Gulf County School Board, District 1
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 ↗Chad Bailey
Chad Bailey works as an outside plant engineer for Consolidated Communications and was appointed to the Gulf County School Board's District 1 seat by Gov. Ron DeSantis in October 2025, filling the vacancy left by Denny McGlon. He is a children's minister and has been involved with local baseball programs and the high …
Dennis Peak
Dennis Peak is a Gulf County native and 1983 graduate of Port St. Joe High School. He owns a screen-printing business, is a partner in a monument company, also works at a local flooring store, and served about 20 years as the school district's booster club president.
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 | Chad Bailey Nonpartisan | Dennis Peak 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). | Mixed / neutral· stated position Asked about school choice, Bailey did not take a position for or against public money following students, saying instead that the district's job is to make its own schools the place families want to be. | Mixed / neutral· stated position Peak said school choice is an area he is not certain about and that he would want to research why families are choosing homeschooling before taking a position. |
| 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. | No public position found | Strongly disagrees· stated position Peak says much of what is being removed from schools is unnecessary and that the material is history, indicating he would not pull books over objections. |
| 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 Bailey names teacher pay as a priority, saying neighboring counties can offer more and that the district is already working to improve salaries. | No public position found |
| School safety approachCampus safety depends more on police officers and firm discipline than on counselors and mental-health staff. | No public position found | 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Chad Bailey | not enough data | not enough data |
| Dennis Peak | 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.
Chad Bailey
No additional issues found in public statements as of the last data review.
Dennis Peak
- Local hiring and classroom behavior — Peak's stated first-year goal is bringing on more local teachers and administrators, arguing local staff are important influences on young people. He also raises classroom disruption as a concern and points to parental involvement as the remedy.