Megan Tennimon and Beth Mayberry won their Sarasota County School Board races by double digits Tuesday, Aug. 18, flipping the five-member board to a liberal-leaning majority and ending four years of conservative control.
Tennimon, a former teacher, took Seat 4 with 55% of the vote, defeating Republican Party-endorsed Frank DiCicco by more than 10,000 votes. Mayberry, a retired math teacher, won Seat 5 with nearly 57%, defeating Michelle Pozzie by more than 13 percentage points, according to preliminary results reported by WTSP.
The two will join sitting members Tom Edwards and Liz Barker, giving the board a Democratic-aligned majority regardless of the outcome in the District 1 runoff.
In that race, Jimmy Glover led with 44% but fell short of the 50% threshold needed to win outright in a three-candidate field. He will face Heidi Brandt in November. Teresa DeWitt, a former Moms for Liberty activist, and Brandt, the Republican Party-endorsed candidate, likely split the conservative vote, preventing either from reaching a majority.
The three conservative incumbents whose seats were on the ballot — board Chair Bridget Ziegler, Karen Rose and Robyn Marinelli — did not seek reelection.
What the new majority has pledged
Tennimon, Mayberry and Glover campaigned on ending culture-war clashes over book removals, LGBTQ+ inclusion and immigration enforcement, and on pushing back against state policies they say are straining the district’s budget. Mayberry said she would focus on school funding and community outreach and work to ensure students “can have a better experience” in Sarasota County schools.
At a Tiger Bay Club forum June 4, Glover framed the voucher crisis as a problem created when the state dropped income limits, allowing families already paying private-school tuition to use vouchers as a subsidy.
Budget pressures ahead
The new majority inherits a district under financial strain. Sarasota County Schools received $115 million in federal COVID-19 relief from 2020 through 2022, funding 182 positions; that aid has expired. District officials estimate Florida’s universal voucher program, which dropped income limits, redirected nearly $45 million from the district this year.
The district plans to cut 259 positions this school year: 180 instructional staff positions and 79 classified jobs.
Scene at the watch party
At Tamiami Tap in Sarasota, high school students who had campaigned for the progressive slate cheered as results came in. Avery Cole, a Booker High School senior who organized with the Social Equity through Education Alliance, had regularly attended board meetings to oppose the ICE cooperation policy and code-of-conduct changes.
The board’s final budget and millage adoption is scheduled for a September public hearing. The District 1 runoff between Glover and Brandt is set for Nov. 3.
