Jill Woolbright, Flagler County School Board Candidate: The Live Interview

Jill Woolbright is the incumbent candidate in the District 1 race for Flagler County School Board, running against Sally Hunt. Seven candidates are running for three school board seats.

School board elections–for Districts 1, 2 and 4–are non-partisan races: all registered voters in Flagler County are eligible to cast a ballot in the two races–whether registered Democratic, Republican, Independent or from a minor party.

If you are a registered voter in Flagler County, you may cast a vote in all three races regardless of the district, the town or the subdivision you live in–or whether you are out of state or living abroad, in which case absentee ballots may be sent in.

The election on Aug. 23 will decide the winners in District 1 between incumbent Woolbright and Hunt, and in District 4 between incumbent Trevor Tucker and Christy Chong. District 2, where incumbent Janet McDonald has opted not to run (she is running for a county commission seat) is a three-way race between Lance Alred, Will Furry and Courtney VandeBunte. The race in this case would be decided only if a candidate wins better than 50 percent of the vote. Short of that, the top two vote-getters will go on to a run-off, to be decided in the general election on Nov. 8.

FlaglerLive submitted 14 identical questions to the school board candidates, who replied in writing, with the understanding that some follow-up questions may be asked. Questions appear in bold. Follow-up questions, when necessary, appear in bold and italics, and may be awaiting answers. When a candidate fails to answer a question, that’s noted in red. The questions and follow-ups attempt to elicit precise answers, but the candidates don’t always comply.

School board members serve four-year terms and are paid $36,000 a year. The amount is set by the Legislature, not the local school board. It increases by a shade under $1,000 each year. Last spring the Legislature passed HB1467, a bill, enacted this year, that institutes a 12-year term limit for school board members. But the clock doesn’t start ticking until November. In other words, any school board member who has served one or more term by then will not have that time counted against the tenure. The restriction is on consecutive years only.

To vote: see a sample ballot here. Early voting is between Aug. 13 and Aug. 20, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at four sites in the county, listed here. You may vote early at any of the four sites regardless of your precinct location. To vote by mail, request your mail-in ballot here. Because of the Legislature's new law, restricting voting convenience, drop boxes are available, but only to a limited degree. The ballot drop box at the Elections Office will be monitored by a staff member beginning 60 days prior to the election, through Election Day. This drop box will no longer be available after office hours or on weekends, except during the early voting period. Other drop boxes will be available at early voting locations, but only during the days of early voting, and only during voting hours. Mail ballots must be received in the Elections Office by 7 p.m. on Election Day in order to be counted. If returning your ballot by mail, please allow at least ten days for delivery.  A postmark does not extend this deadline. You may track your ballot here. All other election-procedure related inquiries can be answered at the Elections Office's website.

The Questions in Summary: Quick Links

• Basics
• Purpose, vision and preparation
• Role models
• Priorities
• Self-evaluation
• Budget cuts
• District accomplishments and failures
• Half-penny sales tax
• Evaluating Superintendent Mittelstadt
• Sheriff’s contract and armed civilians in schools
• Impact fees
• School enrollment and the future of public education
• “Don’t say gay” and anti-woke bills
• Prayer in school.
• Background check

Jill Woolbright: The Basics:

Place and Date of Birth: Parkersburg, West Virginia, Nov. 23, 1957.
Current job: School board member.
Net worth: Click here for financial disclosure form.
Resume: Not provided.
Political affiliation (keeping in mind that school board races are non-partisan): Republican.
Websites and Social Media: Not provided.

1.     What is your vision for public education in Flagler County and how are you uniquely qualified to help enact it within the limitations of the job? If you’re an incumbent, what examples illustrate how you yourself, as opposed to the board collectively, made a difference in enacting your vision in your previous years on the board? If you’re a challenger, what have you done to prepare, so that you’re ready from day one?

Jill Woolbright did not answer the question.

See how Sally Hunt answered.

The 2022 Live Interviews Flagler County School Board Sally Hunt, District 1 Jill Woolbright, District 1 Lance Alred, District 2 Will Furry, District 2 Courtney VandeBunte, District 2 Christy Chong, District 4 Trevor Tucker, District 4 Flagler County CommissionJoe Mullins, District 4 Leann Pennington, District 4 Janet McDonald, District 2 Greg Hansen, District 2 Denise Calderwood, District 2 Palm Coast City Council, District 2 Sims Jones Alan Lowe Theresa Carli Pontieri Shauna Kanter

Note: The names will be linked to their respective interviews as the interviews are published.

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2.     Who among school board members of the past 10 years or so do your most closely identify with, and why? Who in the world at large, and among the living, do you consider a role model of political or intellectual leadership?

Jill Woolbright did not answer the question.

See how Sally Hunt answered.

3. Candidates often have a list of things they plan to accomplish if elected. As one five board members, what is your understanding of the power of—and limitations on–an individual member, and how would you go about exercising this power and respecting its limits to accomplish specific goals?

Jill Woolbright did not answer the question.

See how Sally Hunt answered.

4. Tell us who you are as a person—what human qualities and shortcomings you’ll bring (or have brought) to the board, what your temperament is like: if you’re an incumbent, what do you consider may have been a mistake or a misjudgment on your part in your official capacity—something you’d do over, differently–in your last term? If you’re a challenger, apply the question to your work or civic involvement in recent years.

Jill Woolbright did not answer the question.

See how Sally Hunt answered.

