Leon 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 ↗One candidate in this race is a write-in. Florida does not print a qualified write-in candidate's name on the ballot. To vote for one you must write the name on the write-in line for this race; a blank or misspelled line may not be counted.
James Billingsley
Billingsley is a write-in candidate for the District 1 seat and the parent of two Leon County Schools students. Because write-in candidates do not appear on Florida's printed ballot, voters must write in his name. WFSU reported his campaign had filed no contributions or expenditures and that he said he is running beca…
Alva Smith
Alva Swafford Smith is the incumbent District 1 board member and says the term she is seeking will be her last. For the first time in her tenure she faces no opponent on the printed ballot, only write-in candidate James Billingsley. The seat will help decide how Leon County Schools responds to falling enrollment, a ti…
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 | James Billingsley Write-in | Alva Smith Nonpartisan |
|---|---|---|
| Taxes & spendingCutting taxes should be a top priority, even if it means less government spending on services. | Mixed / neutral· stated position He called for an audit of district spending, said non-essential personnel costs are too high, and said tax revenue should not fund 'a wish list' of board members or the superintendent, but did not call for cutting taxes. | Mixed / neutral· stated position Asked about raising local property tax rates for schools, Smith said the decision should be put to the community rather than decided by the board. She has also warned the district is losing $10 million to $20 million a year and proposed raising its emergency reserve above the state-required 3% minimum. |
| 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. | No public position found | Leans disagree· based on record Smith joined a unanimous 5-0 vote in July 2023 to keep 'I am Billie Jean King' on shelves after a parent's complaint. In November 2023 she backed a policy, passed 4-1, sending challenged library books to a review committee of parents, educators and media specialists, with an appeal to the board. |
| 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 In a candidate questionnaire published by Florida Capital Tea, Billingsley said teachers need to be paid accordingly and put educator compensation among his priorities for how the district allocates money. | Leans agree· based on record Smith pushed colleagues to consolidate under-enrolled schools such as Fort Braden and Killearn Lakes Elementary, saying the roughly $10 million saved should go to teacher raises of about $5,000 each. The effort stalled after the superintendent halted the discussion around November 2025. |
| School safety approachCampus safety depends more on police officers and firm discipline than on counselors and mental-health staff. | Leans agree· stated position In the same questionnaire he proposed action plans for high-risk schools and a partnership with the Tallahassee Police Department to support inner-city schools; he did not discuss counselors or mental-health staff. | Leans disagree· stated position Smith's campaign site makes students' mental wellness her main safety priority and credits the board with placing more mental health counselors in schools than ever before. It also mentions adding law enforcement officers. |
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 |
|---|---|---|
| James Billingsley | not enough data | not enough data |
| Alva Smith | 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.
James Billingsley
No additional issues found in public statements as of the last data review.
Alva Smith
No additional issues found in public statements as of the last data review.