- April 28, 2024
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Flagler County School Board member Cheryl Massaro said a lack of experience on both the board and in district administration plus encouragement from community members convinced her to run for reelection.
“I’ve been thinking about it. It’s not a last-minute choice,” said Massaro, 70, who filed on Dec. 12 to run for the District 5 seat again in 2024. “I've been getting a ton of people requesting that I run, telling me I have to run. When I go to the food store, people are stopping me and saying, ‘You need to run,’ So, I’ve been thinking about it. And nobody was coming to surface, applying to run. So, I said, I got to run.”
Massaro was elected in 2020 when she defeated incumbent Maria Barbosa. She is Flagler Schools’ second-longest tenured board member behind Colleen Conklin, who has been on the School Board since 2000 and is Flagler County’s longest-serving elected official. Conklin has said she will not seek reelection next year, and Massaro said earlier this year that she probably wouldn’t either.
But Massaro said she changed her mind partly because of the inexperience on the board and in the superintendent’s office in addition to the possibility that a new School Board attorney would replace Kristy Gavin.
“The problem is, after Dr. Conklin said she is not running and my not running and you have (the board) terminating the only other person that has institutional knowledge, historical institutional knowledge, which is our School Board attorney, Gavin, we'll have a School Board that has no more than a year and a half of experience as well as an administrative team, and a whole administrative suite, that doesn't have a year and a half experience. So yes, that's a bit frightening,” Massaro said.
Massaro and Conklin have been outspoken in their support of Gavin, who has been the board’s attorney for 17 years. Gavin, whose contract does not expire until June 30, 2025, has been in negotiations to take on a new role as the district’s attorney. The board voted on Oct. 26 to terminate Gavin’s contract by Dec. 31 if an agreement is not reached.
Massaro, whose term as board chair ended on Nov. 28, had been representing the board in the negotiations. She had said the school district’s recent offer to Gavin included a stipulation that Gavin agree not to sue Flagler Schools.
But at the Dec. 19 School Board workshop she said she and Gavin both misunderstood Superintendent LaShakia Moore's offer.
"Any way you look at it, it's going to cost the district more money,” Massaro told the Observer. “To have a School Board attorney earning $135,000 for the work they do is not expensive. So when they hire someone else, they're going to have to go to an hourly rate.”
If the board terminates Gavin’s contract, Massaro said, Gavin will be due $150,000, which would cover personal leave time owed to her and 12 weeks of salary.
Massaro is the first candidate to file for the District 5 seat. Paul Mucciolo has filed to run for Conklin’s District 3 seat. Nicole Durenberger is also listed by the Flagler County Elections office as an active candidate for Conklin’s seat, but Durenberger told the Observer that she is withdrawing her candidacy.
