Rob Wood is one of two candidates running for the District 2 seat on the Flagler School Board. He faces the incumbent candidate Will Furry, who is running for a second term in office.
The 2026 primary election is on Tuesday, August 18. Flagler County voters will be able to vote for the District 1, District 2, and District 4 seats. School Board races are nonpartisan and open to all county voters. Furry and Wood’s race will be decided in the primary, as a runoff would require three or more filed candidates.
Other Candidate Interviews
Flagler County Commission:
Flagler School Board:
- Jill Woolbright (District 1)
- Rob Wood (District 2)
- Christy Chong (District 4)
- Ron Long (District 4)
- Trevor Tucker (District 4)
Palm Coast City Council:
- Jeani Duarte (District 2)
- Dylana ‘Dee’ Galery (District 4)
- John Kvederis (District 4)
- Ramon Marrero (District 4)
- Darlene Shelley (District 4)
Interview Criteria
- The object of the interview is not to grill the candidate, nor to give them softballs. Ideally, in their answers the candidates provide to voters a useful insight into their ideology, their priorities, and their knowledgeability and preparedness for office.
- These questions are sent to each declared candidate in Flagler County’s local elections. All candidates running for the same office received the same exact questions.
- The only edits made are for spelling, formatting and basic grammar (i.e., ‘their’ when it should be ‘there’). Censorship of profanity may also be applied if it were applicable. Otherwise, answers are presented in their full form as the candidate provides them.
- Answers are subject to fact-checking if they contain information that’s blatantly misleading or untrue (misrepresenting factually verifiable information, misquoting a statistic, etc). Clarifications will be added underneath the candidate’s answer if applicable. The answers will still be presented as given even if a fact-check or clarification is needed.
Candidate Interview
Date of Birth: August 13, 1976
Hometown: Glens Falls, New York
Career/Educational Resume: “I started out in public service as an advanced EMT running ambulances right out of high school. From there I spent eleven years on active duty in the Air Force, first as an F-15 crew chief and later as a technical training instructor. I hold an undergraduate degree in Occupational Education and an MBA in Finance. After the military, I taught GED to inmates at Tomoka Correctional through Daytona State College, then moved into federal contracting, where I led leadership and organizational development training for agencies like the TSA, the Army, and the Department of Justice and earned my professional coaching certification. For the last decade, I worked in higher education at Western Governors University, most recently as a senior manager leading the leaders who serve more than 17,000 students. I am also a local small business owner here in Palm Coast. My wife, Stacy, taught for eight years at Old Kings Elementary, and both of our kids graduated from Flagler County schools.”
1) Order these three groups according to how strongly you feel a School Board member is tasked with serving them: students, teachers, and parents.
“Students come first. That one is not a close call. After that, to be honest, I resist stacking parents and teachers against each other, because the job really only works when they are on the same side. If you make me put them in order, parents come next. They are the ones who trust us with their children, and they are the primary decision-makers in their child’s education. Teachers come third only in this sense: my role toward them is to support, equip, and protect the professionals we ask to do this work every day. But in practice I have found you rarely have to choose. When you serve students first and treat parents and teachers as partners instead of ranking them, they tend to pull in the same direction anyway.”
2) Describe any career experience you have in which you directly worked in or with the public education system. If none applies, explain how any other experience you have would directly apply to the education aspects of School Board duties.
“Quite a bit, actually, and from a few different directions. I taught GED to inmates at Tomoka Correctional through Daytona State College, which is about as direct as public education gets. In the Air Force, I spent years as a technical training instructor, and my undergraduate degree is in Occupational Education, so I really came up as an educator in uniform. For the last decade, I worked in higher education at Western Governors University, a nonprofit built around student access and outcomes, where I led teams that support the leaders of more than 17,000 students.
“And my household is an educator’s household. My wife, Stacy, taught eight years at Old Kings, so I have lived the reality of this profession at my own dinner table. Beyond the classroom, my background is in leadership development, coaching, procurement, and finance, and that turns out to be a lot of what a governing board actually does. I read budgets for a living, and I know how to build culture in an organization on purpose.”
3) How would you assess the School Board’s productivity and decorum over the past two years?
“I would give them a solid C, and I do not say that to bash anyone. On productivity, they moved the routine business along and got some real things done. The recent benefits package that lowered costs for employees was a step in the right direction. But for much of this stretch the board only had four members, and a 2-2 split meant they avoided some of the harder decisions out of a fear of deadlock. That held them back, and it was not really their fault.
“Decorum is a separate thing, and that one is on the people, not the math. When it takes a board more than a hundred votes and a nine-hour meeting to fill a vice chair seat, that tells you folks lost sight of why they are there. This is a nonpartisan role in service of students, and the board ought to model the behavior we expect from the kids in our own schools.”
4) In recent years the School Board has navigated multiple issues which became political lightning rods. How does an effective School Board member remain focused on students when the situation attracts mass political attention from the county and beyond?
“I would remind myself that this is a nonpartisan seat, and the job is the business of students, families, and staff, not a launch pad for anything else. When board members use the seat to push a bigger political agenda, senior staff end up spending their time protecting their jobs instead of serving students, and the kids are the ones who pay for it. So I run every hot issue through the same question: is this right for our students, our faculty and staff, and our taxpayers? I follow the law, I stick to the process, and I let the workshop and the data lead instead of the emotion. A lot of the time, if you calmly correct a false premise and bring it back to what is academically sound and legally solid, the temperature comes down on its own. My job is to be the adult in the room and keep our classrooms out of the political circus.”
5) Florida passed universal school choice in 2023. As someone who hopes to be a leader within the school district, do you believe Flagler Schools is the best choice available to parents? Why or why not?
“For most families in this county, yes, I believe Flagler Schools is an exceptional option, and I say that as a parent who lived it. Both of my kids went through our schools and came out set up for real success. My daughter went from Matanzas to an honors program and then a full ride to Stetson. Our teachers and staff do outstanding work, and my family is proof of it.
“But I also support school choice, because I think it is really about leveling the playing field of opportunity. I grew up in a small town in upstate New York with one good public school. One town over there were private schools, and I watched kids get plucked out of my school and sent to them. Those were not the families who were struggling. They were the affluent families who could afford another option. For a long time that is who choice was for. Universal choice changes that. It means private school, homeschool, or a charter is no longer something only wealthy families can reach. Funding the student instead of the system gives every parent in Flagler a real say in what fits their child, and I do not see that as a threat to our schools. I see it as fairness.”
6) On a similar note, educators and other faculty may view Flagler Schools as one option among several other school districts. What will you advocate for to make Flagler Schools a more attractive place to work?
“It comes down to a few things for me. Pay people fairly, treat them like professionals, and fix the culture that wears them down.
“On pay, I will push to prioritize compensation for teachers and for the support staff who get forgotten, the paras, custodians, food service, clerical, and transportation folks, and to protect and improve benefits by getting smarter about how we pool our insurance risk.
“On respect, I want staff at the table before a policy is written, not surveyed after the fact, and I would look hard at moving board workshops out of the middle of the school day so the people most affected can actually be in the room.
“On culture, we have to end the board dysfunction, because word gets around and it makes Flagler a harder place to work than it should be. Working conditions are learning conditions. And I would show up at legislative days in Tallahassee to fight for the state dollars our people are owed instead of shrugging and blaming the state.”
7) Are there any new or underutilized revenue streams you can name that Flagler Schools might tap into to support its budget? If so, expand upon your proposal for implementation.
“Most of our funding is set by the state, so there is no magic new revenue stream, and anybody who tells you otherwise is not being honest. But there are real dollars to find. Start inside our own house. Outside consulting contracts, underused software, and things like computers sitting unused are all places I would look before I ever look at the classroom, and smarter procurement can stretch every dollar we do have.
“Then there is grant money and advocacy. A board member gets to chase grants and lobby Tallahassee, and I would use the seat to do exactly that. There are also partnerships. Interlocal agreements and shared arrangements with the city, the county, and local nonprofits can lower our costs and expand what we offer. We should also make sure we are capturing every FTE dollar we actually earn, including for the transient students who move in and out. A local levy stays on the table only as a last resort, after we have proven we cut the waste first.”
8) How would you define a successful working relationship between the School Board and the superintendent?
“Respect the role, and hold the results. The board has one job, and that is to govern, not to manage. We hire the superintendent, we evaluate her, we set the policy and the budget, and we hold her accountable to outcomes for students. A good working relationship runs on communication, so that neither the board nor the superintendent ever gets surprised in public. Being constructive does not mean being agreeable. It means setting clear expectations and communicating directly and professionally. And it means accountability that runs through data and a fair, public evaluation, not personal attacks or end-runs to an outside agency. When I disagree, I say so at the table, through the proper channels, and I vote my conscience. Once the board votes, I respect the decision and keep doing the oversight. Support and accountability are not opposites. Good governance needs both, in the same person.”
