JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The Duval County School Board will look much different after the Aug. 20 election, but there’s potential that one seat stays the same.
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District 3, which covers the Southbank, Southside, and San Jose, is the only district with a current school board member running for re-election.
Cindy Pearson said she’s running for her second term against challenger Rebecca Nathanson to see through projects she’s started in her current term.
“I’ve been working on developing partnerships with community organizations, and not-for-profits with the district, specifically around the area of career and technical education, and looking for ways to expand our offerings to expand opportunities for students, and to expand the availability of qualified instructors to our programs,” Pearson said.
Watch the full interview with Pearson below.
Nathanson talked about her motivations for challenging the incumbent Cindy Pearson.
“For the last several years, I’ve been a parental rights advocate and a school board watchdog and watched as the school board made decisions that, in some cases, were in violation of state statute or parental rights, sometimes appellate court decisions,” Nathanson said. “As I began to ask questions, and get information, my concerns grew rather than diminished. So I stayed with it and became a school board watchdog and I’ve just been following this, the decisions of the board and the success of the school district and I feel like we can do better.”
Watch the full interview with Nathanson below.
Nathanson’s priorities for the school board include focusing on student literacy, school discipline, and safety in regard to teacher retention, as well as wasteful spending.
She said those are the issues she hears concerns about most from voters.
“If our students in Duval County are not reading at grade level, this is an urgent need that has to be addressed,” Nathanson said. “It’s linked to safety and discipline. We know that, oftentimes, the student code of conduct is not followed, leaving teachers being required to keep students in the classroom that are creating disruptions and then they can’t focus on instruction for the majority of the students that are there to learn.”
In addition to seeing projects through, Pearson wants to focus on tackling budget issues and student achievement.
“Our expenses are exceeding our revenue,” Pearson said. “That’s something that we need to get under control and that drives what we’re able to do in the classroom. And it is also driving the conversation about closures, consolidations, changes in programming, different cuts to the budget.”
Pearson said student achievement should be the priority of any school board member.
“We, within DCPS, have seen growth and improvement but we have a ways to go, the board’s set forth a goal and our strategic plan to move from the bottom 25th percentile to the top 25th percentile by 2026,” Pearson said.
The election for all four school board seats is Aug. 20 with early voting starting Aug. 5.
The Jacksonville Public Education Fund is hosting four candidate forums for the upcoming school board elections.
- District 3: July 23 at the Jessie Ball DuPont Center from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
- District 1: July 25 at the Citadel Church from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
- District 5: July 30 at EWU Milne Auditorium from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
- District 7: August 1 at Hopewell Church from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.