Five candidates are on the ballot to take the Manatee County School Board District 2 seat this fall with hopes of addressing the needs of the district made up almost entirely of Title 1 schools.
The Manatee County School District was just a few points away from being a grade-A school district this year, maintaining a grade B since 2017 when it rose from a C, according to the Florida Department of Education 2026 School Grades Report.
Incumbent Cindy Spray, Rev. James Golden, Justin "JT" White, Margaret "Margi" Nanney and Sharon Jefferson are vying for the seat.
Spray, 70, a registered Republican, said she wants to keep the momentum of her work on the school board going. Prior to being on the board, she worked in the corporate sector for 40 years. This experience is valuable to the board, she said, for situations like analyzing contracts or dissecting budgets.
Coming into the board, her focus was “getting back to the basics,” she said, like reading, writing and math. Throughout her term, Spray said the board was able to give teachers more resources, increase communication with parents and raise district academic scores.
She believes social media is one of the district’s biggest challenges because it creates behavioral issues. Sitting on the board, Spray said she represents “the customer,” who isn’t the voter – "it's the students, parents, teachers, principles, and everyone else who works under the school system."
Spray leads in campaign contributions at almost $27,000, including a donation from the Tea Party Manatee Inc, a PAC. She’s received thousands of dollars in contributions from businesses ranging from farming to real estate, and even Waste Pro.
District 5 seat board member Richard Tatem, who chose not to run again, donated about $175 to her campaign and publicly endorsed her. The Manatee Patriots, a politically conservative organization, also endorsed her. According to her social media, several community members have endorsed her as well, including Manatee County Sheriff Rick Wells.
Gov. Ron DeSantis endorsed her when she ran in 2022, though he hasn’t shared any school board candidate endorsements this year.
Golden, 78, a registered Democrat and member of the Florida Bar, is running for the school board again after losing in the race for the District 5 seat in 2022. He initially launched his campaign this year for the District 5 seat, then changed to run for District 2 because of redistricting changes.
His political campaigning history is long, and occasionally successful. Golden has run for the school board unsuccessfully three times; he ran and lost in 1998, 2014 and 2022. He lost in a run for Congress in 2010, and he lost in the 2012 race for the Manatee County Commission. He lost the race for the District 73 Florida House seat in 2016.
Golden did have some wins – he was elected to terms on the Bradenton City Council in 1999 and 2003, though he did not win re-election in 2007. He was elected to the School Board for District 5 in 2018, during which he became the first African American male to serve as the board’s chair.
Golden said his reason for running again is to improve the quality of public education in the county and state, which he said has deteriorated and became increasingly divisive.
“I’m wanting to be on the Manatee County School Board to improve public education in Florida,” Golden said.
The challenges in District 2 are the same challenges as around the county, he said, which are the same as the challenges across Florida. To Golden, it boils down to privatizing education – there are more alternatives to public education, he said, and school systems aren’t focusing on providing better public schools.
Public education teacher pay isn’t what it should be, and public schools have different standards than alternative options, he said. Golden said he would be a strong advocate for increasing funding for public education and trying to attract “younger people into the profession of public education.”
Golden comes in last with campaign contributions at about $3,200 – about $550 came from individual donations. He donated the rest to himself. Golden is endorsed by the Manatee Democratic Party.
White, 40, a registered Republican, is the media personality behind Makin Noize TV, a YouTube talk show where he’s interviewed guests ranging from musicians and athletes to porn stars. As the son of an educator, White said he’s been “entrenched in everything education since I was in elementary school.”
He decided to run for the board because he was “disenchanted with the literacy rates plaguing our state and also plaguing Manatee County.”
A strong pillar of his campaign calls for a shift away from technology-based curriculums. He worked for the district as a computer tech, and he said he regularly saw the technology being used in the school system. Programs like Lexia are a “definite contributing factor of why the literacy rates are so low,” he said. Lexia is a technology-based literacy and reading software.
A lot of people don’t know who their current District 2 representative is, White added, because of a lack of visibility. If White is elected, he said there won’t be a doubt whether he cares for the district or not.
"I care with my whole heart,” he said. “District 2 is my family. I am District 2. I know too many people, family members, friends, prior career colleagues that live in District 2 and they are expecting for me, or whoever their District 2 representative is, to represent them in their interest.”
White raised about $3,300 in campaign contributions, which have been made up of individual contributions of $500 or less, and over $2,200 coming out of his own pocket.
