Orange school board candidates set to discuss issues during open forum

The four candidates seeking to be the new chair of the Orange County School Board are to meet at a forum on July 17. The three candidates seeking the school board’s District 6 seat have been invited, too.

The July 17 forum is open to the public and will be held at Baldwin Park Elementary School in Orlando from 6 to 8 p.m.

The candidates running for school board chair are: Matthew Fitzpatrick, assistant director of Orlando Technical College; Teresa Jacobs, Orange County’s mayor; Robert Prater, a teacher at Oak Hill Elementary School; and Nancy Robbinson, now on the school board serving District 6.

Robbinson resigned from her school board seat effective Nov. 20 to run for the chair job. The board’s current chair, Bill Sublette, is not seeking re-election after serving eight years.

Three people are running to fill out the term of that District 6 seat, which represents an area that includes Baldwin Park, College Park, Maitland, Pine Hills and Thornton Park. The candidates are Karen Castor Dentel, Patricia Fox and Charlene Roberts Norato.

The forum is sponsored by Parents for Public Education, the Orange County Council of PTA and the League of Women Voters. Matthew Peddie of WMFE is to moderate the event.

It aims to “give voters an opportunity to hear candidates discuss issues important to them and to our community as it relates to public education.”

The event is open to voters from across the county, sponsors said, as the school board chair runs countywide.

The candidates will be on the Aug. 28 ballot. If no candidate receives more than 50 percent of the vote in August, a runoff will be held Nov. 6.

Baldwin Park Elementary School (formerly named Audubon Park Elementary School) is at 1750 Common Way Road.