JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 Five candidates are competing for the Duval County School Board District 6 seat after current Board Chair Charlotte Joyce reached her term limit.<\/p>\n
Joyce and District 4 board member Darryl Willie both hit their term limits, opening seats in Districts 4 and 6. District 2 will also have a new face. Early voting for the Florida primary begins Aug. 8.<\/p>\n
Meet the District 6 Candidates<\/p>\n
The candidates running for District 6 are Clarence James, Lindsey Denmark, Michelle Petty, Robert Stafford, and Tammyette Thomas.<\/p>\n
News4Jax spoke with four of the five candidates about their priorities if elected.<\/p>\n
Lindsey Denmark<\/p>\n
Lindsey Denmark is a realtor and children\u2019s ministry director at Restoration Baptist Church in the Dinsmore area of Jacksonville. An eighth-generation Floridian, she has lived on the city\u2019s west side for nearly 20 years. Her church runs a reading volunteer program at Rutledge Pearson Elementary School. She also previously worked as a grant consultant across the state.<\/p>\n
Denmark said restoring classroom order is her top priority if elected.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy primary goal is to bring order back into our classrooms,\u201d Denmark said. \u201cWe\u2019re seeing so many disciplinary issues in the classroom between students and then also with our teachers and students, students just struggling with different things. I think we need to stand on our code of conduct that\u2019s already in place and make sure that we are holding fast to that and we\u2019re holding students and parents accountable for discipline issues.\u201d<\/p>\n
On literacy, Denmark said the district needs to move faster on early intervention \u2014 before children fall behind in third grade.<\/p>\n
\u201cRead USA is a fantastic program that already has tutor programs in our schools after school,\u201d she said. \u201cWe really need to just expand those programs, make sure that we\u2019re putting a focus on early intervention. Not just waiting until they\u2019re in third grade and realizing that they cannot read.\u201d<\/p>\n
Denmark said she supports a fiscal audit of the district\u2019s spending and believes teacher pay should be built into the base budget rather than dependent on recurring voter referendums.<\/p>\n
\u201cI will definitely be a proponent of a fiscal audit,\u201d she said. \u201cI believe that it should be paid out of the budget and they should be a very competitive wage.\u201d<\/p>\n
Denmark said her 15-year-old son has attended private, home, and public school, and that she is running partly because her own family\u2019s trust in Duval\u2019s public schools has eroded.<\/p>\n
Clarence James<\/p>\n
Clarence James is a fifth-generation west Jacksonville resident, a retired Jacksonville Sheriff\u2019s Office lieutenant, and a current Duval County School Police sergeant. He said he sees the inside of Duval\u2019s schools every day and that violence is his top concern.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can\u2019t have over 1,000 fights a year in our schools,\u201d James said. \u201cWe can\u2019t [have] almost 400 teachers assaulted a year. We cannot continue on that path.\u201d<\/p>\n
James also said the district needs to address summer learning loss and ensure every school has a counselor.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen the kids leave to go home for the summer, they\u2019re not still getting that education,\u201d he said. \u201cWe need to create programs and make sure that we inspire kids and parents, when they leave for the summer, to make sure they\u2019re still actively involved in the academics.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the budget, James said student enrollment directly affects district funding and that keeping kids in public schools is critical.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you keep them in public school, you keep those dollars,\u201d he said. \u201cA lot of the kids have transferred out of the district [to] private schools and the money goes with them.\u201d<\/p>\n
James said he supports renewing the one-mill tax, which he said provides the average teacher $8,500 to $9,000 a year in additional pay.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur teachers pay about $1,100 a month for family health care,\u201d James said. \u201cOn top of that, they\u2019re one of the lowest paid in the state. So they need that extra $8,500 [to] $9,000 a year to help offset that health care cost.\u201d<\/p>\n
He pledged budget audits if the renewal passes. \u201cWe\u2019re going to dissect that budget. We\u2019re gonna do audits where needed. We\u2019re going to make sure that we\u2019re getting a good ROI on our money.\u201d<\/p>\n
James Addresses AI Controversy<\/p>\n
James has also faced criticism on social media over the use of artificial intelligence in his campaign. The backlash centered on a photo that appeared to show AI-generated images of African-American supporters standing beside him. The photo has since been deleted. James addressed the controversy directly.<\/p>\n
