BROWARD COUNTY, Fla. \u2014 With Broward County District 7 School Board Member Nora Rupert not seeking reelection, two candidates are now eyeing the seat to help lead the district that includes Coconut Creek, Deerfield Beach, Hillsboro Beach, Lighthouse Point, Margate, Pompano Beach and some tribal land in the county. <\/p>\n
U.S. Army veteran and nurse Cynthia Dominique described how she would tackle the district\u2019s severe financial challenges if elected.<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe we have to take a holistic approach,\u201d she said. \u201cWe have to find a way to pay our teachers more, including the staff who make learning possible, the bus drivers, the cafeteria workers, the custodian staff.\u201d<\/p>\n
Candidate Rochelle \u201cShelly\u201d Soffer is a school speech language pathologist and former teacher.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we get the budget, we have to scrutinize the budget,\u201d she said. \u201cWhere are we over-spending, where are we under-spending when we make these allocations, when we make these projections? Where are the projections not aligning?\u201d<\/p>\n
Both candidates detailed how they would address the district\u2019s declining enrollment as families opt out of traditional public school.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy are they looking at these other avenues? What is it that we are not doing as a county that would make them come back?\u201d asked Soffer. \u201cNow we\u2019ve heard safety and security, but we also gotta look at programming.\u201d<\/p>\n
Said Dominique: \u201cThe programs that we implement, the technology that we implement, we should be scrutinizing everything to make sure it\u2019s actually improving student outcomes and we\u2019re getting a return on our investment.\u201d<\/p>\n
School board elections are nonpartisan. <\/p>\n
While you do have to be registered to vote, you are not required to be registered with a political party in order to vote for who you want to see represent your district on the school board. <\/p>\n
Election day is set for Aug. 18. <\/p>\n
\ud83c\udfe0 News From Your Neighborhood<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by WPLG Local10.com – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BROWARD COUNTY, Fla. \u2014 With Broward County District 7 School Board Member Nora Rupert not seeking reelection, two…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":358162,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[249,251,250],"class_list":["post-358161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-lauderdale","tag-fort-lauderdale","tag-fort-lauderdale-headlines","tag-fort-lauderdale-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=358161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358161\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/358162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=358161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=358161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=358161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}