Elect Diyonne McGraw to the Alachua County School Board
Diyonne McGraw has unfinished business on the Alachua County School Board. Voters should return her to the board to continue the work she started on such issues as closing the achievement gap and improving students' access to career and technical programs.
McGraw was previously elected to the board in 2020 with more than 52% of the countywide vote. When she was sworn in that fall, she formed the board’s first Black female majority along with Tina Certain and Leanetta McNealy. The trio was a powerful alliance for changing a status quo that included the district long having the state’s largest racial achievement gap.
Unfortunately, McGraw’s time on the board was short, due to the discovery that she lived about 350 feet outside of the district she was elected to represent — despite being shown a map leading her to believe otherwise at the county elections office. Gov. Ron DeSantis removed McGraw from the board last summer and replaced her with Mildred Russell, an evangelical missionary active in Republican politics.
Unsurprisingly, DeSantis has also endorsed Russell in the upcoming election. The governor has paid an unprecedented level of attention to School Board races across the state, endorsing candidates who agree to fight his culture-war battles over banning books and limiting discussions of race and gender in classrooms. We need board members who instead focus on educating students.
Thankfully, a redrawn district is allowing McGraw to again run for the District 2 seat. As we did in 2020, The Sun's editorial board recommends that voters support McGraw in the election. We liked what we saw in the months she served on the board the first time and hope she has an opportunity to continue these efforts.
Most notably, McGraw brought together community leaders to develop improvements to career and technical programs that provide students with a path to good-paying jobs. She proposes expanding the types of programs offered, informing students about them earlier in their academic careers and ensuring they can be accessed by students who need them most.
Columns from the District 2 candidates:
Diyonne McGraw: Changes needed to ensure every student succeeds
Mildred Russell: I'm not afraid to tackle hard, unpopular issues
Her opinions are informed by experience as a mental health case manager, probation officer and in opening group homes for young people with developmental and behavioral challenges. She advocates for connecting students with wraparound services to address problems they face outside the classroom, calling for more full-time social workers in schools and parenting classes.
She recognizes that the district needs to change its approach with the achievement gap only worsening during the COVID-19 pandemic and the performance of all students declining. She is specifically focused on improving the reading skills of young students, noting that struggles with reading can lead to behavioral problems.
One issue on which we disagree with McGraw involves her call for the district to conduct a search for a new superintendent soon after a new board is sworn in. We favor the idea of incumbent board member Tina Certain, who has called for Interim Superintendent Shane Andrew to stay in the role to provide stability at least until a districtwide rezoning effort is done.
On other issues McGraw is aligned with Certain, so hopefully they would again be part of a reform-minded majority on the board if elected. The Sun’s editorial board backs them both in the upcoming election and will provide endorsements in an upcoming editorials for the two other School Board races on the August ballot.
— This editorial was written by Nathan Crabbe and represents the opinion of The Sun’s editorial board. Opinion columns written by the candidates in the upcoming election can be found online at bit.ly/august22electioncolumns.
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This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: Editorial: Elect Diyonne McGraw to the Alachua County School Board
