This story is part of a statewide partnership of 27 nonpartisan newsrooms and universities working to help Florida voters make informed decisions in the 2026 school board elections. Learn more about the Florida Elections Reporting Partnership.

The A-rated Clay County School District faces a financial drain of millions of dollars due to the state’s rapidly expanding voucher program but also remains steeped in debates about book bans as one of the board’s most vocal culture warriors seeks reelection.

Nearly 40% of school board races across the state are uncontested. But in Clay County’s District 4, incumbent Michele Hanson – a retired teacher and staunch supporter of restricting book access in school libraries – faces off against a well-financed newcomer in Michael Rathjen, who shares Hanson’s views on parents rights and believes his business background gives him a leg up as the board grapples with budget challenges.

“The time is mission critical,” said Rathjen, citing his business experience at a school board candidate panel hosted by The Federated Republican Women of Clay County. 

Hanson countered, “I am the subject matter expert – I need to be on the board.”

When Hanson was elected to her first term on the school board in 2022 she was a political novice, buoyed by momentum around parents’ rights. The retired educator taught in Clay County schools for 19 years, according to her official candidate bio. 

Rathjen is vice president of school programs for credit union VyStar and chair of the Clay Education Foundation, which runs scholarship programs and the local Tools 4 Clay Schools school supply program.

 With only two candidates running in the non-partisan race, the contest will be determined in the primary vote on August 18. As of July 23, Rathjen has outraised Hanson by more than double. