Bay County School Board, District 3
School board members set the district budget and school-tax rate, hire the superintendent (where appointed), approve school boundaries, curriculum policy and construction, and set district policies. Nonpartisan. Term: 4 years.
Partly verified. Either the November opponent could not be confirmed from available sources, or only a few positions are documented. Confirm the full candidate list on your county sample ballot; unknown positions are shown as such.
How we verified who is on the ballot
Candidate list taken from the Florida Division of Elections, 2026 general election candidate list on 2026-09-18 ; both candidates are marked Qualified, which for a nonpartisan seat means the August vote did not produce a majority winner (or the seat is decided only in November). Check the county Supervisor of Elections sample ballot.
Candidates
Report an error ↗John Haley
John L. Haley Jr. spent more than 30 years in Bay District Schools as a teacher, dean of students, assistant principal, principal of J.R. Arnold High School and the district's first executive director of operations. He also founded New Covenant Church, where he is senior pastor, and Doc Homes LLC. He finished second i…
Chris Moore
Chris Moore is a lifelong Bay County resident and graduate of Bay District Schools who served more than 24 years in the U.S. Navy. He was first elected to the District 3 school board seat in 2022 and is seeking a second term. He led the August 2026 primary with about 29% of the vote and faces John Haley in the Novembe…
Side-by-side on the major issues
Each row is a statement. The chips show how each candidate's stated positions or record relate to that statement. Expand a row to read the evidence and sources. "No public position found" means we could not find a statement or record on the topic, not that the candidate has none.
| Issue | John Haley Nonpartisan | Chris Moore Nonpartisan |
|---|---|---|
| Taxes & spendingCutting taxes should be a top priority, even if it means less government spending on services. | No public position found | No public position found |
| Property taxesFlorida should eliminate or sharply reduce homestead property taxes, even if local governments must cut services or find other revenue. | No public position found | No public position found |
| Education & school choicePublic money should follow students to private, charter or home schools (universal school vouchers). | No public position found | No public position found |
| Gender identity lawsFlorida's laws restricting gender-affirming care for minors and classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity should remain in place. | No public position found | No public position found |
| Library and classroom materialsParents' objections should be enough to pull a book or lesson from a school, even when other families want it kept. | Strongly disagrees· stated position Haley says students should keep choosing their own reading material and that a parent who objects should have their own child read something else rather than have the book removed for everyone. | No public position found |
| Teacher and staff payRaising teacher and staff pay should be the district's top budget priority, even if other spending has to be cut. | Leans agree· stated position Haley proposes raising compensation for teachers and support staff through $50,000 down-payment assistance, $10,000 in closing-cost help, a 3% supplement for ESE teachers and subsidized housing partnerships with the city, while also saying the district's recent overspending is unsustainable. | No public position found |
| School safety approachCampus safety depends more on police officers and firm discipline than on counselors and mental-health staff. | Leans agree· stated position Haley says nothing matters more than student and staff safety and backs strong security measures and support for school resource officers, citing his record as a principal of keeping narcotics off campus; he also names bullying and school climate as part of the safety question. | No public position found |
Where they sit on the map
Each candidate is placed by the average of their documented stances. It is a summary of the table above, not an extra judgment.
How the axes are computed
Each axis is the average of a candidate's coded stances (+2 to −2) on a fixed set of statements, so it comes straight from the documented positions and nothing else. A candidate needs at least three documented statements on an axis to be placed.
Economic issues (toward "Smaller government (lower taxes, less spending)"): Taxes & spending (agree), Property taxes (agree), Health care (disagree), Housing affordability (disagree), Property insurance (disagree), Energy & utilities (disagree), Social Security & Medicare (disagree), Teacher and staff pay (disagree).
Social & legal issues (toward "Conservative side of the statements"): Immigration (agree), Abortion (disagree), Guns (disagree), Education & school choice (agree), Elections & voting (disagree), Crime & policing (agree), Gender identity laws (agree), Marijuana (disagree), Environment & water (disagree), Trump administration (agree), Library and classroom materials (agree), School safety approach (agree).
| Candidate | Economic issues | Social & legal issues |
|---|---|---|
| John Haley | not enough data | not enough data |
| Chris Moore | not enough data | not enough data |
Other issues the candidates have raised
Priorities each candidate has brought up on their own, beyond the major-issue list above.
John Haley
- District overspending — Haley says Bay District Schools overspent its budget by $5 million one year and $7 million the next and calls that pattern unsustainable; he says an energy-efficiency program he ran saved the district more than $2 million.
- Enrollment and competition — Haley says the district is losing students to charter, private and virtual schools and wants to raise student performance, market career and technical programs and improve parent communication so families choose Bay District Schools first.
Chris Moore
- Board transparency — Moore has said he opposes cutting off speakers' microphones at board meetings, describing Sunshine-law meetings as the reason for public transparency. He did not return the Florida Trib candidate survey before publication.