The Flagler County School Board, operating almost entirely out of the public eye, settled disputes and lawsuits with former Board Attorney Kristy Gavin last July for $160,000, with former principal Paul Peacock in October for $100,000, and with former Exceptional Student Education director Martha von Mering in October for $19,500.
Von Mering had filed a wrongful termination lawsuit in federal district court. Peacock did so in Circuit Court in Flagler County. Gavin had not filed suit in court. The district petitioned the state Division of Administrative Hearings in Feb. 2024, with Gavin as the respondent. That case closed with the settlement.
The School Board at no point openly discussed any of the three cases. At a workshop in mid-January, Board Member Lauren Ramirez obliquely referred to “three payouts regarding cases” and, looking at a document, referred to “Gavin, Peacock, Martha,” and asked Patti Wormeck, who heads the district’s finances, “how many more will be showing up.”
“I don’t have that information,” Wormeck said. “I’m sure that there are. There’s always ongoing legal stuff. I don’t know, that’s probably a part of an executive session I do believe.”
It may be, up to a point, but only if legal cases are ongoing. When settlements are reached and involve payouts, the board must approve them in open session. There never was a court case involving Gavin. So no board discussion involving her would have been eligible for a closed-door session. If the board discussed a settlement behind closed doors, that would have been a violation of law.
The payouts to Peacock and von Mering were listed in fine print among thousands of payments in a 37-page vendor-payment document Ramirez was looking at. It listed the $100,000 payment to Peacock, $10,000 to von Mering, and $9,500 to Morgan and Morgan, the firm that represented von Mering. It did not list Gavin or a payout to her, nor did other documents publicly available and posted under that workshop’s date or since last July. The payout may have appeared under a different type of document. If so, the dissimulation is more pronounced than that of the payouts to Peacock and von Mering.
To the extent that the board publicly approved the settlements, it did so by approving vendor payments on its consent agenda, the portion of the agenda that masses numerous, routine items and all get voted on wholesale. On less scrupulous boards, the consent agenda is at times used to approve items the board would prefer not to get public attention. On more scrupulous boards, elected officials routinely pull items off the consent agenda to give them a more public airing, especially if the items have drawn public attention previously or are a matter of public concern. The County Commission and the Flagler Beach City Commission routinely pull items off consent for that purpose, as does, to some extent, the Palm Coast City Council. It’s a rarity on the School Board.
“These settlements were items walkthrough with the former board,” Superintendent LaShakia Moore said in an email. “The former board was made aware of each of these cases and provided recommended courses of action to address each. In collaboration with NEFEC these cases were handled through Risk Management and were assigned outside attorneys to litigate.” (NEFEC is the Northeast Florida Education Consortium, an agency that, in exchange for hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, provides member districts with a variety of services, training and legal assistance.) “Each member of this current board was individually informed of the direction of the former board and these 3 cases were brought before this board for review and approval.”
Moore did not answer questions about when and in what open or closed forum–on what dates–the present or former boards were made aware of the cases. In November, Colleen Conklin and Cheryl Massaro stepped down from the School Board, having declined to run again. They were replaced by Ramirez and Janie Ruddy. Sally Hunt also stepped down that month, halfway through her term. The governor appointed Derek Barrs to that seat. The two members who have straddled both periods are Will Furry and Christy Chong.
FlaglerLive requested the settlement documents following the mid-January meeting. The three settlement documents were not produced until the night of Feb. 19.
The Gavin and Peacock cases had drawn significant public attention. Von Maring’s had not. Gavin had been the board attorney for almost two decades when Hunt, subsequently joined by Furry and Chong, declared they had lost trust in her and, with little evidence, moved to fire her in a protracted and public wrangle that stretched for months until her actual firing in January 2024. Gavin had hinted at, and Massaro had spoken explicitly of, the risk the board was taking over what Massaro called a wrongful termination. A lawsuit was never filed (though a whistleblower complaint was, in December 2023). The $160,000 payment closes out that controversy.
The Gavin settlement, like the other two, entail no admission of wrongdoing by the district.
Peacock, who’d had a 20-year career with the district (much of it leading the constantly A-rated Indian Trails Middle), sued on claims of age discrimination, retaliation and breach of contract. The dispute arose when he was relieved of his duty as the district’s lead negotiator in collective bargaining sessions with the teachers union, and was subsequently demoted from a high district office position to principal at Wadsworth Elementary.
He was ordered on leave in May 2023 and fired in June, after he’d been the subject of an internal investigation over complaints by faculty at Wadsworth. “Peacock was forced into retirement with just two years remaining in the Deferred Retirement Option Program,” his lawsuit stated. “Peacock has also found alternative employment to be difficult as his certificate has been flagged. Such is highly unusual given the substantial shortage of education professionals. After applying for six opportunities, Peacock could not even receive an interview.”
Von Mering’s case drew no public attention, originating in December 2021 when she requested an absence under the Family and Medical Leave Act so she could donate her liver to her brother in law the following spring. When she met with Bobby Bossardet (who was her supervisor at the district office at the time) to discuss her leave, he wanted to discuss her “exit plan,” according to her lawsuit, as he had “decided to go in a different direction with her employment.” Her position was posted in early May, 2022, when she was on medical leave. She filed suit alleging violations of FMLA.
