned whether district schools should continue to be used as shelters during tropical storm emergencies, and whether the district could go to late starts rather than cancel whole days of school. Officials explained to Hunt that schools are an integral part of emergency management, with closures are carefully calibrated between potential risk and the safety of students and staff.
Bible Challenge in Flagler Schools Unravels Inconsistencies, Arbitrariness and Confusion in Review Process
A challenge of the Bible’s presence in some of Flagler County’s public school libraries is unraveling the inconsistencies, contradictions, flaws, and arbitrariness of Flagler County’s book-challenge process. The challenge, filed by Palm Coast resident Bob Gordon, cites 67 passages he claims are sexually explicit, sadistic, graphically violent and bigoted.
At Post-Segregated Assemblies Town Hall, Superintendent Bridges Conversation Beyond Walls and Outrage
Flagler Schools Superintendent LaShakia Moore hosted a town hall at the Carver Center in predominantly Black South Bunnell Wednesday evening in the wake of the segregated assemblies at Bunnell Elementary School. The audience of some 110 and the superintendent engaged in an open conversation about education and community involvement, with only two moments when the assemblies and their aftermath were discussed.
Contrasting with Depa Case, Judge Dismisses Charge Against Autistic Female Who’d Assaulted Teacher at Matanzas
A felony assault charge against Reba Johnson, now 20, an autistic student who had attacked her teacher at Matanzas High School, was dropped today after she was continuously found incompetent to stand trial,. It’s a sharp contrast with the ongoing charge against Brendan Depa, who faces a more severe felony charge after he attacked a paraprofessional last February, though Depa’s and Johnson’s profiles parallel each other in many, but not all, respects.
School Board Trio Will Hire an Attorney to Help Them Fire Board’s Attorney of 17 Years
The Flagler County School Board has assigned fellow-board member Will Furry to hire a labor attorney–at the district’s expense–who will then shepherd them through firing Kristy Gavin, the board’s attorney, without risking a lawsuit. Board members Sally Hunt and Christy Chong pushed the idea of outside counsel. Board Chair Cheryl Massaro joined them in assigning Furry.
Fractured Leadership: Few Questions Asked, Fewer Concerns Raised Ahead of Segregated Assemblies, Investigation Reveals
Bunnell Elementary school’s leadership environment that enabled a trio of teachers to hold assemblies targeting only Black students last month was disjointed, incurious, careless and oblivious to the optics of segregating Black students in the name of improving test scores, regardless of their academic standing, a pair surprisingly limited and identical internal investigations reveal.
Even A Great Superintendent Can’t Fix a Clueless School Board
If you think the appointment of LaShakia Moore as superintendent will make a difference, think again. Moore’s biggest job will be to run interference to save what’s left of this district from the Huns, because the problem was never with the administration or the ranks. It’s with the majority of a board that doesn’t know its role, doesn’t know its limits, and doesn’t know education from flip-flops.
Bunnell Elementary Principal Evensen Resigns, Saying She ‘Certainly’ Does Not Deserve What’s Happening to Her
Donelle Evensen this morning announced her resignation as Bunnell Elementary principal five weeks after being named to the position, and not quite three weeks after being placed on leave following her approval of an assembly where faculty segregated Black students. At no point in either letters does Evensen take responsibility or offer any regret for the tenor of the assembly or the misjudgments that led to it.
Flagler School Board’s Sally Hunt Hijacks New Superintendent’s Triumph with a Hit List of Resentments
The highlight at Tuesday evening’s meeting of the Flagler County School Board should have been the triumphal appointment of LaShakia Moore as superintendent, a rare unifying moment for an often divided school board. It was briefly all that, until School Board member Sally Hunt hijacked the occasion with what amounted to a hit list for coming meetings: School Board attorney Kristy Gavin. School Board Chair Cheryl Massaro. The school board’s own conduct. “Bullies.” “The media.”
LaShakia Moore Appointed Superintendent in Historic Vote, But Occasion Is Marred by Grievances
The Flagler County School Board this evening voted unanimously to appoint LaShakia Moore superintendent, eliminating the “interim” part of the title she had held since July 1 and making her the first Black superintendent in the county’s history. But it wasn’t entirely a joyful occasion.
In Commanding Control of Her Interview and the Board, LaShakia Moore Appears Poised to Be Voted Superintendent
LaShakia Moore this morning was fully in control of a Flagler County School Board that has often been unmoored and adrift for much of the past year as she parried questions and asserted how she would handle her first hundred days as superintendent, if the board were to appoint her into that role this evening. There seems to be little doubt that this evening’s vote will be anticlimactic, and that come 5:15 p.m., Moore will be voted the new, permanent superintendent.
