Seven candidates face off in an August primary election for three open seats on the Orange County School Board.<\/p>\n
Two of the seats are open because incumbents Angie Gallo, District 1, and Alicia Farrant, District 3, are stepping down and facing off in the race for school board chair<\/a>, the only countywide elected position on the eight-member board. Maria Salamanca, the board member from District 2, is not running for re-election, creating the third open seat in the Aug. 18 election.<\/p>\n While non-partisan, the local Republican and Democratic parties have endorsed slates of candidates in this cycle\u2019s school board races.<\/p>\n The winners will serve four-year terms and help run a school system facing many of the same challenges as other Central Florida school districts \u2014 shrinking enrollment and a growing budget deficit<\/a>. The board also has the key task of by next year hiring the district\u2019s next superintendent, as Superintendent Maria Vazquez is retiring<\/a> at the end of the 2026-27 school year.<\/p>\n The District 1 and District 2 races will be decided this month, but the District 3 races features three candidates and could go to a runoff in November, if none of the candidates gets more than 50% of the vote.<\/p>\n District 1<\/p>\n Melissa Lopez Marantes, an attorney, is the executive director and co-founder of the Orlando Center for Justice, a non-profit legal aid organization. She\u2019s also the mother of an Orange County Public Schools student.<\/p>\n \u201cOver the years, I\u2019ve realized how important it was for children to be able to be heard through adults, through the people around them,\u201d Lopez Marantes said.<\/p>\n The expansion of private school vouchers and the loss of immigrant students has taken millions of dollars away from school districts, she said.<\/p>\n The district should be working to bringing back students, but that will take time. OCPS teachers need salary increases now, Lopez Marantes said, so she wants to find ways to do that more quickly. That could include outside money from grants or more dual enrollment teaching opportunities that would allow teachers to earn more money by serving as college instructors, too.<\/p>\n \u201cWe need to look at more immediate solutions because we don\u2019t have time. Teachers don\u2019t have time to wait for an answer,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n She\u2019s earned the endorsement of the local teacher\u2019s union and several Central Florida Democratic lawmakers. Gallo has endorsed Lopez Marates as her successor.<\/p>\n David Shepard is a firefighter and father of an OCPS student and said he\u2019s running because he\u2019s seen programs disappear from his son\u2019s school and thinks school leaders should be more upfront about what is being cut to save money.<\/p>\n \u201cTransparency and accountability with how money is spent is a big topic when you\u2019re sitting here telling us that you are struggling for money \u2026 maybe if you didn\u2019t have the enrollment beforehand, doing a $17 million remodel to one of the schools and closing it doesn\u2019t seem fiscally responsible,\u201d Shepard said, citing ongoing school renovation projects amid continuing enrollment declines.<\/p>\n He said one of his top priorities is expanding and supporting the district\u2019s career and technical education offerings, which he said could help boost enrollment and bring in more money for teachers.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s creative ways through trade programs, agricultural programs of bringing in other funds to fund the school that makes us less reliant on Tallahassee\u2019s money,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n On enrollment, Shepard said the district could be doing more to meet parents halfway on alternative forms of schooling because private schools have made it easier for families to choose other options, if the district doesn\u2019t do so.<\/p>\n Shepard has earned the endorsement of the district\u2019s teachers union and the local Republican Party. He\u2019s proud of the union endorsement as he is a member of the local firefighter\u2019s union and believes fighting for better teacher pay is a priority.<\/p>\n He said the starting teacher salary of $50,000 in Orange isn\u2019t close to enough.<\/p>\n \u201cYou aren\u2019t even honoring the promise that you\u2019re selling to our kids by go to college, you\u2019ll have a better life, better outcome,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n District 2<\/p>\n Marisol Lugo describes herself on her campaign website as a \u201cmother and community advocate.\u201d She said she\u2019s running to \u201cbring faith-centered leadership, integrity, and real service to our schools and community.\u201d<\/p>\n Lugo did not respond to several requests for an interview ahead of publication, but her website states that she wants to give teachers competitive pay and quality healthcare.<\/p>\n She earned the endorsement of Farrant\u00a0and the local Republican Party.<\/p>\n Gloria Reina O\u2019Neal is a former educator, former director of housing at the Orlando Housing Authority for more than 15 years and is currently a consultant for the federal government. She wants to tackle the district\u2019s funding shortfalls in three parts: through lobbying the state for more money, through seeking alternative funding with grants and tourism dollars, and using property tax funds for teacher pay increases.<\/p>\n And with her background in affordable housing, she thinks the district could turn its declining enrollment issue into a solution.