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Elected Or Appointed School Superintendent? Escambia Commission To Consider Ballot Referendum
July 7, 2025
The Escambia County Commission this week will begin considering placing a referendum on the ballot in 2026 to again ask voters if they want an elected or appointed superintendent.
The Escambia County School Board voted on February 18 to support sending the question back to voters.
The board voted 3-2 to place a referendum on the general election ballot. The referendum was introduced by District 5 member Tom Harrell**,** with Harrell, Kevin Adams**,** and Paul Fesko voting in favor. Board members Carissa Bergosh and David Williams were opposed. The school board then sent the referendum to the county commission, which must approve placing the question on the ballot.
“I feel very strongly about this,” Harrell, who campaigned on a return to an elected superintendent, said in February. “The county, I think, feels very strongly. There’s never anything wrong with letting the people decide. When you have a democracy, it’s all about people making decisions.”
“Deep down in my heart, having been here in this district for 60 years, that’s what the people of this district want,” Harrell added. “It’s the right time; it’s the right thing to do.”
This Thursday, the county commission will vote on scheduling a public hearing on placing the initiative on the ballot. If scheduled, the public hearing will be held August 7 at 5:31 p.m.
In November 2018, Escambia County citizens voted to move from an elected to an appointed superintendent.
Comments
14 Responses to “Elected Or Appointed School Superintendent? Escambia Commission To Consider Ballot Referendum”
The last elected superintendent seemed like a nice man, but there were a couple F schools under his leadership. Tim Smith, a professional educator, worked hard against many who opposed him as he wasn’t part of the club. School grades improved though, and have continued to do so under Mr. Leonard. Maybe what we need are some new school board members.
Elect our superintendent…I don’t like that 5 board members make such an important decision…that way if we the people don’t like them…we can vote them out.
Funny, if we were allowed to vote for our superintendent, it would have been the one that we have now. They appointed a terrible outsider that didn’t last long but cost us a lot of money. Don’t ever trust a bunch of politicians making appointments. They’ll do it wrong every time. We The People
Ben, you’re right we don’t get JimBob’s besty we get the certified qualified Jim Paul. You can read about him on the very site:
https://www.northescambia.com/2008/05/superintendent-jim-paul-changes-dui-plea-sentence-imposed
ELECT…appointing means you’re at the will of the board and their political whims (works both ways folks), elected you’ll get someone with certified qualifications and not JimBob’s besty that he promised a job once he got elected.
The main problem with elected officials if they don’t have to have any qualifications to do the job. Is it a good idea to elect a janitor to superintendent just because the majority of voters like him? Probably not.
Let’s be real—we didn’t give up our vote, we just put it where it works. Some board members just don’t want you holding them responsible. They want the power, none of the blame, and a nice paycheck to go with it.
YOU SHOULD NEVER GIVE UP YOUR RIGHT TO VOTE. I voted against appointed superintendent.. having lived in a district ..there is way more negative reasons…so hopefully Escambia county voters will get it right..an vote to elect our superintendent.
E-L-E-C-T-E-D..!!!!!!!!
We the Citizens of Escambia County Want to ELECT OUR Superintendent of OUR Public Schools.
We do NOT need some downtown, smarter than thou, young this or that, rich influencer bunch influencing OUR desire for selecting the Best person for the job of running our Public schools.
Apointed persons are always having their puppet strings pulled and manipulated by those far behind the scenes. Often this “hands-off” control of schools is BAD.
Thank You to the School Board Members who suffered through the first appointed puppet.
Time to again have a Superintendent for the People of this County.
After teaching the importance of studying the issues and candidates for any elected office to my Civics students in Escambia County, I firmly believe that ELECTIONS are so much more democratic than APPOINTMENTS…this is in no way a reflection on the present superintendent…I would have campaigned and voted for him… and to those who said let’s keep the politics out of the process —- look who influenced the selection of our appointed superintendent. Another thing to consider is in some cases, the taxpayers are could be on the hook for paying 2 salaries..the one that was fired ? because of contractual clause)and the new one that they want to hire.
The problem is fixed for now. But look who they appointed before Mr. Leonard. And took about as long to replace him as waiting on an election for a new person would have been.
@ Just listening, the last time this issue was on the ballot is how we got here now. A new vote might not change it.
Rob , I am not sure where you are from but when we had an elected Superintendent most of them detested the time that they had to use for Campaigning. When the time came to campaign , most of that time was non- school hours. I for one want to have a say-so in who is running our schools.
Yes! The school superintendent should be elected. Appointed to Important offices does not serve the people. The ballot boxes is the only say the people have in trying to keep good qualified people in office. Elected causes the office holder to know they must satisfy the will of the people and not the will of the good ol’ boys appointing them.
Cool. Glad to see the school board wanting to wipe their hands clean of having to manage the superintendent, while the superintendent spend all their time running for re-election instead of running the schools.