Angie Gallo won election to the top county-wide seat on the Orange County School Board Tuesday evening and will now serve as chair helping to lead one of the largest school districts in the country.

Orange County voters picked Gallo — the incumbent District 1 school board member who was endorsed by local Democrats and the teacher’s union — as the next board chair by a comfortable 59% to 41% margin over her opponent, Alicia Farrant, who had the backing of local conservatives.

The race between Gallo and Farrant garnered tens of thousands in spending on campaign advertising, including from outside organizations like the 1776 Project PAC and Southern Poverty Law Center, which sent campaign advertisements and text message blasts on behalf of each candidate.

The ads for Gallo pointed to Farrant’s history in the conservative Moms for Liberty group and argued she was “focused on culture wars” instead of students.

Voters in the county where Democrats dominate also picked two new Orange school board members, both backed by the local party, while a third seat is headed to a runoff in November.  The newly elected board members will be sworn in later this fall.

Chair

Gallo, who is the immediate past president of the Florida School Boards Association and a longtime public schools advocate, will be the board’s first new chair since 2018 and will succeed Teresa Jacobs, won the seat after serving as the mayor of Orange County.

She will navigate the board’s direction as it faces financial headwinds from declining student enrollment and rising healthcare costs. Gallo will also lead the board through hiring a new superintendent, as Superintendent Maria Vazquez will retire at the end of the school year.

The chair has most of the same duties as other board members and earns the same pay (about $50,000 this past year) but has the power to help set the board’s agenda and, in the event of a tie vote on the eight-member board, his or her side wins. The chair also runs the meetings. It is a position unique to Orange, as the 66 other county school boards in Florida elect their chairs from among their members.

District 1

Melissa Lopez Marantes, an attorney and executive director and co-founder of the Orlando Center for Justice, defeated local firefighter David Shepard for Orange County’s District 1 seat on the school board.

She earned about 60% of the vote while Shepard earned about 40% as of 8 p.m. Tuesday evening.

Lopez Marantes will take over the District 1 seat from Gallo, who won election to the county-wide chair.

District 2

Gloria Reina O’Neal, a former educator, former director of housing at the Orlando Housing Authority and current consultant for the federal government, defeated Marisol Lugo, a self-described “mother and community advocate” for the District 2 seat on the school board.

Reina O’Neal earned about 57% of the vote while Lugo earned 43%.

She will take over from the incumbent Maria Salamanca, who did not seek re-election.

District 3

Susanne Peña, a former OCPS teacher and current president of the Florida Association for Bilingual Education, is headed to a runoff election against former union president and current teacher Diana Moore for Orange County’s District 3 seat on the school board. Ilia Adorno, a former literacy coach, will not advance having only earned about 24% of the vote, compared to about 46% for Peña and about 30% for Moore.

The winner will take over the seat from Farrant, who having lost to Gallo will leave the board.

Seminole District 1

Kristine Kraus, the District 1 incumbent, defeated former Hagerty High School student and current Uinversity of Central Florida political science student Antonio Pizza.

A former chair of Seminole’s board, Kraus ran on a platform of reforming state-funded vouchers for private and homeschool education and finding creative ways to pass cost savings onto teachers for pay raises.

She was re-elected with about 68% of the vote, while Pizza earned about 32%

Seminole District 2

Holton Mills, an account executive at Lake Mary advertising firm and former chair of the Foundation for Seminole County Public Schools, defeated former school resource officer Joshua Memminger to win election to the Seminole County School Board.

Mills ran on a platform of expanding the district’s career and technical school offerings, and won the District 2 seat with a slim victory of 50.9% of the vote.

Seminole District 5

Autumn Garick, the District 5 incumbent, defeated chemical salesman Brian Newsome to win re-election. Garick was first elected in 2022, and ran this year on a platform of improving early childhood literacy and advocating for private school voucher reform.

Garick earned about 64% of the vote, while Newsome won about 36%.

Osceola District 1

Greg Filak, the chairman of the Celebration Community Development District and former school resource officer, defeated former long-time Osceola school board member Jay Wheeler for the District 1 seat.

Filak earned about 60% of the vote, while Wheeler earned about 40%.

Osceola District 3

Alyssa Noel, the chair of the Bellalago Academy’s school advisory council, looked likely to defeat Natalie Guzman, a local business owner, for Osceola’s District 3 school board seat.

Noel earned about 50.2% of the vote while Guzman earned about 49.8% — a margin of just 29 votes, based on unofficial results.

The race for District 3 appears to be within range for a recount, which Florida law requires if the margin is less than .5%.

Lake County District 1

Pat Kelley, the former mayor of Minneola, defeated Eric Schwalbach to win the District 1 seat on Lake County’s school board.

Kelley earned about 58.5% of the vote, while Schwalbach earned about 41.5%.

Marc Dodd ran unopposed for Lake County School Board District 3, and Stephanie Luke ran unopposed for District 5.