School Board May Vote On Making LaShakia Moore Permanent Superintendent (or Not) on Tuesday
Unscheduled (and illegal) huddles aside, the Flagler County School Board is holding four separate meetings Tuesday, the last one at 5:15 p.m., where one of the agenda items is a potential vote on ending the search for a new superintendent and permanently appointing LaShakia Moore to the position.
Sally Hunt Wanted to Censure School Board Chair For Going Off Script in Talk Over Segregated Assembly
Flagler County School Board Chair Cheryl Massaro said fellow Board member Sally Hunt considered calling for a vote of censure against her because Massaro did not stick to a script provided her before last week’s press conference denouncing Bunnell Elementary’s segregated assembly days earlier.
Flagler Schools Have a ‘Subgroup’ Problem. It’s Not Blacks. It’s Not Even Students.
It is now so routine to reduce individual students to cogs among subgroups enslaved to the expectations of standardized testing that our educators have lost sight of their purpose. The state’s transformation of education into a dehumanizing machinery is to blame. So is the Flagler County School Board’s emphasis on running the district as a business, and now branding its superintendent a “CEO.” The individuality and dignity of students is lost to a damaging bottom-line mentality.
Deep Disagreements Remain Between School District and Cities and Builders Over Enrollment and Impact Fee Dues
Are Flagler County’s public schools adding students? Will the district need to build new schools? Should it be drawing money from developers today even though it has no certain plans to build schools yet? Those questions were asked and answered with varying degrees of certainty and a lot more disagreements on Thursday in the latest meeting of a joint committee of local government representatives in charge of reviewing how much money developers are required to pay to defray the cost of new school construction.
Flagler School Board Members Meet Behind Closed Doors to ‘Debrief’ Until Attorney Breaks Them Up
All five Flagler County School Board members met behind a closed door after a press conference this morning, until the school board attorney, who had been unaware of the meeting, broke them up. One of the board member insists no business before the board was discussed, and that the meeting was intended only to tell the superintendent she had done a good job at the press conference.
School Officials Forcefully Denounce ‘Segregation’ Assembly But Steps Ahead Are Vague Beyond ‘Conversations’
The denunciations were forceful and Interim Superintendent LaShakia Moore’s air of command over the most serious crisis of her tenure as interim was evident at a press conference this morning. But the steps ahead, beyond community meetings, more encounters with parents and students, and talk of “professional learning” with school employees, are far less clear even as the district positions itself against potential litigation.
Bunnell Principal Donelle Evensen on Administrative Leave as District Faces Fallout of Segregated Assembly
Donelle Evensen, the principal at Bunnell Elementary School for mere weeks, was placed on paid administrative leave today, and Superintendent LaShakia Moore asked that a three-hour board workshop scheduled for today, where she was to be interviewed for the permanent job, be postponed.
Superintendent Lashakia Moore Issues Stronger Apology Over Bunnell Elementary’s Segregationist Assembly
Contrary to her written statement on Tuesday, today’s video statement by LaShakia Moore on the segregating of Black students in an assembly at Bunnell Elementary last week was more forceful, more clearly recognizing the breadth of the problem–as her statement on Tuesday had not–and twice included an explicit apology.
School Board Will Hold 3-Hour Interview of LaShakia Moore for Superintendent, But Hopes You Won’t Attend
The Flagler County School Board is holding one of its most important public meetings of the year Thursday, between 9 a.m. and noon. Misleadingly referring to it as a “retreat,” the board will hold an extended interview with Interim Superintendent LaShakia Moore to determine whether it should end its search for a permanent superintendent and appoint Moore in September. Some members of the School Board would rather you did not know about the meeting, and did not attend.
Black Students at Bunnell Elementary Are Told Of ‘Early Grave’ If They ‘Clown’ Around and Don’t Perform
Bunnell Elementary’s Black 4th and 5th graders on Friday were singled out in two assembles, told that if they didn’t bring up their test scores, they could end up in jail, shot or dead, they were paired off to compete academically against each other, and the winners would get McDonald’s and Chick-fil-A. Their parents were never told. Parents are outraged. The superintendent acknowledges that while raising test scores is essential, the situation was mishandled.
Flagler School Board Suspends Search and Prepares to Hire LaShakia Moore as Permanent Superintendent
The Flagler County School Board this afternoon agreed to suspend its search for a new superintendent and instead set in motion several steps that would lead to the appointment of Interim LaShakia Moore as the permanent district superintendent come September or October.
