Flagler School Board District 4 race: Christy Chong challenges incumbent Trevor Tucker

Flagler School Board Chair Trevor Tucker is seeking a fourth term next month against political newcomer Christy Chong.

The District 4 election is Aug. 23.

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Christy Chong

Chong, 39, has lived in Flagler County for 20 years — her extended family goes back 40 years in Flagler. She was born in New Smyrna Beach and grew up in Daytona Beach.

Chong works as an advanced registered nurse practitioner at Island Doctors in Palm Coast. She graduated from the Daytona State College nursing program and has a Master of Science in nursing degree from Indiana State University.

Chong refused a phone interview. She provided her answers by email.

A newcomer to politics and a mom of three boys with her husband Kirk, Chong decided to run because she believes "parents need to be more involved in our education system.”

“I have not been happy the past few years with some of the things that we have seen in our education system, so I wanted to do more than just complain, but actually get involved,” Chong wrote in an email to The News-Journal.

“I believe in and am running for parental rights, school choice and curriculum transparency,” she added. “And I believe it’s time for parents to step up and be a part of our children’s education.”

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has endorsed Chong.

“I understand the toll that COVID has had on families and our children’s education and learning, and just how difficult it has been for our children to get the proper education the past few years,” she wrote. “So I am here for my children and I am here for yours. I look forward to serving Flagler County and making sure parents' voices are heard.”

She said that there have been both positive and negative moments over the past few years in the school district.

She praised the work teachers have done to improve grade reading levels for the district’s youngest students and would like to see it continue.

“Our students are still doing much better than the rest of the state, but there is still work to be done to get these kids back on track to ensure success for their future,” she wrote.

Chong said she would like to see the district’s efforts in staffing and retention improve.

“It says a lot about a system when several people are quitting and it does not reflect on our administration very well,” Chong wrote. “We need to look at why and make Flagler schools a place teachers and staff want to stay.”

In an email to The News-Journal, Flagler Schools spokesman Jason Wheeler said that 320 school staff left the district last year — the majority, 242, resigned for “personal reasons.”

Addressing school capacity and growth would be an “overriding priority” for Chong if she is elected. Other priorities include continuing to “improve school safety, improve our school district grades, and continuing to improve education and get kids back to their reading grade level and literacy post-COVID.”

Chong said that she supports the new Parental Rights in Education bill, which DeSantis signed into law in March.

“The bill reinforces our rights as parents to make decisions about the upbringing of our children in public schools,” she wrote.

The bill (referred to by critics as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill), drew national attention and controversy.

“It does not say ‘don’t say gay’ anywhere in the bill,” Chong wrote. “Yes, I support this bill and I support a parent’s right to make decisions about the upbringing of their children.”

Last year, the school board was involved in another controversy.

In November 2021, board member Jill Woolbright filed a police report because she said a book in school libraries violated obscenity laws.

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The book, "All Boys Aren't Blue: A Memoir-Manifesto," chronicles the experiences of author George M. Johnson, who uses they/them pronouns, growing up Black and queer in America. Parts of the book include descriptions of masturbation, oral and anal sex and sexual assault.

After the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office found that no crime had been committed by the placement of the book in some school libraries, the district introduced an “opt-out” program in the spring that allows parents to determine which books their children can check out from school libraries.

Chong called the program “an improvement but I still think we can do better.”

She referred to the book as "porn."

“Bottom line, porn doesn’t belong in our schools,” Chong wrote. “We sign permission slips for any type of sexual education for our children; so why is there pornographic material getting into our schools without parents being aware? The question should be ‘how did these books get here in the first place?’ We need to hold others accountable for allowing these books in our schools for young children.”

Trevor Tucker

Tucker, 46, currently serves as chair in the Flagler School Board. He is a lifelong resident of Flagler County. His father and grandfather also grew up and attended school in the county.

Tucker has served on the Flagler School Board for 12 years, including during the pandemic. His decision to run again, he said in a phone interview, “is really about my children.”

“Having two children in school currently compels me to run,” Tucker said. “I want the best education for my children and the best education for all children. I hope that they have the opportunity to come back and live here, have children here and continue to thrive in this community.”

Tucker is also the owner of a pest control company in the county called Sun Country Pest Control. He has a Bachelor’s of Science degree in accounting.

Tucker said that the district was “definitely on the right track pre-COVID,” but faced some difficulties brought by the pandemic.

“In 2019, our district was an ‘A’, we were getting right where we needed to be,” Tucker said. “During COVID, we kind of slipped as most districts have.”

One of the district’s current “weaker areas” is the ESE (Exceptional Students in Education) program, Tucker said.

“I think that everyone recognizes that,” he said, adding that with the recent change in the program’s leadership he hopes it will improve.

The program serves students with special learning needs. It includes students serviced under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and those who are gifted. The lack of trained staff for the program has been part of the reason the program has suffered in the past few years, Tucker said.

“There has been a lot of turnover in (health care professionals)” he said. “I think part of that is because during COVID you didn’t have all the training that you would normally have. The more training you have, the more you know how to do your job. We had two years during COVID that there wasn’t much training for staff.”

On the positive side, Tucker praised the community’s continued support for the half-cent sales tax, which the district has used to help provide K-8 students with iPads and high school students with MacBook laptop computers for school work.

“We’re lucky the voters have supported the half-cent sales tax,” Tucker said. “We were one of the first districts to have one-to-one technology for our students.”

He said that when COVID forced students to go into remote learning, the district didn’t have to spend time buying laptops or computers, “the students already had them.”

“It took a short period of transition time for students to then begin learning from home,” Tucker said. “I feel like that’s a shining spot. Other districts in the state were asking us ‘How did you transition so quickly?’ Our technology department did a great job.”

He also praised the Classroom to Careers programs, which provides students with unique opportunities to discover paths that lead them from the classroom to career success, with subjects such as culinary arts; finance and corporate services; fire leadership; aeronautics; and others.

Tucker said that he would prioritize the district’s funding if he is reelected, pointing to the state’s decision to raise the minimum wage for school staff to $15 an hour as a financial challenge ahead.

“School boards don’t create the revenue,” he said. “All we can say is how some of the revenue is spent. Because we don’t have unlimited funds, we really need to prioritize programs that will give us the most bang for our buck in the short term.”

Tucker said he is “favorable toward” the Parental Rights in Education bill, adding that he would like the bill to specify that any sex-related subjects should not be included in curriculums for students at or around the fourth-grade level.

“These are young children — that’s probably not the spot to be exposed to such things in school,” Tucker said. “When they get to older grades, yes, that makes more sense. Also, I believe the parents do have the right to be involved. The more parental involvement the better.”

On the “All Boys Aren’t Blue” book situation, Tucker said he thinks the “opt-out” program was “the most satisfactory outcome.”

“Now parents have the rights,” he said. “Whatever their belief system is, if they don’t want their child to read a book they can say, ‘I don’t want my child to have access to this book.’ It also doesn’t take away from parents the ability to say, ‘I want my child to read that book.’ I think this new system is good for everyone.”

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Flagler School Board District 4: Trevor Tucker faces Christy Chong