Flagler School Board candidates discuss safety, parental involvement, teacher shortages

Courtney VandeBunte and Will Furry are each seeking the last spot on the Flagler School Board in the upcoming Nov. 8 election. The District 2 seat, which covers Palm Coast and northeast Flagler County, is being vacated by Janet McDonald.

While VandeBunte brings the experience of an educator, Furry, a Realtor, says those in his profession are one of the biggest advocates for great schools and great neighborhoods.

VandeBunte received 43.57% of the vote in the August primary, while Furry received 34.17%. Third-place finisher Lance Alred received 22.26%.

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Flagler School Board candidates: Courtney VandeBunte and Will Furry answer News-Journal questionnaire

The candidates are not running under political parties, but politics have increasingly entered Florida schools. Furry has attended Republican meetings and supports Gov. Ron DeSantis’ education agenda. VandeBunte has pushed back online against claims that her agenda is “armed with extreme liberalism.” She has posted that school board is a nonpartisan seat and that teachers, schools and board members should put children before political parties.

Will Furry

Furry, 47, is a former executive at SureCredit USA Home Loans, an entrepreneur who has started several businesses, and a Realtor and real estate investor.

He has two children and has supported the Old Kings Elementary Parent Teacher Organization Board for many years. He also mentors middle school students at his church and has been on many medical mission trips to help children in Guatemala.

On his campaign website, Furry lists the following endorsements:

• Gov. Ron DeSantis.

• 1776 Project PAC.

• Rep. Paul Renner.

• Flagler School Board Member-Elect Christy Chong.

• Flagler County Association of Realtors.

• Former Flagler County Chief of Police Chris Sepe.

Furry said his top priority is student safety, which includes providing extra support to school resource officers.

“I'm an advocate for (a) guardian program that allows us to arm former military and police officers on our campus and also staff as well to harden our schools, to protect our kids in the event of an active shooter,” he said.

His second priority is advocating for parental rights and curriculum transparency.

“The government's gone too far getting in between the relationship of a parent and a child,” he said. “We want to focus on education not indoctrination.”

One example he provided was pushing back against "indoctrinary-type theories like CRT," short for critical race theory, an academic framework based on the idea that racism is systemic in American institutions. CRT is not taught in Volusia County Schools.

A third priority is building enriched classroom environments and getting back to the basics like reading, math, American history and civics. He says the district needs to get reading scores up and get students caught up from the pandemic, which includes improving the Exceptional Student Education (ESE) program and identifying learning challenges in early grades.

ESE is Florida's educational program for students with special learning needs. One of Furry's sons has an individualized education plan under the ESE department.

Furry also commended the district’s development of the Strategic Plan as a good show of collaboration across the board and a good way to tie the superintendent to performance requirements.

He also said that retention and recruitment falls on the superintendent more so than the board, which is responsible for policy.

“The superintendent, I believe, needs to work on improving the learning environment and the district leadership,” he said. “Yes, we have had shortages, so you could give some grace there, but retention, that falls on the district administration, so we need potentially some improvement in leadership to maintain better retention.”

He noted while everyone would like to see teachers get paid more, there’s only so much money available, so they would have to lobby the state for funding.

“Gov. DeSantis has said he wants to pay teachers more, so I hope he will deliver on that promise,” Furry said.

In elaborating on parental rights, Furry said morals and values come from the home, not from school.

He said it’s between a parent and child if the child wants to read a book that he would not approve of, but that parents “should have a reasonable expectation that their kids are only going to be able to access age-appropriate materials in the school library.”

Flagler Schools currently offers three levels of material access. Under level one, which is the default, students have open access to books, but some books labeled for adult content or young adults require parent approval. In level two, parents can submit up to five books their children cannot check out. Under level three, created earlier this year, parent pre-approval is required before a student checks out any book.

Furry believes the default should be to opt in rather than opt out.

“I believe that puts too much burden on parents to have them have to go and opt out of every book in the library that they may deem inappropriate for their child,” he said.

He also noted the Parental Rights in Education Bill that passed earlier this year – which prohibits instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity from kindergarten through third grade – didn’t go far enough and should have extended to higher grades.

