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Karen Perez\u00a0<\/p>\nKaren Perez\u00a0<\/p>\n
Editor\u2019s Note \u2014\u00a0As the Midterm Election season begins to heat up in both Hillsborough and Pasco Counties \u2014 and throughout the entire State of Florida \u2014 we will\u00a0attempt\u00a0to preview as many of the local races in which voters in New Tampa & Wesley Chapel can cast ballots between now and the\u00a0Primary Election\u00a0on\u00a0Tuesday, August 18,\u00a0and continuing up until the\u00a0General Election\u00a0on\u00a0Tuesday, November 3. Our first preview is the nonpartisan\u00a0District\u00a06 Hillsborough School Board\u00a0race between the two-term incumbent (and current Board Chair) Karen Perez and her opponents Sally Harris Williamson and Kenneth \u201cKen\u201d Gay.<\/p>\n
Two-term District 6 incumbent\u00a0Karen Perez, 62, is the only candidate of the three who has ever lived in New Tampa and she has been both the chair and vice-chair during her eight years on School\u00a0 Board.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Karen has seen\u00a0 \u2014 and had to deal with \u2014 all of the changes happening throughout the District. She and her fellow School Board members also unanimously voted last month to put extending the half-cent sales tax that \u2014 according to Superintendent of Schools Van Ayres \u2014 has already funded 910 completed projects, to the tune of $1.25 billion, thanks to the first eight years of the tax. The original half-penny sales tax will expire in 2028 unless voters approve extending it for ten more years.<\/p>\n
As for what Karen thinks are the major accomplishments the School Board has made during her tenure, she says that the graduation rates at both Wharton and Freedom have gone up during her tenure. \u201cAnd, across the District, we\u2019re up to a 93% graduation rate, which is great,\u201d she says. \u201cBut this year, we want to look at that 7% who didn\u2019t graduate and see what they need, and put those services and supports in place to get that remaining 7% over that threshold.\u201d<\/p>\n
Karen also mentions that throughout the Tampa Bay area, \u201ca lot of students didn\u2019t go to school (this year) because of ICE (Immigration & Customs Enforcement) \u2014 because they were afraid. But, we didn\u2019t have too much of that in New Tampa.\u201d<\/p>\n
She added, however, that a few years ago, \u201cThere were a lot of kids skipping school, hanging out at the Walmart (next to Wharton) and we had complaints from Walmart about those students, but that\u2019s tapered down, so I\u2019m excited about that change, too.\u201d<\/p>\n
Karen also says that she attended this year\u2019s awards ceremony at Freedom High and Liberty Middle School, and a lot of accolades were being given to students, their parents and the teachers\u00a0 for improving the students\u2019 grades \u2014 and the schools\u2019 grades.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cLiberty is looking like an \u2018A\u2019 school and Freedom is looking like it will be a \u2018B\u2019 school this year,\u201d she says, \u201cso that parent involvement has really made a big difference.\u201d<\/p>\n
She also says that she and Dist. 3 Board member and chair Jessica Vaughn, who also lives in New Tampa, are looking into trying to find teacher-only housing in the New Tampa area, \u201cand of course, paying our teachers a livable wage is still Priority One for me,\u201d she says. \u201cNew Tampa is an amazing area and we want our teachers to be able to afford to [live and] remain in this area.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Karen also is trying to make sure that underutilized schools are filled, \u201cwhich is why we have to move Pizzo\u2019s students to schools with empty space (including Tampa Palms Elementary), so the \u2018Schools of Hope\u2019 don\u2019t come in to claim those spaces. I want our parents to know that I\u2019m a big \u2018No\u2019 on giving up any of our space to the Schools of Hope.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
She\u2019s also had Superintendent Ayres looking into adding vocational programs for students who may not be college bound at more than just the two current vocational schools (in Plant City and on Hillsborough Ave.).<\/p>\n
And finally, Karen says that as a clinical social worker for children, adolescents and young adults, she has been a champion for helping find ways to improve the mental health of students across the District, \u201cwhich is a big issue these days that was always swept under the rug before,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
