TCPalm Editorial Board recommendation 2024: Indian River County School Board races

Tuesday, July 23, 2024

MacCallum gigged Jones for not protecting female athletes when she voted against a May board resolution objecting to April federal changes in Title IX related to transgender athletes. The resolution, approved 4-1, affirmed what’s already in state law: two sexes are determined at birth, Jones said.

Jones' career as a coach and principal at Sebastian River High School (which started the nation’s first high school girls rugby team in 2009) is evidence of her support for female athletes. She said she voted against the resolution, in part, to wait two months to get further guidance from the state education commissioner before opening local taxpayers to potential litigation.

That logic might not suit folks who seek to use schools to focus on culture rather than education. Jones has focused on the latter for almost 50 years, the past 37 in Indian River County.

She has done about every job imaginable, from teacher to principal and assistant superintendent to Florida High School Athletics Association administrator.

In 2020, she was elected to the board, defeating Laura Zorc, its chair, by 20 points. The election of Jones and Brian Barefoot, a former financial services executive and president of Babson College, professionalized what had been an amateurish board full of infighting.

Jones chaired the reconstituted board during parts of COVID and the evolution of a loud and well-organized Moms for Liberty, which has politicized education. Despite that, Jones helped lead the district to an A grade as one of the highest performing in Florida.