A Palm Coast assistant principal tended to a uniquely Sunshine State problem while preparing for students to return to campus, because like they say, "only in Florida."
Rymfire Elementary School assistant principal Abra Seay shooed away a small alligator by the name of "Snappy," who was hidden under a teacher's car Aug. 4, in Flagler County, less than a week before the 2026-27 school year rolled around.
Snappy, the small gator, was under a teacher's car by one of the wheels. He lived in a large retention pond on campus at a school in Palm Coast, Florida.
Seay jumped into action. She grabbed a broom handle from a mop closet as she made her way out of the building, walked past the school bus drop-off and to the teachers' parking lot.
Seay saw the confrontation was drawing a crowd. She told people to stay back so they wouldn't scare the gator into running in the wrong direction.
"Because I knew he wanted to get back to the water, so I just went behind him and nudged him a little bit, and then coaxed him over, you know, to the left where he could go, and then he ran off," Seay said.
But the gator got stuck at the fence. Seay did some more nudging.
"I had to push him a little bit. And he hissed at me a couple times, but I knew he was, you know, wasn't gonna hurt anything," Seay said.
Soon Snappy was back in the pond.
It's not the first time Seay has had to manage some wildlife on campus.
She has had to get black racers to slither off school sidewalks before students would arrive lest they find the snakes blocking their path. The retention ponds are also home to many turtles, which sometimes crawl onto the path of cars and school buses, so Seay has had to remove them as well.
Seay also said there's been other gators at the retention pond. But she told the Flagler County Sheriff's Office school resource deputy, who, in turn, contacted the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, which arranges for the gators removal once they get too big.
Read more: 'Snappy,' Rymfire's resident gator, pays a visit before school starts
She said she wasn't worried about Snappy possibly taking a bite out of her.
"I knew if I just kept my distance from him, I had the pole in my hand. And you know, he's little, and I knew he was probably more scared of me than I was of him," she said. "So, it didn't really bother me. I mean, I wasn't about to go like pick him up or anything, but I knew that I could safely get him back."
The first day of the 2026-2027 school year for students in Flagler County and Volusia County is Monday, Aug. 10, 2026.
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Florida principal shoos away gator ahead of first day of school. Watch