- December 23, 2024
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When the winner of the School Board of Manatee County’s District 1 election is sworn in, that person will have to join fellow board members in making difficult decisions.
The board will have to address the results of the 1-mill property tax referendum being on the ballot, the possibility of partisan elections, parental rights and more.
Parrish’s Heather Felton and East County’s Mark Stanoch, who are vying for the District 1 seat on the School Board of Manatee County, shared their thoughts on issues the district and the board will face if elected.
The referendum is on the ballot again for renewal in November.
In 2023-2024, the adopted budget for the millage totaled nearly $69.3 million and provided funding for salaries, STEM programs, visual and performing arts programs, career and technical education programs, the extension of the school day by 30 minutes and charter schools.
Both Felton and Stanoch said the millage is needed, especially for teachers to be paid fairly and for salaries to be competitive.
In 2023-2024, teachers received a $8,362 supplement from the referendum.
Without competitive salaries, Felton and Stanoch said the district will risk losing teachers and exacerbating the teacher shortage.
An ongoing debate since the millage was first approved in 2017 has been why the district depends on a referendum to support teacher salaries rather than paying it out of the district’s general fund.
Felton said she’s heard the debate several times, but “there is no way to do that” as it would “take a serious reworking of the budget.”
“We would need additional funds from the state to be able to cover all of those salaries and to keep them competitive,” Felton said. “Until such time as we get the funding we need into the general fund, it’s not going to happen. People have been saying they’re going to do that for years, since they first came out with the mill, and nobody has been able to figure out how to do it.”
Stanoch said “there has to be a way” to put all salary expenses into the general fund.
“I have to analyze exactly how that dynamic works or better understand it because I can’t see why this should be an exception and not the rule,” he said. “I’m not really sure we can, but I hope we can find a way to pay all of our teachers more than adequately and not have to go to a referendum every four years.”
The current school board has decided to add funding allocations for athletics, early literacy programs and school safety and security to the referendum.
Both Felton and Stanoch said funding for early literacy programs and school safety and security is crucial if the district wants to progress its reading scores and further improve upon the safety of the schools.
But the candidates differed on their thoughts regarding athletics.
Felton said if the district is contributing funds for athletics, the district should provide funds for all extracurriculars because there are many students involved in extracurriculars that don’t involve athletics.
Stanoch said although he would have to look into more of how the district plans to spend millage dollars on athletics, he said it will be a “great way for the community to get involved with their local school,” which is why he supports adding athletics to the referendum.
Residents will vote on a ballot measure that would add party labels to local school board races.
Currently, school board races are nonpartisan.
Felton said the school board races should stay that way.
“Every person, regardless of party affiliation, should want the best education available to our children, so I don’t see how making elections partisan is going to benefit anyone,” she said. “When it comes to things like primary elections, if it’s only two Republicans or two Democrats running for a seat at the primary, then only people affiliated with that party will be able to vote for those candidates. Every person should have a say in who is going to be on their school board because it affects everyone, not just people of one party.”
Stanoch said he’s ambivalent to the measure. He said it’s “great to keep politics out of it” and have people campaign on their beliefs, but at the same time, party affiliation gives a hint as to the candidate’s beliefs.
“I’m leaning more toward it becoming partisan rather than nonpartisan, only because it’s in full transparency,” he said. “We’ve knocked on thousands of doors since the middle of December, and the first question people ask you is, ‘Are you Republican?’ I guess if you give the people the knowledge up front, what the candidates’ party affiliations might help them make their decisions better.”
The removal of books has been a controversy the district has been dealing with for more than a year now. The school board has revised its policy to match the state’s requirements, but the debate continues.
Felton said book banning started as a reactionary response to a small group of people making complaints. Felton said “not every book should stay in every school because age appropriateness is imperative.”
“That doesn’t mean that classics and books in which young people can find themselves in should be removed because one or two people don’t want children to have access to it,” she said.
She said if parents don’t want their children accessing particular books, they can limit the access, but a parent or citizen who does not have children in the district should not determine for every parent what their children can access.
Stanoch said the district should be focusing on academic performance, and if there is anything that distracts from that, including inappropriate materials, it should be avoided.
The removal of books has fallen under the question of parental rights. What are parents allowed to have a say in and control within the school system?
Stanoch said parents are responsible for the health and safety of their children as well as providing them an education, so parents should be “included in all communications and decision making for their children, unless they want to relinquish that.”
“Parents are an integral part of our child’s education, and therefore should exercise their rights as strongly as possible,” he said.
Stanoch said parents have the ability to comment on the curriculum presented in schools, but many parents often don’t know they have a say. The district seeks public input before adopting curriculum and textbooks.
Felton said the state sets the standards and the district needs to meet them, but there are ways in which schools can work with parents to meet their students’ needs, and it should take priority.
She said if a teacher is trying to teach certain literary skills but a parent disagrees with the book, the teacher can find an alternate book that covers the same skills and standards.
