As Hillsborough County faces increased challenges due to budget constraints, staffing and school closures, six candidates are competing for seats on the school board.
Hillsborough County has seven school districts. Districts 2, 4 and 6 are in the race this year, with Districts 1, 3, 5 and 7 set for an election in 2028.
Districts 2 and 4 are single-member districts, meaning only residents registered to vote within the district can vote for the race. District 6 is a countywide seat, meaning anyone registered in Hillsborough County can vote in this race.
Districts 2 and 6 each have three candidates, while District 4, the largest single-member district in the county, is unopposed, with Patti Rendon the automatic winner.
All candidates are presented in alphabetical order.
District 2
Brittany Lyssy, Daniela Simic and Christopher Taylor are running for Hillsborough District 2, which runs from Hyde Park to Ruskin and contains 42 public schools.
Stacy Hahn, the sitting school board member, is not running for reelection and is instead running for the Hillsborough County Commission.
Lyssy is a registered Republican, while Simic and Taylor are both Democrats.
Lyssy has $65,558 in monetary donations, Simic has $37,618 and Taylor has $50,230, according to campaign finance information.
Current Hillsborough County District 4 School Board member Patti Rendon endorsed Lyssy’s campaign, alongside Hillsborough County Commissioner Joshua Wostal, the Tampa Police Benevolent Association and the Tampa Firefighters Local 754.
Florida House of Representatives member Danny Alvarez and Florida House candidates Michael Owen and Berny Jacques also endorsed her campaign.
The Hillsborough Classroom Teachers Association, Ruth’s List Florida, Florida Education Association, the Hillsborough Society and Florida State Senator Brian Nathan have endorsed Simic’s campaign.
Taylor does not have public endorsements but has received support and contributions from Florida business owners, real estate advisors and physicians.
Brittany Lyssy
Brittany Lyssy, 31, is an attorney and of counsel with the Phillips, Hayden and Labbee law firm.
Lyssy declined an interview for this story.
However, in response to a candidate survey for the Florida Public Media Voter Guide, Lyssy said the top three issues in the district are academic achievement, fiscal responsibility and the restoration of order and confidence in public schools.
“We must strengthen reading and math instruction, use tax dollars transparently, and put classrooms first,” she said in the survey. “I would support consistent student discipline, teacher support and retention and strong parental involvement so families are treated as true partners in their child's education.”
On a campaign flyer, Lyssy said her experience as a public-schooling parent, lawyer and former City of Tampa Citizens Advisory Budget and Finance Committee member has prepared her to take on the role of a school board member.
Lyssy believes in strengthening reading and math in schools, prioritizing classrooms and students in the budget and preparing students for future success, according to the flyer.
Additionally, on her campaign website, Lyssy said strong schools require strong families, fiscal discipline, responsibility and accountability.
Daniela Simic
Daniela Simic, 48, is an account executive with Magic School AI, an educator-based alternative artificial intelligence system for teachers and educators.
Simic said she's running for school board because she knows how a district is run from both the inside — as an educator for
25 years and the PTA president at her son’s school — and the outside through legislation.
“The school board level of government is kind of that last stop before policies hit your school districts and your teachers and your students, so to me I've fully believed that that local level control is where most change happens,” Simic said.
She said the main challenges in the district are teacher retention, lower enrollment, safety and communication.
Simic said teacher retention is an issue due to compensation, unsustainable workloads and restrictive policies that require teachers to jump through hoops.
“We are 50th in the nation with teacher pay, but they'll tell you that it's because of the enormous amount of additional expectations that are placed upon them that makes their roles unsustainable,” Simic said. “So many different things that make you feel like you're not a professional.”
Simic said creating policies to support teachers, including protecting planning hours and creating tools or training teachers to build curriculum, would help prevent overworking teachers.
She also believes it’s important for schools to create and market worthwhile programs for students so they don’t leave.
“We do a really good job at providing different pathways for our students, but we need to keep building on that,” Simic said.
She said this also ties into addressing absenteeism.
Additionally, as a mother, Simic said the safety and security of public schools is important everywhere and she hopes to work on prevention methods.
“I'm really proud of what our school district has done to put security measures in place, so that our schools are physically safe,” Simic said. “But if we're not focusing on those preventative systems, we're not focusing on how we're addressing students who have mental health needs, then we're not able to stop an issue before it escalates into something greater.”
