The highlight at Tuesday evening’s meeting of the Flagler County School Board should have been the triumphal appointment by unanimous vote of LaShakia Moore as superintendent. It should have been a rare unifying moment for an often divided school board. The county’s first Black superintendent It should have been a historic occasion in a district that as recently as last month was back into a reprehensible racial crisis that demeaned Black students.
It was briefly all that, until School Board member Sally Hunt, seldom short of spotlight-grabbing grievances, turned it into a preface to an inquisition. With occasional assists from School Board members Christy Chong and Will Furry, Hunt hijacked the occasion with what amounted to a hit list she wants the board to focus on in coming meetings: School Board attorney Kristy Gavin. School Board Chair Cheryl Massaro. The school board’s own conduct. “Bullies.” “The media.”
She did so in vague but incriminating terms–the more incriminating for being cryptic–at once professing not to want to discuss the issues that night even as she kept lobbing accusations, ostensibly as future discussion items.
The meeting had originally been scheduled in compliance with state law as the annual hearing that lead to the approval of next year’s property tax rate and school budget, and the first portion of the meeting was devoted to that. It was routine, with Patty Wormeck, the district’s chief financial officer, going through the numbers and the board approving it all, this time without arresting questions from Hunt. (At a budget hearing a few weeks ago, Hunt’s questions revealed a surprising lack of understanding of tax and budget basics. She has held the position almost a year.)
The meeting moved on to a quick approval of new contracts for the district’s strings program, then on to the even quicker vote appointing Moore superintendent: the board had held a 90-minute public interview with Moore earlier in the day and each board member had met with her individually, so Board member Colleen Conklin’s motion was not a surprise but a fulfillment. There was applause.
An earlier workshop had to be halted just after 5 p.m. so the board could convene for its time-certain 5:15 p.m. Massaro shifted the last two items of that workshop onto the 5:15 meeting–old and new business. Deference to the moment, respect for Moore, or at least a measure of grace would have ordinarily meant that the two hold-over items not turn into an extension of the meeting. If there were to be urgent matters, the board members could bring them up Friday, when it was meeting again in a special session on finance. It is to meet yet again for a lengthy workshop and yet another meeting on Sept. 19. So it was not lacking in occasions for discussions.
Board member Christy Chong requested that the board receive a copy of the board attorney’s contract and have a discussion about it in its forthcoming business meeting. She had consensus for that from Hunt and Will Furry.
Hunt wanted to “make sure it’s crystal clear” that the item be placed on the evening agenda on Sept. 19, when the board could vote on it. That meant a potential vote to end Gavin’s contract, surprising Conklin: “Are you looking to take action?” she asked Hunt. Both Hunt and Chong said they were, though Chong clarified: “I would at least like to review it. As a new board, we have not.”
Hunt was more blunt: “There have been actions that have me questioning my trust and confidence in the board attorney,” she said.
Hunt, who orchestrated the previous superintendent’s firing, has openly spoken of her discussions with Michael Chiumento, the land use attorney whose firm used to represent the school board before Gavin, opening the door to a real possibility: the Hunt, Chong and Furry majority could bring back the Chiumento law firm in the board attorney’s chair, though that would lead into complicated tangles. Chiumento represents numerous developers who negotiate their mitigation and impact fee dues with the district, and has been among the leaders of the opposition to the school board’s plan last year to double school development impact fees (the fees were eventually raised, but not doubled).
Gavin was the subject of what Massaro had described as a “witch hunt” in 2021, when then-board members Janet McDonald and Jill Woolbright attempted to fire her. Gavin survived. But back then she had a 3-2 board in her favor. The three board members now looking to discuss her contract are a different majority.
Hunt Tuesday evening then, without specifying, insinuated with obvious inuendoes that Gavin was misrepresenting the board’s conclusions, as when the salary range for the new superintendent was set. It was another broadside at the attorney, who was sitting at a desk adjacent to the dais. Hunt asked that the board from now should create a list at the end of each meeting summarizing items discussed and consensus reached, so there’s no disagreement about what consensus is reached at given meetings.
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Then, cloaking her next sally in the words of the new superintendent’s theme for the district–“Flagler Forward”–she sought to have a discussion at the next workshop “around board behavior, the media” and “how well this board functions.” After flattering Moore’s appointment, she continued to refer to “some dysfunction” on the board: it wasn’t news to anyone who’s been following the board for the last two years. It was startling, however, that one of the persons most responsible for the dysfunction was blaming everyone else for it, even as she attempted to muffle the blame in more flummery about the “happy night.”
“Here’s what I’m going to say: enough is enough, Okay?” Hunt said. She did not explain what was enough. “The dysfunction amongst board members, what is shared on media–again, this is a a happy night. It is a happy night. I’m so thrilled with the decision of the evening. But I don’t think we can move forward as effectively and positive as we could or need to be if we don’t once and for all come together as colleagues and and talk about our behavior.” She referred to unspecified “lies” being told, presumably about her.
Massaro suggested that discussion take place at another “retreat.”
“Every one of us have responsibilities. Every one of us should be doing the same amount of responsibilities,” Massaro said, “and these are things that we need to talk about because often I feel we have a four-person board, and that concerns me.” She was referring to Hunt being a no-show, as she has been on several key occasions. The board member discussed team-building.
After Chong told Massaro it was “hard to to build trust” when Massaro spoke to the press (specifically, FlaglerLive) Hunt again said she would want to have those discussions at a future meeting, then made an accusation about “bullying” and feeling bullied–apparently referring to herself: “We should not from the top down on the board, have people who feel bullied on this board. We are here to set an example for our students. And when there is ongoing bullying that just won’t stop, how can we ask kids to not bully, when there’s bullying on this board?” Again, she did not specify what she meant by “bullying.”
Massaro is not into innuendos, preferring to speak directly. She said Hunt was referring to the statement she (Massaro) made at the recent press conference denouncing the segregation assembly at Bunnell Elementary, when she went off a script handed to her by the attorney to denounce segregation. “I believe that was a time to address people from the heart and that as chairperson that is something we all should do whenever you sit in the seat,” Massaro said. “You’re not a puppet, you have to have and speak well on behalf of the sport. Now you tell me anything within that statement that this board would not support.”
Conklin tried to move the meeting along: “Can we not do this right now?”
(© FlaglerLive)
“I had no intention to do this tonight,” Hunt said, ignoring Conklin and addressing Massaro with disingenuous bravado: “A lot of what you said is factually not true. So now everybody in this room and perhaps the media are going to report on something that is just factually not true. You don’t know why I made the comment just now.” (Nor did Hunt explain herself.) “There needs to be conversation. I am here–not tonight. Let me clarify. Not tonight, OK? For Flagler Forward, for the sake of this district, for the sake of LaShakia Moore’s success, we need to have a discussion. Did not want to have it tonight. I’m not going to say anything to what you just said, because I believe we should not have that discussion tonight.” Still, she said, she wanted to bring it up for future discussion.
Conklin then redirected the conversation to a discussion of the negotiations with Moore over her new contract. By the time the meeting adjourned 23 minutes later, the unusually cheery air that had filled the room at the beginning of the meeting, so uncommon in recent years, had long before evaporated but for audience members fist-bumping Moore before she walked off the dais on what should have been, but finally wasn’t, her night. But it is her board.