<\/p>\n \u201cWe will have some potentially vacant land. I would love to do an initiative \u2026 of how we could do alternative uses for schools, such as housing,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n She\u2019d like to see private school voucher reform to bring further accountability, she said. But OCPS can make itself the best option for parents and bring students back by being more flexible, Reina O\u2019Neal said.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of parents want flexibility. They want their kids to maybe go to school four hours a day because there\u2019s other priorities, such as sports or things like that, or they\u2019re in a gifted status and they want more access to a gifted program that\u2019s local,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Reina O\u2019Neal has been endorsed by the district\u2019s teachers union and several Central Florida Democratic lawmakers. She\u2019s also been endorsed by Salamanca.<\/p>\n District 3<\/p>\n Ilia Adorno is an \u201cadvocate for students with unique abilities\u201d according to her campaign website, and she worked in Orange County Public Schools as a literacy coach.<\/p>\n She did not respond to the Sentinel\u2019s requests for an interview ahead of publication, but her campaign websites list her priorities as \u201cpreparing students for real-world success\u201d, \u201clistening to families\u201d and \u201cvaluing educators.\u201d<\/p>\n She has earned endorsements from Farrant, who currently holds the District 3 seat, and the local Republican Party.<\/p>\n Diana Moore is the former president of the Orange County Classroom Teachers Association, the local union, and a current elementary teacher. She said she\u2019s running on a platform of parent partnership and financial accountability.<\/p>\n \u201cThe public needs to have transparency and integrity brought back to this office,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Moore said she wants to change the structure of OCPS\u2019 budget to provide higher salaries to teachers, including using more than $100 million of a so-called \u201cunassigned fund balance\u201d that the district \u201cisn\u2019t explaining\u201d what its doing with, she said.<\/p>\n She also believes the district needs to look inward for reasons why students are leaving OCPS, instead of blaming private school vouchers and birth rates.<\/p>\n \u201cI am a person that believes in solutions, not excuses. And lately, I\u2019ve been hearing a lot of excuses when it comes to why we are losing teachers and students in this district,\u201d Moore said.<\/p>\n Susanne Pe\u00f1a is an assistant professor at Florida International University, a former OCPS teacher, vice president of the Parent Teacher Association at her child\u2019s school, and president of the Florida Association for Bilingual Education.<\/p>\n \u201cI want to bring my experience, my knowledge, and my passion for education \u2014 for public education \u2014 onto the school board,\u201d Pe\u00f1a said.<\/p>\n She sees the issues facing OCPS \u2014 declining enrollment, budget woes and need for teacher pay increases \u2014 as interconnected and wants to make the district as attractive as possible to families to begin alleviating those issues.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you look at what schools you\u2019re going to enroll your child, you\u2019re going to say, \u2018There\u2019s no question about it. I\u2019m going to enroll them in OCPS,\u2019\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Pe\u00f1a said she has a track record of writing grants, including a multi-million dollar one between OCPS and the University of Central Florida. She said she wants to bring that experience onto the board to help earn more funding in creative ways.<\/p>\n She\u2019s earned the endorsement of the district\u2019s teachers union and several Central Florida Democratic lawmakers. Pe\u00f1a said no matter what happens on Aug. 18, she knows she\u2019ll continue to be right where she wants to be \u2014 in education \u2014 and that\u2019s how voters should know she\u2019s the \u201creal deal.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m still going to continue advocating for our students and our families, not only at the state level but at the national level as well. So this is not going to change for me, come August 19th. I\u2019m still in education,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Seven candidates face off in an August primary election for three open seats on the Orange County School…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":366787,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[113,114,266,115,139,141,140,109],"class_list":["post-366786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-education","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-social"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366786","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=366786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366786\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/366787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=366786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=366786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=366786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Her oldest son graduated from OCPS, and she has another son starting third grade. She decided to run, she said, because she \u201cwanted to initiate change where I can.\u201d<\/p>\n