Manatee County court records show a judge withheld adjudication on a domestic battery charge against White from 2017 that occurred at his home. This spared him from a formal conviction. He completed his sentence in 2020.
White said he doesn’t promote violence toward women, and the accusation against him was false.
Nanney, 72, a registered Republican, owned a stock car track in East Manatee County and founded Baskerville King Advertising & Public Relations. She has about 20 years of experience working in the Manatee County School District in multiple roles, from being a teacher to becoming the district's supervisor of communications and public information.
She has community and volunteer experience ranging from being a volunteer coach for the Technology Student Association to being on the boards of the Manatee Chamber of Commerce and Manatee Economic Development Council.
Running for the board is a goal Nanney’s had for a long time, and it’s an “extension of how I can still give more back,” she said.
Nanney said she wants to “keep the focus on the child,” and she vowed to “never be a rubber-stamp voter” if elected.
She is second to Spray in campaign contributions, with about $15,000 raised. While the majority of her contributions are from individuals, with some reaching $1,000, the Republican Club of Manatee County donated $1,000 to her campaign. Businesses like Great Tree Apartments and Haul Away of the Suncoast Inc. have also donated toward her efforts.
Nanney has been endorsed by City of Bradenton Vice Mayor Jayne Kocher and former Manatee County School District Superintendent Roger Dearing. The Christian Family Coalition listed her as highly qualified candidate as well.
Jefferson, 54, a registered Democrat, is currently a civics teacher in the county. Education has been her lifelong work, she said, and she’s been in the field for over 26 years.
She decided to run after teaching about the duties and responsibilities of citizens to her students, Jefferson recounted. She always told them “if you feel like you can make a difference, then run for office.”
“I began to realize that there’s so much more that I need to do that I still just can’t do,” Jefferson said. “I wanted to reach more people.”
Jefferson started RECESS Education, a nonprofit organization to help support families at Title 1 schools, and Freedom Leadership Academy, a nonprofit to help children's parents earn their high school diplomas. She’s been involved with the community through several other means, from being the education chair of the Manatee County branch of the NAACP to being on the Manatee County Children’s Services Advisory Board.
She said she wants to continue being a voice for families and advocate for policies that will ensure children have the opportunities to be successful.
Jefferson has raised about $3,700 in campaign contributions. All were individual contributions of $200 or less. She has been recommended by the Manatee Democratic Party and the Democratic Public Education Caucus of Manasota, according to her social media.
Literacy
If reelected, Spray said she wants to “continue the momentum on reading results.”
She attributes the district’s improved reading scores to getting a reading coach into every school, and mentorship programs where volunteers can mentor students who are struggling.
Targeting early learning was her initiative, and Spray said she thinks the board has made progress. Though there’s more work to be done, she added, more schools improved their reading levels during her term.
Spray credits the direction of Laurie Breslin, the county’s superintendent, who was appointed in September 2025.
Until and unless the state of Florida invests more money into improving literacy, Golden said there won’t be much change – even if there’s more funds from the county.
He questioned whether Manatee County is devoting a similar number of funds to improving literacy compared to other counties in the state. Golden said the district needs to focus on how it’s funding the challenges of reading scores.
“You’re not going to change the reading scores by not investing more in the process of teaching children how to read,” Golden said.
According to White, the only way to improve literacy in the district is to gradually scale back the technology used in classrooms and “shift those funds over to actual people,” he said. To do that, he wants to see the district budget “line by line,” and find out how effective each program has been.
The best way to help students is through human interaction, he said. Right now, he said teachers aren’t in the position to work with children one on one because they’re primarily using technology to teach them.
To make that happen, White said he wants to bring at least three reading coaches into every elementary school across the county, but ideally five. He said he wants reading coaches in middle and high schools as needed.
“We have to have the confidence in the people in order for them to give the kids the confidence to read,” White said.
Nanney said getting more one-on-one reading time with children will help. To do that, she wants to introduce what she calls “people power;” volunteers from the community and more reading coaches.
Jefferson said while there are already reading coaches to help improve literacy, teacher shortages are impacting the coaches’ ability to focus on their job. Instead, she said the district needs an adequate amount of teachers so coaches can do their job. If the district can cure that issue, she said, “that’s going to help a lot of our struggling schools.”
Investing in before and after-school programs is important, she said, as well as bringing in more community partnerships.