5. Finances are always a challenge. Let’s imagine that during the next term, the district will contend with the kind of recession it contended with between 2008 and 2010, when revenue fell sharply. What two or three program areas, aside from instruction, would you consider cutting, and what areas would you consider too critical?

Jill Woolbright did not answer the question.

See how Sally Hunt answered.

6. Setting aside Covid policies and procedures, what are the district’s three brightest successes and the three failures that affected students most in the past two to four years? What will be your chief priorities regarding student achievement, within the limits of the doable—that is, four years from now, what can we look back to and say: you were responsible?

Jill Woolbright did not answer the question.

See how Sally Hunt answered.

7. This year, the district’s half-penny sales surtax expires. It’s on the November ballot. The district will seek to renew it for the third time for the next 10 years. It’s been in effect for 20 years. Evaluate its worth, explaining how you see where it’s paid off, how you see where it has not. Do you support its renewal, openly advocating for it on the campaign trail, and the focus areas for the next 10 years’ spending. Would you alter its scope in any way and fund different items?

Jill Woolbright did not answer the question.

See how Sally Hunt answered.

8. On July 1 Superintendent Cathy Mittelstadt enters the third and, for now, final year of her current contract. Assuming you have followed the school board closely in preparation for your run (or are immersed in it as an incumbent), give us your evaluation of Mittlestadt as a leader, as an educational visionary and as an executive. Would you renew her contract? If yes, tell us on what terms. If not, tell us why. Along those lines, what is your experience and success in recruiting and hiring senior executives?

Jill Woolbright did not answer the question.

See how Sally Hunt answered.

9. The County Commission through the sheriff pays for roughly half the cost of sheriff’s deputies in schools but it doesn’t have to: security is a district responsibility. Despite that, the school board has at times spoken of the growing financial burden of its share of the contract. What is your opinion of the district’s relationship and contract with the sheriff’s office? If arming staff as opposed to contracting with the sheriff is the more affordable way to go, would you? Alternately, would you be willing to arm civilians in addition to existing deputies, and if so, what sort of ratio of armed civilians per campus would you want, and how would that relieve the district’s financial costs of security? Going that route, do we risk over-weaponizing campuses?

Jill Woolbright did not answer the question.

See how Sally Hunt answered.

10. The Flagler Home Builders Association and the County Commission successfully blocked a doubling of school impact fees this year, scaling back the school board’s original plan. First, who pays impact fees? Second, do you think either the School Board was unreasonable in proposing its original impact fee schedule, or was the County Commission unreasonable to block it? Setting Florida’s strange statutory requirements aside in this regard, should the County Commission even have a say in ratifying or blocking the policies of a school board? Should home builders?

Jill Woolbright did not answer the question.

See how Sally Hunt answered.

11. Flagler County’s population has grown substantially in the last decade and a half, from an estimated population of 89,000 in 2006 to 119,000 last year, according to UF’s Bureau of Economic and Business Research. Yet school enrollment has been remarkably flat since 2007. One reason is a big demographic shift as the proportion of older residents has grown while that of school-age residents has shrunk. The population grew by 33 percent. The 65-and-over population grew by 70 percent, from 21,400 people 65 and over to 36,500. Private, religious, virtual schools and home-schooling are also factors. What is the future of traditional public education in your view, and are Flagler schools doing enough to counter enrollment erosion from traditional public schools?

Jill Woolbright did not answer the question.

See how Sally Hunt answered.

12. Two of the more contested bills in the last legislative sessions were HB1557, at times referred to as the “don’t say gay” bill, which restricts discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in early grades, and HB7, the so-called “anti-woke” bill, which restricts conversations about racism and sexism in schools. Residents now have the ability to sue the district when faced with allegations of infractions, and the district has to assume legal costs regardless. If you were to propose amendments or re-writes of the two laws at the next legislative session, what, if any, would those recommendations be?

Jill Woolbright did not answer the question.

See how Sally Hunt answered.

13. The U.S. Supreme Court has been especially friendly to the re-emergence of religious expression in public schools, or the erosions of restrictions on the use of public funds for parochial education, with more such decisions likely ahead, such as a test of the prayer-in-school standard that would go further than the Coach Kennedy case we saw this term. Do you favor a return to pre-Engle days, the 1962 decision that found school-sponsored prayer in schools unconstitutional even if participation is not required?

Jill Woolbright did not answer the question.

See how Sally Hunt answered.

14.  Have you ever been charged with a felony or a misdemeanor anywhere in Flagler, Florida or the United States (other than a speeding ticket), or faced a civil action other than a divorce, but including bankruptcies, or faced any investigative or disciplinary action through a professional board such as the bar or a medical board? Have you ever been demoted? If so, please explain, including cases where charges or claims did not lead to conviction or disciplinary action.

Jill Woolbright did not answer the question.

See how Sally Hunt answered.

 

2022 Election Candidates, Flagler County

Races	Candidates
County Commission District 2	Greg Hansen, incumbent (Rep)	Janet McDonald (Rep)	Denise Calderwood (Rep)
County Commission District 4	Joe Mullins, incumbent (Rep)	Leann Pennington (Rep)	Jane Gentile-Youd (NPA)
School Board District 1	Jill Woolbright, incumbent	Sally Hunt
School Board District 2	Lance Alred	Will Furry	Courtney VandeBunte
School Board District 4	Trevor Tucker, incumbent	Christy Chong
Palm Coast City Council Seat 2	Theresa Carli Pontieri	Sims Jones	Shauna Kanter / Alan Lowe
Palm Coast City Council Seat 4	Cathy heighter	Fernando Melendez