Santa Rosa County School Board, District 5
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.
Candidates
Report an error ↗Marie Locklin
Locklin recently retired after 39 years as an educator in the Santa Rosa County School District, spending most of her career at Gulf Breeze Elementary School after beginning at an international school in Venezuela. Her family has worked in local education across several generations. She advanced from the August 2026 p…
Jill Teston
Jill Broxson-Teston is a real estate agent with Avenue Realty's Country Club Group who previously worked in medical sales and insurance. A fifth-generation Santa Rosa County resident and mother of four children in the public schools, she holds a degree from Evangel University. She advanced from the August 2026 primary…
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 | Marie Locklin Nonpartisan | Jill Teston Nonpartisan |
|---|---|---|
| Taxes & spendingCutting taxes should be a top priority, even if it means less government spending on services. | Mixed / neutral· stated position Locklin says she would take a conservative financial approach and make sure taxpayer dollars are used efficiently to support the classroom. She has not called for cutting taxes or named services she would reduce. | Mixed / neutral· stated position Teston lists fiscal accountability as a priority, describing responsible budgeting for taxpayers, managing resources effectively and opposing unnecessary spending. She has not called for cutting taxes or named services she would reduce. |
| 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). | No public position found | No public position found |
| 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. | Mixed / neutral· stated position Locklin says that once material has gone through a district's removal process and been removed, access is denied, and that a media specialist can point families to the same material elsewhere in the community; she says challenge forms and the process are public records. | No public position found |
| Teacher and staff payRaising teacher and staff pay should be the district's top budget priority, even if other spending has to be cut. | Mixed / neutral· stated position Locklin lists retaining educators, including through better working conditions and pay, among her campaign priorities, but has not proposed a specific raise or named spending she would cut to fund one. | No public position found |
| School safety approachCampus safety depends more on police officers and firm discipline than on counselors and mental-health staff. | No public position found | Mixed / neutral· stated position Teston's stated safety priority is implementing modern security technology to protect students and teachers, along with addressing facility needs. She did not frame safety as a choice between police and discipline on one side and counselors and mental-health staff on the other. |
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.
How 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Marie Locklin | not enough data | not enough data |
| Jill Teston | not enough data | not enough data |
Other issues the candidates have raised
Priorities each candidate has brought up on their own, beyond the major-issue list above.
Marie Locklin
No additional issues found in public statements as of the last data review.
Jill Teston
- Parent perspective on the board — Teston argues the board needs a member with children currently in the district's schools, and has called for greater transparency in curriculum and school policies and an open-door communication policy with educators.