District 2 school board seats up for grabs May 11

The Indian River School District will hold a school board election on Tuesday, May 11, with voting from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.

There is one contested election this year, in District 2. The incumbent is current board vice president Kelly Willing, and she is being challenged by Rodney Layfield. The election is for a three-year term on the board.

Layfield is a state trooper and director of the State Bureau of Identification, which includes the sex-offender section, criminal history section and firearms section of the Delaware State Police. He is a Sussex Central High School graduate and said the main reason he wanted to run is because he has two young children in the district.

“I’d like to be an advocate for the parents,” he said, explaining that, although many of he and his wife’s friends send their children to private school, they made the decision three years ago to send their children to public school. He also has family in the public school system and said he feels as though he really has his fingers on the “pulse” of day-to-day happenings.

Randall Hughes of District 3 is also up for re-election in 2010, but no one filed to run against him, so he will automatically receive a new three-year term.

Polling places for the May 11 election for District 2 are: Georgetown Elementary School, 301A West Market Street in Georgetown, and Millsboro Middle School, East State Street in Millsboro.

The deadline for mailing absentee ballots is Friday, May 7, at noon. Affidavits for absentee voting are available at www.electionssc.delaware.gov or by calling (302) 856-5367. The forms will be mailed. Affidavits must be submitted before the absentee ballot can be mailed to voter. May 10 at noon is the deadline to vote on an absentee ballot in person in the Office of the Department of Elections.

In order to vote, voters must be a bona fide resident of that school district, a citizen of the United States and 18 or older. Proof of identity is required. District 2 covers much of the area north of Millsboro, not including the town of Millsboro, and much of the area south of Georgetown, not including the town of Georgetown.