Longtime Educator Bill Slayton Won’t Seek Reelection To School Board

June 3, 2024

Longtime educator and Escambia County School Board member Bill Slayton will not seek reelection this year.

“I think 16 years is enough,” Slayton said of his service on the school board. “This makes 52 years I have been in education.”

“It’s the best district in Escambia County, maybe in the State of Florida, to be a school board member,” Slayton said of District 5, “with all the thousands of students, no one of the schools scoring below a ‘B’ in state testing.”

“My wife told me that if I ran again, she would divorce me,” Slayton quipped.

Slayton holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music education from the University of Southern Mississippi. He served as band director for Tate High School’s “Showband of the South” from 1971 to 1987 and served as fine arts supervisor for the Escambia County School District from 1987 to 1991. From 1991 until 2007, he moved into administration for the school district, serving as assistant principal and principal at Woodham High and principal at George Stone Technical Center.

Slayton’s term ends in November.

To date, three candidates are pre-qualified for the seat: Thomas Harrell, Joshua Matthew Luther, and Jim “Andy Taylor”. A fourth candidate, Scott Taylor, prefiled but has withdrawn.

NorthEscambai.com photo, click to enlarge.

Comments

13 Responses to “Longtime Educator Bill Slayton Won’t Seek Reelection To School Board”

  1. Stephen on June 5th, 2024 12:35 pm

    @Who’s To Blame-

    In fairness, there has to be fault put on the voters for not paying attention and doing their research on those already in office. I constantly get on threads like this one and see people say how they are voting out the incumbent in office, but they keep electing the status quo.

  2. misstrish on June 4th, 2024 5:58 pm

    HURRAY!!!

  3. Sedition on June 4th, 2024 2:05 pm

    It’s all good to call to the carpet politicians who have an appearance of corruption, but who your anger should REALLY be directed at are the voters that keep putting them back into seats of power.
    It’s much tougher to abuse power when you take it away from them.

  4. Vivi on June 3rd, 2024 8:36 pm

    I’ll keep my comments brief . . . TERM LIMITS!

  5. Beach Boy on June 3rd, 2024 5:04 pm

    Good decision Bill !! From knowing you since the 80’s, you have done a 180 degree turnaround. All you have focused on is how much money can line your pockets from tax payers and (especially senior adults) which don’t make much money anyways. Between you and Patty Hightower, there is NO telling how much has lined your pockets. Maybe God will turn you back around to when I knew you in the 80’s.

    @ JASON…..you are spot on. If you live in District 2, PLEASE consider running for District 2 School Board. You got my vote.

  6. Who’s to Blame? on June 3rd, 2024 2:48 pm

    Maybe the problem is not the elected officials.

    Maybe the problem is the unrestricted campaign contributions, dark money, and lobbyists.

    But, alas, that won’t change.

  7. JBird on June 3rd, 2024 2:18 pm

    Jason, I totally agree with everything you’ve said here. Especially about the commissioner’s. D1, D3, and D5, have made our whole area a Developer’s paradise. I’d throw Bender in there too but he left to be over elections, however he’s still has to be elected. I’d also put the Mayor Reeves in there too for his land grabs. They’re all in bed with each other. Even Bear has been texting your commissioner’s during meeting according to the text messages from the Medicare /Medicaid whistle blowers case. These commissioner’s have lose millions of taxpayers monies. Get them all out. They are ruining our lives/area.

  8. Bubba on June 3rd, 2024 12:47 pm

    Jason for president

  9. Sunny F on June 3rd, 2024 10:29 am

    @ Jason –

    Well said. I totally agree with you. The voters need to support others at this time.

  10. OhYouKnow on June 3rd, 2024 9:19 am

    Jason,

    What have you done for the community beside be a back seat driver.

    All I read is basely accusations,

    LIBEL – a published false statement that is damaging to a person’s reputation; a written defamation. Compare with slander

    Court time is not cheap time.

  11. Oversight on June 3rd, 2024 9:17 am

    Jason is offering sound advice. As for county commissioner, keep in mind that the adding of another candidate at the last minute was done to help the incumbent by splitting the vote.

  12. straightshooter on June 3rd, 2024 8:27 am

    “Jason”
    My thoughts exactly. Slayton was good for Band at Tate, not good for Board. He spent OUR money like government does.

    Kudos on Patty Hightower, long overdue.

    And that leaves us our ECUA board rep, he made a lot of promises, go back and search his campaign. He fell right in there with the rest of them and raised taxes at every opportunity. Needs to Go

  13. Jason on June 3rd, 2024 1:59 am

    While I appreciate his past contributions both as a teacher and a School Board Member, this is a good decision. Its time for other ideas and leaders. Slaytons willingness to dig deeper and deeper into the taxpayers pockets at every opportunity was enough for me to no longer cast a vote for him.

    May next term Patty Hightower will bid her goodbye to the School District. It would be a step in the right direction. She is another that cant get enough money from the taxpayers.

    Now is also a good time to remind District 5 voters that they should also say goodbye to Kevin Stephens at ECUA who has supported every rate increase that has come before the ECUA board during his last 4-years.

    Additionally, as you watch District 5 grow with one development after another with no new infrastructure in place to handle the growth, we should thank Steven Barry and wish him good-bye. His willingness to (try to) pad his retirement by tens of thousand of tax payer dollars should be a red flag voters. IMHO, after 3-terms its past time to say good-bye to him.