The district 4 school board race explained, vote Smith over Willie who has to many poor ideas and dubious connections

District 4

In district 4 we have teacher and lifelong resident Cynthia Smith versus Teach for America executive Darryl Willie who has been in Jacksonville for seven years and has now run for school board twice.

Cynthia Smith has a compelling story, she started as a book keeper and worked her way up to assistant principal before leaving to run a preschool. She served in DCPS schools for sixteen years, which is only sixteen years longer than Darryl Willie did.

Smith is also certified in ESOL, Reading, Guidance and Counseling and leadership while Willie has no certifications.

Darryl Willie did spend three years in a classroom in Arkansas over a decade ago. Since then he had a variety of jobs but has been with Teach for America since 2011, becoming the Jacksonville location executive director in 2015. These however are troubling times for TFA and that more than anything may have influenced his decision to run again.

It's no secret that Teach for America is on its way out of town. They only brought in 50 new teachers this year and none of them are working at traditional DCPS schools, just charters. Superintendent Green told me personally the district planned to honor last year’s contract but the district wasn't going to bring in any more.

Teach for America Jacksonville did get 5 million, yes 5 million from the Quality Education for All initiative, money that never saw the inside of the classroom but even that money has to be running out by now.

That brings us Darryl Willie's six figure salary.

According to the supervisor of elections page, his salary is 120,000 dollars. Pretty good right? And an amount no teacher in Jacksonville will ever see, and that few principals that oversee hundreds of staff members and thousands of kids will take home.

However, if he along with Chauncey also a TFA alum got on the board then the two of them may be able to reverse TFA Jax’s current standing.

It's not just Wilie's dubious connections to charters and their supporters who he has taken lots of money from and the privatization movement, it's his terrible ideas which all seem to benefit TFA and poor judgement like first putting public school kids on blast in a campaign video and then being told by the district t take it town.

Finally, if you think District 4 has been capably represented the last 8 years by Paula Wright, she wrote on Facebook, Cynthia Smith, School Board Candidate, District 4 is the education advocate who deserves acknowledgement.