TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — For the first time in her time on the Leon County School Board, Alva Swafford Smith won't face a real opponent in November.
Smith, the District 1 incumbent, qualified in June with only a write-in challenger, all but assuring her a new term she says will be her last.
"I've never had that before," Smith said in a phone interview. "I've always had challengers and opponents, so this is a new one for me."
Smith's write-in opponent is James Billingsley, according to the Leon County Supervisor of Elections' official list of qualified 2026 candidates.
Write-in candidates do not appear on the printed ballot in Florida, so voters must be aware of the name Billingsley to write in the vote for him. The race matters beyond the lack of a printed opponent.
Whoever holds the seat will help decide how Leon County Schools responds to its dwindling enrollment, tight budget, and pending consolidation efforts.
"We're losing about $10 to $20 million [dollars], on an annual basis, the last several years," Smith said.
Florida's Office of Economic and Demographic Research reports that Leon County's school-age population has stayed roughly flat in recent years, even as enrollment in scholarships, charter schools and other non-public options has climbed sharply since 2020.
Click here: Leon County’s Education Data Profile
Smith pointed to that shift, along with an aging local population, as the main forces behind declining enrollment in traditional public schools.
For much of the past year, Smith pushed colleagues to consider consolidating under-enrolled campuses, including Fort Braden and Killearn Lakes Elementary, with a goal of redirecting an estimated $10 million toward teacher raises of about $5,000 each.
That effort has stalled.
Smith said Superintendent Rocky Hanna put a stop to further consolidation discussion around November 2025, and the rest of the board did not push back at the time.
"There were never any discussions," Smith said. "I was hopeful there would be, but there never was."
Hanna's office was contacted by email for this story, including a direct request to respond to Smith's account of the November 2025 discussion.
He had not responded as of publication.
Smith described her working relationship with Hanna as "challenging," citing "varying viewpoints on our financial situation."
On the question of raising the local property tax rate, an idea Smith has previously been described publicly as opposing, she offered a more specific position in this interview that the decision belongs to voters, not the board.
"I'm really in favor of letting our community decide," Smith said. "That is their decision."
Smith also said she recently brought a proposal to the board to raise its emergency reserve fund above the state-mandated minimum of 3%, and that the four members present reached consensus in favor within the past two weeks.
Not every part of District 1 is losing students.
Smith pointed to rapid housing growth near the Welaunee development in northeast Tallahassee, which she said has pushed Mumford Middle School over full capacity even as other schools in the district shrink.
State data show building permits in Leon County have reached a 15-year high of 2,358 units within the past decade and have cooled only slightly since, consistent with the growth pattern Smith described.
Click here: State Building Permit Data
"That's going to be the greatest challenge as we move forward," Smith said.
Smith connected the district's teacher retention struggles to classroom discipline, saying teachers need more authority to remove disruptive students from the classroom.
"If we gave our teachers the ability to handle those discipline problems and have those students removed from those classrooms, I think that would go a long way," she said.
When asked about her proudest accomplishment in office, Smith pointed not to a policy outcome but a process change, instituting formal agenda review ahead of board meetings.
"When I first joined the board, there was no agenda review," she said. "I was in shock that there was not much discussion on the items."
She closed the interview by noting a milestone she said had eluded District 1 throughout her tenure.
"For the first time ever, I have all A's and B's schools," Smith said. "I've never had that before."
Smith's most recent financial disclosure, filed with the state Commission on Ethics, lists a net worth of about $1.94 million, including several investment properties in Tallahassee.
Click here: Florida Commission on Ethics Financial Disclosure Search
Billingsley could not immediately be located through public campaign records for comment.
His campaign has reported no contributions or expenditures, according to Leon County campaign finance filings.
With no named opponent on the printed ballot, District 1 voters heading into the Aug. 18 primary election will be weighing Smith almost entirely on her own record in a district still working out how to respond to fewer students, a tighter budget, and an unresolved disagreement over consolidation.
This story was produced in partnership with nonpartisan news organizations and universities across the state working to provide information about the 2026 elections. Learn more about the Florida Elections Reporting Partnership at floridaelections.org.
