Manatee County School Board, District 2
School board members set the district budget and school-tax rate, hire the superintendent (where appointed), approve school boundaries, curriculum policy and construction, and set district policies. Nonpartisan. Term: 4 years.
Partly verified. Either the November opponent could not be confirmed from available sources, or only a few positions are documented. Confirm the full candidate list on your county sample ballot; unknown positions are shown as such.
How we verified who is on the ballot
Candidate list taken from the Florida Division of Elections, 2026 general election candidate list on 2026-09-18 ; both candidates are marked Qualified, which for a nonpartisan seat means the August vote did not produce a majority winner (or the seat is decided only in November). Check the county Supervisor of Elections sample ballot.
Debates and forums
- 2026-09-23 — Held · League of Women Voters of Manatee County virtual candidate forum (moderator Felicia Jet); recording posted on the League's YouTube channel. Both candidates took part.
sharon_jefferson, cindy_spray
Candidates
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Sharon Jefferson
Jefferson, 54, is a National Board-certified teacher with more than 26 years in Manatee County schools, mostly in Title I schools, and has worked as a Title I and instructional support specialist. She founded the nonprofits RECESS Education and Freedom Leadership Academy and serves as education chair for the Manatee C…
Cindy Spray
Spray, 70, was elected to the District 2 seat in November 2022 and serves as board chair. She spent about 40 years in corporate roles covering manufacturing, payroll, purchasing, capital projects and team management, and served on the district's citizens financial oversight committee before joining the board. She led …
Side-by-side on the major issues
Each row is a statement. The chips show how each candidate's stated positions or record relate to that statement. Expand a row to read the evidence and sources. "No public position found" means we could not find a statement or record on the topic, not that the candidate has none.
| Issue | Sharon Jefferson Nonpartisan | Cindy Spray Nonpartisan |
|---|---|---|
| Taxes & spendingCutting taxes should be a top priority, even if it means less government spending on services. | Mixed / neutral· stated position Jefferson has called for a line-by-line review of the district budget to see how much reaches schools and to test whether the administration is 'top heavy'; she has not called for cutting taxes. | No public position found |
| Property taxesFlorida should eliminate or sharply reduce homestead property taxes, even if local governments must cut services or find other revenue. | No public position found | No public position found |
| Education & school choicePublic money should follow students to private, charter or home schools (universal school vouchers). | Leans disagree· stated position At the Sept. 23 League forum Jefferson said the voucher system 'has gotten out of hand' and needs better oversight and accountability, while saying she is not entirely opposed, citing private schools that serve children with autism or behavior needs. | Leans agree· stated position Spray says she supports school choice, and as a board member she voted to extend a share of the voter-approved one-mill school tax referendum money to charter schools. At the Sept. 23 League forum she said vouchers have unintended consequences, chiefly that money does not follow a student who leaves a private school mid-year, and called for more oversight of how the funds are paid out. |
| Gender identity lawsFlorida's laws restricting gender-affirming care for minors and classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity should remain in place. | No public position found | No public position found |
| Library and classroom materialsParents' objections should be enough to pull a book or lesson from a school, even when other families want it kept. | Leans disagree· stated position Jefferson said she does not support book bans while acknowledging the district's authority to decide which books are used, and has called for instructional materials that are balanced, age-appropriate and free of vendor influence. At the Sept. 23 League forum she said, 'I don't believe in banning books,' favoring placing books with the appropriate age group instead. | Mixed / neutral· stated position Asked about library books, Spray framed the issue as compliance with state law, saying she would not put the district at risk of being fined. Her campaign emphasis is on 'getting back to the basics' of reading, writing and math. At the Sept. 23 League forum she said every state statute on books has been addressed and she works with the board attorney to keep the district in compliance. |
| Teacher and staff payRaising teacher and staff pay should be the district's top budget priority, even if other spending has to be cut. | Leans agree· stated position Jefferson says recruiting and retaining experienced teachers is a priority, noting some schools where more than half the teachers are inexperienced, and said at the Sept. 23 League forum that she would advocate in Tallahassee for higher teacher pay. | No public position found |
| School safety approachCampus safety depends more on police officers and firm discipline than on counselors and mental-health staff. | Leans disagree· stated position Jefferson has said school security should not be modeled on the criminal justice system, prioritizing screening of people who work on campus and addressing internal threats, and her campaign emphasizes students' social and emotional needs. At the Sept. 23 League forum she called for ending the 'school to prison pipeline' by handling discipline without reassigning students out of their schools. | Leans agree· stated position Spray has pointed to the district's security measures as a strength, saying Manatee has the best security in the state, and identifies social media's effect on student behavior as the district's biggest challenge. |
Where they sit on the map
Each candidate is placed by the average of their documented stances. It is a summary of the table above, not an extra judgment.
Sharon JeffersonCindy SprayHow the axes are computed
Each axis is the average of a candidate's coded stances (+2 to −2) on a fixed set of statements, so it comes straight from the documented positions and nothing else. A candidate needs at least three documented statements on an axis to be placed.
Economic issues (toward "Smaller government (lower taxes, less spending)"): Taxes & spending (agree), Property taxes (agree), Health care (disagree), Housing affordability (disagree), Property insurance (disagree), Energy & utilities (disagree), Social Security & Medicare (disagree), Teacher and staff pay (disagree).
Social & legal issues (toward "Conservative side of the statements"): Immigration (agree), Abortion (disagree), Guns (disagree), Education & school choice (agree), Elections & voting (disagree), Crime & policing (agree), Gender identity laws (agree), Marijuana (disagree), Environment & water (disagree), Trump administration (agree), Library and classroom materials (agree), School safety approach (agree).
| Candidate | Economic issues | Social & legal issues |
|---|---|---|
| Sharon Jefferson | not enough data | -1.00 (3 statements) |
| Cindy Spray | not enough data | 0.67 (3 statements) |
Other issues the candidates have raised
Priorities each candidate has brought up on their own, beyond the major-issue list above.
Sharon Jefferson
No additional issues found in public statements as of the last data review.
Cindy Spray
- Amendment 3 (homestead property-tax amendment) — At the Sept. 8, 2026 meeting, a fellow board member spoke about projected losses to the county's voter-approved Children's Services tax if Amendment 3 passes. Spray, the board chair, said the board would not take a position on the amendment, called it "a county thing" and said the district would "wait and see."