A proposal to rename a Flagler County School Board building after the late Jim Guines may have to wait.
In late 2024 the Flagler County School Board leased the historic courthouse in Bunnell, consolidated about 10 programs there, including iFlagler, the virtual school option, and Rise Up, the district’s alternative school, and renamed it the Engagement Center.
School Board member Janie Ruddy, in response to a request, is proposing to rename the building for Jim Guines, who served on the school board from 1996 to 2007 and helped establish with John Winston the district’s African American Mentor Program, among “a zillion other things,” in Ruddy’s words. Guines, a lifelong educator with a forceful personality and sharp, sometimes cutting wit, was also known for always donating his school board salary to various causes, believing that board members should not be paid. He died in June at age 93. His wife LaVerne Guines died weeks later.
“So I would like for us to consider and begin the process of potentially naming this facility after him,” Ruddy said.
Board member Will Furry said the district is leasing the building from the county, “so if it only lasts as long as the Engagement Center exists,” though he is supportive of the renaming, as long as it attaches to “something that can last a very long time.” He proposed pursuing the African American Mentor Program’s initiative to recognize a student during Black History Month in Guines’s name. Guines already has a scholarship in his name, but it’s not awarded until May, Superintendent LaShakia Moore said.
The board signed a two-year lease for the old courthouse. It runs out in September. Moore will recommend a renewal, with the possibility of buying the building still pending. The district has the option to do either. Moore said the district had “reservations” about buying the building, which is not in the best shape. But “absorbing” its numerous programs into existing schools is not possible at the moment, Moore said.
“It is a valid concern if we do continue to have enrollment drops,” Ruddy said, “where I could see if the trajectory of our enrollment drops continues within the next five years, that we do absorb that space and not purchase it, in which case yes, it is a temporary naming location.” She hinted at possibly renaming one of the other schools, but the re-branding would be costlier than renaming a relatively newly acquired property, Ruddy said. Current data does not point to a “drastic” decline in student enrollment ahead.
She was willing to table the proposed renaming until there is more clarity on the Engagement Center’s future, as the district renegotiates its lease later this year. The existing policy on renaming district facilities states that if a name change is approved by the board, “there is a mandatory waiting period of 18 months dedicated to community involvement, deliberation and public debate before any final decision.”
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