She said being available is a vital first step for the school board, from building a public-facing dashboard to creating new policies that involve the community a little more.
“If our families feel that they are not being heard, if our teachers feel like they are just told to do things rather than being a part of the process, that's when you lose people,” Simic said. “If people don't understand the why behind decisions, that's when you lose people, and we need to build trust. We need to build relationships, and I believe you do that through communication and transparency.”
Chris Taylor
Christopher Taylor, 62, has lived in Hillsborough for 30 years and serves as the executive vice president for corporate strategy at LM Funding, a NASDAQ public company that works with cryptocurrency mining.
However, before moving to private equity and investment, Taylor was a teacher and wrestling coach in Hillsborough County schools for more than 20 years.
“I think education changes lives, and I'm at a point in time in my life where I'm working hard at not working hard, but I've always had this desire to touch lives and to move the needle, and this is another opportunity for me to do that,” Taylor said.
Taylor said he has stayed involved with education through nonprofit organizations and foundations, such as the Hillsborough Education Foundation, which provides resources and supplies to schools and teachers across the county.
He said he believes in early education as a solution to other district-wide issues, including lower test scores, literacy and graduation rates.
Still, he said the main challenges he sees in the district are teacher turnover rates, budget constraints and the over-standardization of public education.
Taylor said teachers often leave the classroom within three years, meaning schools recruit new, inexperienced teachers to fill the gaps. In 2025, 31% of teachers in Florida classrooms had less than four years of experience, according to the Florida Education Association.
Additionally, 44% of teachers nationwide quit within five years, according to the Center for American Progress.
“We have to find a way to put our highest performing teachers in those schools and find a way to reward them for being there,” Taylor said.
He said compensation is one part, but a more pressing issue is the loss of autonomy and ability to individualize lessons.
Taylor said streamlining and managing classrooms through standardized lesson plans takes away from both teachers presenting a topic and students who either cannot keep up or are not engaged.
“Kids aren't all the same, and teachers have never taught different students exactly the same,” Taylor said. “We have to return some level of autonomy to the classroom.”
Beyond the classroom, Taylor said schools should build a budget from the ground up while tying each expense to a classroom benefit.
“You build your budget from zero, which forces people to look at and justify it, and then if it's not something that benefits students in a classroom…to find within that multi-billion dollar budget, where can we find more money, and then we need to use that money to keep those darn high performing teachers,” he said.
He said forming and sustaining relationships and partnerships with nonprofits and organizations can also help reduce costs.
“I think that we're at a dangerous crossroads for public education in the state of Florida,” he said. “There is a concerted effort to defund public education by our legislature. We are not going to be getting more money anytime soon. We have a drain of students with vouchers, and I think it's now that we need somebody who's qualified for this spot more than ever.”
District 6
Kenneth Gay, incumbent Karen Perez and Sally Harris Williamson are running in District 6.
Gay and Williamson are registered Republicans, while Perez is a Democrat.
Gay has $31,052 in monetary donations, and Williamson has $25,615, according to campaign finance information. They’re both mostly self-funded and do not have public endorsements.
Perez has $49,121.
Hillsborough County School Board members Lynn Gray and Jessica Vaughn, Alachua County School Board member Sarah Rockwell, and Ruth’s List Florida have endorsed Perez’s campaign, according to campaign finance information.
Kenneth Gay
Kenneth Gay, 67, retired from teaching after 39 years in 2022. He previously ran for a school board position in District 5 in 2024 against three candidates, including incumbent Henry Washington, who won.
Despite being retired, Gay said he works with the district to
prepare new teachers for the classroom. He said this experience has equipped him with a better understanding of how to make a difference as a school board member to advocate for the county as both a teacher and leader.
“I just feel I have it in me,” Gay said. “I have the background. I believe I’ve got a thorough understanding of how education works…and just trying to make a difference.”
Gay said the main challenges he sees in the district are teacher support, parent confidence and budget constraints.
Gay said teachers often do not feel supported in the classroom due to a lack of consistent enforcement of student behavior and a lack of autonomy in lessons.
“The fidelity is not there, and how we are dealing with consequences when it comes to behaviors in the classroom, they’re just maxed out beyond their limits,” he said. “And I believe in autonomy, but at the same time, you’ve got to find that balance too.”
He said that balance can be a mix of long-term plans for building curriculum and integrating AI tools to take over less impactful work, such as compliance paperwork, from teacher workloads.
