The school superintendent race is very heated this year. Addison Davis is challenging incumbent Charlie Van Zant and the gloves have been off since the beginning of the race.

Davis has been hammering Van Zant on different issues such as the school rating, enforcing President Barack Obama’s transgender bathroom mandate and Davis states parents are moving to Duval County from Clay to put their students in their schools.

Last time I checked, Clay County is a very conservative district. What voters may or may not know is Davis seemingly is not a conservative. Many have even stated he should really be a registered Democrat. Duval County tends to more left leaning and their schools reflect that as well.

Davis has even been openly urging Democrats in the district to change their party affiliation so they can vote for him. He has also been accepting money from several left leaning unions and the PAC that supports him has had contributions from the gambling industry and Gary Chartrand who openly pushes the LGBT agenda. Chartrand started donating to Davis’s PAC after Van Zant’s announced he will not enforce Obama’s transgender mandate.

Truth be told, Clay County’s school rating did decrease to a “B” from a “A” but that is not because Van Zant is doing a bad job, in actuality the school district’s grade has increased. The reason they got a “B” rating is because the Department of Education changed the way they are grading schools across the state. 32 school districts in total have dropped a letter grade due to the changes. Only one district in Florida saw an increase. That was Gadsden county. They went from a “D” rating to a “C” rating. Last year Florida had 22 “A” school districts whereas this year only 3 school district got an “A” in the entire state.

In regards to President Obama’s transgender bathroom mandate, Van Zant has been opposed to enforcing it from day 1. He actually refused to enforce it, as we covered earlier on this year.

On the flip side Davis’s Duval County schools embraced Obama’s mandate. This rhetoric is dangerous for a conservative district and even the Supreme Court seemingly does not agree with it. On Wednesday, acting on a 5-3 vote, the justices put on hold a court ruling requiring a Virginia school district to accommodate a transgender high school student’s request to use the boy’s bathroom. As reported by Politico, this is the first time the court has shown interest in the transgender bathroom issue and it is considered to be a direct blow to the mandate.

Davis has also said over and over again that Clay County residents are moving to Duval County because of the school system. That is a lie. In actuality residents are moving to Clay County because they know Duval County schools are not that good. This was blatantly obvious when Oakleaf residents were infuriated when it was suggested their children might have to go to Duval County schools due to overcrowding.

A parent told First Coast News:

What the board is proposing is for our kids to be bused through Jacksonville to a sub-par school than the one they are zoned for. It makes absolutely no sense.

That parent’s name was Miles Manning. He grew up in Jacksonville and said he and his wife saved money for years to move to Oakleaf for the schools. Oakleaf is in Clay County.

Why this is important is Davis is the Chief of Duval County Public Schools. What that means is he one of the top school officials for Duval County. He serves in the Cabinet right under the Superintendent of Schools Dr. Nikolai P. Vitti and as a matter of fact, he praises Dr. Vitti a lot in his speeches.

This is the difference between Clay County Schools and Duval County Schools:

Clay County

Rank: 17th in the state

Amount of “D” schools: 0

Graduation Rate: 83.7%

Change from 2011- 2015: +9.5%

Top Ten Tests: 10/22

Duval County

Rank: 27th in the state

Amount of “D” schools: 37

Graduation Rate: 76.6%

Change from 2011-2015: +8.9%

Top Ten Tests: 0/22

It is obvious Duval County schools are not better than Clay County. Facts don’t lie but politicians do.