Volusia School Board election: Justin Kennedy and Jessie Thompson run for District 3
Two candidates are running for Volusia County School Board District 3, which includes New Smyrna Beach, Edgewater and southeast Volusia County.
The election is Nov. 8 and will decide which candidate will replace outgoing board member Linda Cuthbert.
The News-Journal posed the following questions to each candidate with a request to limit responses to 100 words. Answers that exceeded the word limit were edited for space; otherwise, answers are presented as they were submitted, save for minor corrections to punctuation.
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The candidates
Justin Kennedy
Age: 51
Occupation: Landscaping business owner
Political Experience: City of Edgewater Planning and Zoning Board; City of Edgewater City Scholarship Committee; City of Edgewater Redistricting Committee; City of Edgewater Council Member
What are your top three priorities?
1. Significantly improve the work environment and morale of district faculty and staff.
2. Tackle upcoming budget issues so that our system can operate smoothly and successfully.
3. Ensure that our students are provided with the best educational opportunities in a safe and welcoming environment.
Why are you running?
I am running for school board because I have a genuine passion for our community and the success of our future generations. After raising five children through their college years and beyond, I now have the time to pursue this passion for our community. I look forward to the challenges, and working with other board members to create solutions.
What is a life accomplishment that illuminates the kind of school board member you will be?
While serving on the city council and creating Edgewater's scholarship program would be obvious examples, they only illuminate what I see as my biggest success.
My family.
As a parent of VCS students for 25 years, I've built hundreds of relationships throughout the school community and beyond. As the husband of a teacher, I have unique insight to the profession, and as a business owner, I have the experiences of all the people I've worked with over 25 years in our community.
Being a supporter of my family of seven has given me the life experiences to truly represent students and families in Volusia County.
What is something about Volusia County Schools you treasure and will fight to protect, and conversely, what is something you will fight to change?
Something I treasure: I treasure the people and programs that work every day to serve all children. The community outreach programs that serve the underserved, the people who volunteer to keep things running smoothly and all the families who work so hard to educate our kids.
Something I would change: The school environment as it relates to bullying. Our complex world requires an ever-persistent anti-bullying policy to be enforced consistently every day. I will fight hard to ensure that our district does exactly that.
Jessie Thompson
Age: 34
Occupation: Mom
Political Experience: First time candidate
What are your top three priorities?
1. Improve literacy rates in our county.
2. Continue to improve the safety in our schools, whether that be bullying in the schools, to gun violence, to everything in between.
3. Improving communication, and making sure that students, parents and teachers all feel heard.
Why are you running?
I am running for the school board because as a mom of young children, I have a different perspective that you don't currently see on our board, and a perspective that makes up many of our parents. We have a strong national focus right now on education, and I believe that a strong board is a diverse board of ideas and backgrounds.
What is a life accomplishment that illuminates the kind of school board member you will be?
I've had many life accomplishments that would make me a perfectly well-rounded school board member. I am a mom, which is a huge accomplishment, as well as having been a public communicator and published author. I've managed a business that has done amazing, and also worked in hospitality. I was PTA president, on the DAC (District Advisory Committee) and SAC (School Advisory Council) committee, and attended the Leadership Institute program specifically for the school board position. At my age, I am very proud of all these accomplishments that have made me the unique leader that I am.
What is something about Volusia County Schools you treasure and will fight to protect, and conversely, what is something you will fight to change?
As a Volusia County public school graduate, I will fight to protect the sense of community that I believe we foster here. I also treasure our academies and CTE programs, and would love to see those continue to grow. Conversely, I will fight to change the current stigma that surrounds charter schools. There has been so much false information spread about them, and I honestly believe that we need them in Volusia County because not all education is one-size-fits-all.
Check back later for interviews elaborating on the candidates' priorities and stances on different education topics.
Contact reporter Danielle Johnson at djohnson@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Volusia School Board District 3: Justin Kennedy vs. Jessie Thompson