“We’ve got to just build consistency in how we’re practicing and making certain that we are sharing with our teachers what we expect, what’s working, what can work, so consistency is the key,” he said.
Gay said it’s hard to find a perfect solution to parent communication, but said consistency, reaching out and building relationships would help create a stronger community and involve parents more in their children’s education.
“There’s still a disconnect,” he said. “So I don’t think there’s one perfect way, other than continuing to make sure that through technology, reaching out robo messages constantly and then making certain that we have these strong leaders in our building.”
Gay said the school board needs to be a better steward of the budget to find places to cut and recycle money.
“We’ve got to make sure that we are, rather than funding new programs, fund the basics,” he said. “That’s what the parents want. They want the basics funded, so that’s important curriculum.”
Karen Perez
Karen Perez, 62, is a licensed clinical social worker. She said her experience with mental health and the board has inspired her to run for reelection.
Perez said some challenges facing the county are lower enrollment and attendance, student behavior, teacher compensation and student literacy.
She said a new challenge facing enrollment is immigrant families feeling hesitant to send their children to school despite being legal citizens.
“That's a little bit why our enrollment has decreased in Hillsborough County schools, and so you know we're kind of bracing for that issue, but that's not just here in Hillsborough,” she said.
Perez said handling this issue is a group effort from the school board to talk with elected officials and legislators about how laws affect students.
“As long as laws are made that affect our parents and students here on the local level, we have to, as elected officials, continue to raise the alarm and continue to raise and be the sounding board for our parents and our students here,” Perez said.
As a mental health specialist, Perez said student behavior and chronic misbehavior often stem from external issues that translate into bad behavior as a cry for help.
“I'm hoping that with all this, air quotes, ‘bad behavior,’ that we could have a different look at what's happening, and you know, try to really redirect on how we approach our children, our students in the classroom, and try to find out what's really going on as far as their behavior is concerned,” she said.
Perez said she believes lower literacy rates across the state are the result of a lack of building muscle memory in handwriting as students use more technology.
Florida literacy rates are at 60% in third grade, compared to 55% in Hillsborough, according to The Florida Scorecard.
Perez said she, some other school board members and the superintendent are discussing plans to minimize computer use in classrooms to teach students to focus and strengthen their attention spans.
She said Hillsborough is working to overcome issues with teacher support and retention through raises and new policies.
Additionally, she said the district’s A grade was a gradual process of providing teachers and students with resources they need.
Sally Harris Williamson
Sally Harris Williamson, 71, said her experience as a career counselor, preschool owner and former school board member has shaped a community-focused perspective she plans to bring to the board.
Williamson previously served on the board in District 2 from
2014 to 2018, where she said she helped reduce costs, find efficiencies and rebuild programs.
Williamson, now retired, said she helped middle and high school students find their career paths before founding and running Circle C Ranch Academy, an experiential learning preschool in South Tampa.
She said she owned and ran the ranch for 41 years, and earned a ranking in the top 100 businesses in the Tampa Business Journal for 10 consecutive years before selling the property in 2023.
“We just did experiential learning, and that's why my school was so successful,” Williamson said. “I had 180 children every day, and over 300 children every summer. So that was my biggest accomplishment.”
Williamson said hands-on learning is important to build skills and confidence in students.
She said the loss of vocational paths in high schools, including cosmetology, mechanics and nursing assistant programs, is sad because it leaves graduates without a concrete skill if they don’t go to college.
“Kids want to stay in their high school,” Williamson said. “They want to be on the football team. They don't want to have to go to a potential school separate from that, and those are important to have for those who do, that's their choice, but why can't we have more vocational programs in our high schools?”
Now, Williamson said she wants to return to the board in District 6 to focus on countywide challenges, including teacher compensation and lower enrollment.
She said the district needs a fresh perspective and creative ideas to push forward with new solutions.
Williamson said she fought for self-insurance in 2014, and now wants to give teachers a bigger discount on their health insurance plans.
She said this, and other countywide partnerships, could help lift some financial pressure while the district works to raise teacher salaries.
Williamson said enrollment is lower due to immigrant families fearing sending their kids to school, as well as families choosing other options through school choice.
“Some of them will come back now that they're seeing the grades improve, but if they’re feeling like the kids are getting the education they need, then they are not going to go away — they're going to stay with us,” Williamson 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.