Expanding on school safety, Furry said that in addition to hardening schools, maintaining single points of entry and training staff more, there should be zero tolerance on bullying.

“We also need to work on the behavior of the students in the school so that teachers can feel safe to come to work and deliver their lesson and educate our kids,” he said.

Furry said a successful term would include improving the ESE program, increasing reading scores 20% year over year, increasing security and having each school achieve an “A” rating.

More on this race: Will Furry, Courtney VandeBunte share why they're running, thoughts on parental rights before primary

Courtney VandeBunte

VandeBunte, 35, was born and raised in Flagler County. She graduated from Flagler-Palm Coast High School and received a bachelor’s in science and education from Florida State University.

She taught for three different district schools over nine years, was a founding member of FPC’s i3 New Tech Academy and now works as a middle school content developer for Harvard University's LabXChange Platform.

Her website and social media feature the following endorsements:

• School Board Member Cheryl Massaro

• Palm Coast City Council Member Jack Howell.

• Former Palm Coast City Council Member Bob Cuff.

• Flagler Beach Mayor Suzie Johnston.

• Flagler Educational Support Professional Association.

• Former Executive Director of Student and Community Engagement for Flagler Schools Lynette Shott.

• Florida Education Association.

• Flagler Pride.

• Equality Florida.

VandeBunte’s first priority is bringing unity among parents, staff members and students to work toward a “common goal of creating the highest quality education for our students here in Flagler.”

Safety is another priority, VandeBunte said, which can be supported through initiatives like the half-cent sales tax to bring state-of-the-art safety to schools.

“Flagler Schools has done an excellent job with hardening all the entries and things like that, but I think we need to take it a step further and do things like add surveillance, live stream surveillance from our schools into the sheriff's office, for example, which could be paid for with the half-cent sales tax that's on the ballot this November,” she said.

Her third top priority is bringing schools back to the “A” status that the district had before the pandemic.

She said it is important to keep schools open and give students meaningful but standards-based learning opportunities that increase reading scores and critical thinking skills.

“We need curriculum that is engaging to the students, so our students need to be able to have voice and choice in how they're learning and be able to use their hands and their minds and actually apply their skills to solving problems within the community,” she said, noting a project where her anatomy students designed prosthetic limbs for dogs.

VandeBunte commended the district’s Strategic Plan as “amazing” because it communicates quantifiable school goals to the public and helps hold the district accountable for reaching them.

She also supported recent raises to $15 an hour for support staff and $17.50 for bus drivers, but said the district needs to amplify the voices of teachers to help with recruitment and retention, which could include opportunities for anonymous surveys.

“They need to establish trust within the schools, increase the culture, and the only way that they can do that from a teacher's perspective myself is by talking and listening to the teachers,” she said. “Once the district understands what the teachers value and where the teachers need support, that's when they can start making those changes to make Flagler a desirable place to come and work as a teacher.”

VandeBunte says anytime a student has a parent or family member involved in their education, they have been successful, and that parents should know what’s going on in their child’s learning environment and have a voice.

She noted the board could make this more accessible by allowing public comment earlier on in its meetings and allowing comments to be submitted by email.

“(Parents are) just as an important constituent as the teachers and the students, and they need to be heard,” she said. “I think it's important that their rights are valued for their students and for only their student.”

She said the district is doing a good job of informing parents how they can opt out of curriculum or decide which materials their student is exposed to, but again noted it should only be for their students.

In elaborating on internal safety threats such as bullying, VandeBunte believes unity is important and getting parents more involved can help decrease instances. She said parents need resources and support, and that building a relationship of respect would make them less embarrassed to use what’s available to them.

She recommended more neighborhood events like literacy fairs that can involve parents and communities.

“When you see parental involvement and unity between the parents and staff, then that's when things like bullying are going to decrease,” VandeBunte said.

She said she would like to be remembered as the school board member that pushed for more community events that involve parents and families and bring up the level of communication and trust between staff and families.

Contact reporter Danielle Johnson at djohnson@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Flagler School Board election: Furry, VandeBunte talk education issues