The Volusia County School Board District 2 and 4 seats are up for election next month.
Krista Goodrich and Cassie Gonyer are running for District 2, which covers the greater Daytona Beach area, Daytona Beach Shores, Ponce Inlet, South Daytona and part of Port Orange. The seat is currently held by Anita Burnette, who did not run for re-election.
In District 4 – which includes all of Holly Hill, Ormond Beach, Ormond-by-the-Sea, the northwest part of Daytona Beach and the DeLeon Springs area – incumbent Carl Persis is running against Donna Brosemer for his third term at the school plate.
Goodrich and Gonyer will advance to the runoff for a District 2 seat
In the August primaries, Goodrich received 45.88% of the vote, Gonyer 30.04% and Angela Kopnicky 24.08%. Since neither candidate received 50% of the vote plus one, top performers Goodrich and Gonyer will return to the ballot.
Goodrich is running for the District 2 seat because she believes her background as a businesswoman will bring a fresh perspective to the school board, and she is confident her financial background will be “tremendously important” when it comes to overseeing the Volusia County Schools budget.
Goodrich told The News-Journal that she was proud to have recently been recognized as one of Volusia-Flagler’s most influential women in business.
“That’s just in line with what I bring to the table for the school board… There’s not really any entrepreneurs or business people on the board, and that’s my strength, and it’s something that I’m going to bring that’s different to the school board than we have in the past, and so it just highlights that I’m actually quite good at business,” she said. “…If I do something, I’m going to do it right, and I’m going to aggressively make sure everything I touch becomes positive, so I plan to do that with the school board as well.”
Gonyer is a high school science teacher for Brevard County Virtual Schools and a parent of three daughters. She believes that collaboration between parents and teachers is a critical component to student success.
Gonyer said she is “proud” and “humbled by” the support she has received from other teachers, including those in Volusia and Clay counties, as well as her colleagues in Brevard County.
“It just means a lot to me, as a teacher running for School Board, that other teachers and others in the education field support me, and it makes me very excited and motivated to make our schools better from within. she said.
Gonyer also said she encourages all voters who choose to vote by mail to keep track of their ballots with the county.
“It’s tough that voter registration ended right before the hurricane, so I hope everyone who wanted to register to vote had enough time to do so,” she said. “It’s a little concerning that the mail-in ballots were sent out right before the storm and they got there safely (but) I’m a little concerned if someone tries to return them during the storm.”
Goodrich also encouraged people to vote, and to do so sooner rather than later.
“I would tell people to vote early and make sure they contact the candidates to ask any questions,” she said. “They can certainly come to my website, send me an email or call me.”
Persis and Brosemer runoff for District 4 seat
As with District 2, in the District 4 primary, Brosemer finished the evening with 43.73% of the vote, Persis with 39.60% and Sarah Marzilli with 16.67%. Because no candidate received 50% of the vote plus one, top performers Brosemer and Persis will return to the ballot.
Persis has served on the Volusia County School Board since 2016. A graduate of Seabreeze High School, a former teacher and principal in the district, and a longtime county stakeholder, Persis ran for re-election because he wanted to keep schools safe, students interested, parents and guardians involved, and employees motivated.
“We try to keep everything positive and try to point out what the contrast is between me and Donna Brosemer. And I think if we just keep doing that… people will see that there’s a big difference between the two.” us,” he said.
“I consider myself an independent thinker. I am a moderate person. I’m more of a professional, not a politician, and I think she has taken on a very partisan, negative offensive root,” he continued. “I’m just not going to do that. That’s not my style. That’s not who I am, so I’m not going to change now.”
Donna Brosemer is confident that her 30-year career in public policy will allow her to bring a fresh perspective to the school board.
She recently told The News-Journal that she would like the campaign to be over so she can get to work.
“One of the things about campaigns is that you don’t really accomplish anything except talking to people and talking about issues,” she said. “The specific work has always been to make classrooms safer through enforced discipline, whether that is enforcing existing policies or implementing policy changes to make classroom conditions suitable for teaching and learning. And I also want us to look very carefully at the budget of the bureaucracy because I believe that with the amount of money the district has to spend, we can do better for the teachers.”
Brosemer is proud to be endorsed by Governor Ron DeSantis. Of the 23 candidates DeSantis supported, 11 lost their races in the primaries. Brosemer is one of six endorsements heading to a runoff in November.
“That helped me enormously,” she says.
This article originally appeared in The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Volusia School Board candidates discuss goals as early voting begins