Getting to an A District
To get the district to an A, Spray said it’s a matter of focusing on the lower performing schools and maintaining the higher-performing schools. The board was only a few points away from being an A, she said, and it’s a goal she thinks the district can attain.
There’s already been progress made though – Spray said when she first started, she got complaints from teachers that students were coming into early grade levels unable to hold a pencil and without classroom etiquette.
Through partnering with organizations, she said the board has been able to get more students classroom-ready, which has “made a huge difference in getting our scores up,” Spray said.
“I think we’re going to get there,” she said. “I really do.”
To get to an A, Golden said the district needs to be compliant with the standards that support quality public education, as “opposed to appeasing the divisiveness that always inherently takes away from that.”
He said he would want to improve the way school advisory councils are involved.
Golden used to meet with the community while he was on the board, he said, to speak to parents who couldn’t attend school board meetings. It’s something he would like to bring back if he’s elected.
There are a few issues White said are in the district’s way of an A. One is the disconnect between the leadership and students, teacher and administrators. He said Manatee County’s teachers need their leadership to listen to them, White said, but right now, they feel ignored.
A simple way to make them feel heard is through responding to their emails, he said; Several parents and teachers have told him they don’t get responses when they reach out to the school board, he said.
One of his other top priorities would be making sure children, teachers and administrators are always safe inside of their schools, he said. Teacher retention is another important issue – there's an “influx of exceptional teachers here in Manatee County,” White said, but the current leadership has handicapped them. Teachers know the children’s needs, he said, and the School Board needs to take away constraints on them.
To get the whole district to an A, Nanney said the district needs to follow the superintendent’s lead.
An important part in improving the district is through retaining teachers, Nanney said, and she believes, Breslin has what it takes to analyze the district’s $1.7 billion budget to increase teacher pay. She said she wants to know where every dollar is, and make sure every dollar needed to go into classrooms is where they belong.
The goal, she said, is to make sure “we’re very lean at the top in administration and heavy in the classroom with the money.”
Other ways to improve the district include getting to know every school in District 2, she said, to learn what their needs are. She said she wants to be more clear about how the district is using the budget, as well as how testing and scores work.
Improving student mental health is another one of Nanney’s priorities. She also wants to introduce trade career options into schooling at a younger age, where young children can see trades like plumbing and mechanics, instead of just college options.
The county won’t get to be a grade-A district, Jefferson said, without providing adequate support to District 2 schools.
Recruiting and retaining teachers is one of the districts’ biggest challenges, Jefferson added, and it would be a part of her day one priorities. Teachers need more support right now, she said, and they need more incentives and tools to recruit more quality teachers into Title 1 schools.
Giving monetary funds is important, Jefferson said, but giving teachers more opportunities for leadership roles and to exercise their talents is also essential to making teachers feel rewarded.
“We have so many educators who have a skill set that needs to be utilized,” she said, “And sometimes that goes unnoticed.”
Another way to improve the district is through addressing students’ mental health needs, Jefferson said. She wants to bring more guidance counselors and social workers into the schools, and she’s prepared to tighten the budget.
Book Bans
When it comes to books, Spray said the board follows federal and state statute, and it’s “simple as it can be.”
If there’s a book not permitted by the state, it won’t be in the school, she said.
“That’s just the way it’s going to be,” Spray said. “I’m not going to, you know, risk our district being fined.”
If there are books you don’t want your child to read, Golden said parents should be able to opt out of it. But he doesn’t think anyone other than educators should dictate that decision.
“I don’t think you ought to have the right to keep everyone’s child to be exposed to (certain books),” Golden said.
There’s no “one size fits all,” White said, when it comes to books. He said kindergarten and elementary schools need to have age-appropriate books that can help children build up social awareness within themselves, he added.
Books should be a free-for-all in high school, White added. He doesn’t want to ban books that express different opinions, he said, as it’s “always good to be able to expand your knowledge base.”
When it comes to books, Nanney said she is “all about following the law.”
Parents have the right to know what books are in school libraries, she said, and age appropriate is “where we draw the line.”
Jefferson said she doesn’t believe in book bans, but the school has the authority to choose what books are being used. She supports age-appropriate books, she added.
“I’m a parent, so that’s just something I kind of stand by,” she said.
This story is part of a statewide partnership of 27 nonpartisan newsrooms and universities working to help Florida voters make informed decisions in the 2026 school board elections. Learn more about the Florida Election Reporting Partnership at floridaelections.org.
For more information on candidates running in the Florida primaries check out the Florida Public Media Voter Guide.