\u201cAI is a new tool. We\u2019re all learning,\u201d James said. \u201cI had one AI photo that I had no knowledge about. My campaign made a mistake, is what it is. I had no knowledge about it for three weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n
Michelle Petty<\/p>\n
Michelle Petty is a Florida registered paralegal and an 11-year School Advisory Council member. She currently serves as SAC chair at Baldwin Middle Senior High School and has participated in the district\u2019s Master Facility Plan focus groups and the Academic and Community Excellence Committee. She qualified for the ballot via petition.<\/p>\n
Petty said her main goals are transparency, budget reform, and curriculum improvements.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy goal is to, of course, work on the transparency issues,\u201d Petty said. \u201cI also want to work on a budget. I know that we are adding additional taxes to the taxpayers of Jacksonville. And I know we have a huge budget. It\u2019s bigger than the city council budget. And I\u2019m sure that those taxes can be absorbed into the Duval County budget. And we just need to look at what we\u2019re spending it on.\u201d<\/p>\n
Petty also raised safety concerns tied to school consolidations, specifically the closure of Charger Academy and the transfer of its students to a newly built Chaffey Trail Middle School, which she said was constructed in one year instead of the typical two.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey stopped bussing for kids that live less than two miles from this school,\u201d Petty said. \u201cSo they were forcing these children to walk to school from nearby neighborhoods with no sidewalks, no crossing guards, no flashing yellow lights.\u201d<\/p>\n
On reading, Petty said the district is pushing students forward without ensuring they can read at grade level.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re passing students that can\u2019t read at grade level and it needs to be addressed,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019re basically just making kids recognize words versus teaching them how to actually sound out things and be able to read.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite concerns about additional taxes, Petty said she supports renewing the one-mill and plans to tell voters to approve it. She committed to working to absorb the cost into the district\u2019s base budget within four years.<\/p>\n
Robert Stafford<\/p>\n
Robert Stafford is a Navy veteran and retired logistician with more than 38 years of professional experience in acquisitions and technical training. He serves as the NAACP\u2019s representative on the Sales Surtax Oversight Committee and said he has worked with Duval County Public Schools informally for at least six years. His wife spent 43 years in the Duval County Public School System and is a three-time Teacher of the Year.<\/p>\n
Stafford said he is running because he wants to see literacy rates rise and give students more opportunities to express themselves creatively.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t decouple reading from writing,\u201d Stafford said. \u201cIf they can write, if they can express themselves, they\u2019ll learn to read.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stafford said he also has concerns about school safety and the uneven way security upgrades are applied across schools.<\/p>\n
\u201cTake for instance, Rufus C. Payne. They\u2019ve done nothing. They have no metal detectors. There\u2019s no security fence,\u201d he said. \u201cBut [another school] spent $662,000 on security upgrades. And then they demolished the building four months later. So it has to be uniform.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also called for better career development opportunities for teachers, saying programs that once operated at the Shope Center have disappeared.<\/p>\n
Stafford said he supports the one-mill renewal, with accountability.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnytime you say safety or teacher\u2019s salary, you have me,\u201d he said. \u201cBut we can\u2019t have a mistake where you misplace $61 million inadvertently. You have to have accountability and show the folks where the money was spent and how it was spent.\u201d<\/p>\n
On school closures, Stafford said many of the district\u2019s current challenges stem from decisions made decades ago \u2014 including miscalculations about population mobility and declining birth rates \u2014 and that consolidating underenrolled schools is a financial reality.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we have a school with 200 students, basically it\u2019s not viable,\u201d he said. \u201cYou can\u2019t support that if you want your tax dollars to go as far as they should go.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tammyette Thomas<\/p>\n
News4Jax made multiple attempts to schedule an interview with Tammyette Thomas and is still working to do so. This story will be updated when Thomas is available to comment.<\/p>\n
You can see full interviews with the candidates below: <\/p>\n
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