Orange school board district 5 race pits Felder against Scott
The race for the Orange County School Board’s district 5 seat took an unusual turn in early September when one of the candidates announced he was dropping out of the race, despite his second-place finish in the August primary.
An attorney for Bruce Antone, a longtime state lawmaker, announced his departure at the start of a court hearing challenging his candidacy on the grounds he did not live in district 5. That cleared the way for the third-place finisher in the primary, Michael Scott, to face Vicki-Elaine Felder on the November ballot.
District 5 has been represented by Kat Gordon for 20 years, but she did not seek another term on the school board this year. The district runs from Pine Hills south to Tangelo Park and takes in a number of west Orlando neighborhoods.
Who they are
Felder, 63, is in her 40th year of teaching and currently teaches English at Edgewater High School. She lives in Washington Shores. She was the first-place finisher in the primary, winning 40.5% of the vote.
Scott, 38, lives in Tangelo Park. He is coordinator for Orlando’s My Brother’s Keeper program, a mentoring initiative, and he has two teenage sons who attend Orange County Public Schools.
Scott finished third with 28% of the vote in August, but moved onto the November ballot when Antone dropped out. The race moves to the general election because no candidate
earned a majority of votes.
Where they stand
If elected, Felder said she would work to improve communication between district leaders and employees and parents, making sure no one feared their job might be in jeopardy because they spoke out about an issue.
She’d push for more technology training so online learning doesn’t intimidate some teachers or students and works better for youngsters with disabilities or those learning English. She’d also like to see vocational education viewed as a standard part of the curriculum.
And she’d work to boost teacher morale and pay and to encourage young adults to consider the teaching profession.
“It’s a marvelous, marvelous career,” she said. “There’s nothing like a child coming to you five years later, 10 years later, 30 years later, saying how you impacted their life.”
Scott ran unsuccessfully for the seat in 2012 and 2016. He said he’s running again because he was a student with learning disabilities who sometimes struggled in Orange’s schools and said school leaders don’t always seem to appreciate those challenges.
Scott’s work helping atrisk Black and Hispanic boys in local schools has also given him a window into the issues students and their families face, he said.
If elected, he would push for more occupational training and internships and better mental health services. If mental health was addressed promptly, he said, students’ academic and behavioral problems would lessen. He also wants to see teacher salaries increased.
He would urge the school board to listen more to parents and to teachers as it makes decisions. And he wants to make sure students’ voices are heard as well.
“We have to meet our students where they are and listen to what they are saying about what their interests are,” his campaign website says. “Often we can learn from them.”did you interview him, too?
How they differ
Scott filed the lawsuit challenging Antone’s candidacy, arguing his qualifying papers listed his home address as one in district 4, not district 5. State law requires school board candidates to be living in the district at the time they qualify to run.
He thought it wasn’t right that Antone wasn’t following the rules. “Ultimately what it comes down to is integrity,” Scott said. “That’s what it was about: integrity.”
Antone’s lawyer denied he wasn’t qualified to run but said he dropped out to avoid complicating the election.
Felder, who was not part of the lawsuit, said she was focused on her own election efforts, not Antone’s.
“My biggest concern was trying to run my campaign,” she said.
Felder said voters in district 5 gave her the most votes in August because she is well-known.
“I’m a hometown girl,” she said. “I grew up in Orlando and I’ve lived in district 5 my whole life.”
Felder ran unsuccessfully for Orlando City Council in 2006. Older voters knew her mother, a longtime teacher at Jones
High School, and younger ones know her from the classroom.
“I’ve dealt with parents and students for 40 years,” she said, and voters appreciate her understanding of education issues.
Scott, who also grew up in the county, said he’s been a community volunteer for years, pushing for programs to help children, and he thinks his commitment to social justice issues will resonate with voters.
“I’m out here advocating for change,” he said. “I’ve been doing this work long before I ever got paid.”
He also noted that the school board already has two teachers — Karen Castor Dentel and Johanna Lopez — among its ranks, so its already hears that perspective. He would offer “something new, something different.”
Scott said he thinks the school board moved too quickly to open campuses in August and wished it had delayed, perhaps until after Labor Day.
He said he understood a state reopening order required an August opening but said as elected officials they should have pushed back against that mandate.
“I felt like they should have stood their ground,” Scott said. “I would have been more cautious.”
Felder said she thought the school board — which opened campuses but gave parents an option to keep their children at home — did the best it could, balancing the state order, the needs of working parents and the concerns of teachers who worried teaching in-person would be risky to their health.
“I think they considered all of that and tried to make the best decision they could given the circumstances,” she said.