For more info or to donate to her campaign, visit KeepKarenPerez.com<\/a>.\u00a0 At our press time, Karen\u2019s campaign had raised $37,632, the most of the three Dist. 6 candidates. \u00a0<\/p>\n Meanwhile, candidate\u00a0Sally Harris Williamson\u00a0is the only other candidate in the Dist. 6 race who previously served on the School Board.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cMiss Sally,\u201d 75, who won the Dist. 2 runoff election in 2014 (52.53-47.47% over Michelle Popp Shimberg, after finishing a distant second to Shimberg in the Primary Election), served from 2014-18 and as the Board chair from 2018 until her term ended in Jan. 2019.<\/p>\n She lost her Dist. 2 seat to Stacy Hahn in 2018 and was defeated for the at-large Dist. 7 seat by Lynn Gray in a runoff in 2020.\u00a0<\/p>\n Sally has lived in Hillsborough County since she was in the third grade and graduated from Robinson High. She was a career counselor at Monroe Middle School and then at Tampa Bay Tech before opening the Circle C Ranch Academy preschool in South Tampa. \u201cThe \u2018C\u2019 stood for\u00a0 \u2018Circling Children with Love,\u201d she says. \u201cI had 180 children for 41 years.\u201d<\/p>\n The school, \u201chad a farm environment, right outside the gates of Macdill Air Force Base,\u201d she says. \u201cI had horses, cows, goats, sheep, chickens and pigs. The kids got to go out and collect and cook the eggs. It was for ages one to four.\u201d<\/p>\n She adds that, as time went on, \u201cit became a special needs place, just as Asperger\u2019s and autism seemed to be exploding. When I opened it (in 1982), autism affected one child in 20. But, when I closed it (in 2023), it was one in seven.\u201d<\/p>\n Sally and her husband (the late Bob Harris) ended up adopting a special needs child and she and husband M.C. Williamson have fostered as many as 100 girls in their home over the years.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cBut I also got my staff fully trained,\u201d she says. \u201cWe had occupational therapy, physical therapy, speech\u2026we serviced the whole child. And the kids got to spend a lot of time outdoors.\u201d<\/p>\n She says she realized that by the time her special needs kids graduated from high school, \u201cthey weren\u2019t learning anything. They didn\u2019t have any skills. When the School District received a $100-million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (in 2009; primarily used to increase salaries across the District), they took the vocational programs \u2014 carpentry, auto mechanics \u2014 out of the middle and high schools and put them at just a couple of vocational centers. But, these kids and their families wanted to go to their neighborhood schools, so I ran for School Board in 2014 to try to help.\u201d<\/p>\n But, Sally says, \u201cThat was a horrible time to be on the School Board. My first week on the job, I was put in a position that they were firing Superintendent Mary Ellen Elia, and my vote was the swing vote. And I had enough information to know that we were financially in trouble from trying to match that [Gates] grant, because we had to meet that grant 50-50 and the District was in the red. But they were keeping it quiet. There was just so much drama.\u201d<\/p>\n She added, however, that new Superintendent of Schools Jeff Eakins got the half-penny sales tax put on the ballot, \u201cand he said that if it passed, by the end of the ten years, the District would be out of debt, the reserves would go back up to 10% and we would not need to go after the tax again. Well, it\u2019s on the ballot (in Nov.) to extend the tax another 10 years and I can\u2019t wait to get in [office], dig in and find out why. I\u2019m a tough cookie. I can get in there, pay attention and come up with creative ideas of what to do.\u201d<\/p>\n Sally also says that the School District still is not prepared for the numbers of special needs children there are living in the District, \u201cThank heavens, we have some fabulous charter schools out there that are meeting the needs of these kids.\u201d She adds that in order for public school districts to properly help these special needs students, \u201cthey have to have the freedom to isolate the children who can\u2019t mainstream, but the rules will have to change to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n She doesn\u2019t know a lot of information about New Tampa\u2019s schools in particular, not even realizing that our area\u2019s once-overcrowded schools are now losing more and more students to nearby charter and private schools. \u201cI think what really needs to happen, but the District is scared to do it, is redraw all school boundaries by neighborhoods. Then, you wouldn\u2019t have to close any schools.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Salley-Harris.png\")
Sally Harris\u00a0Williamson\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Ken-Gay.png\")
Kenneth \u201cKen\u201d Gay<\/p>\n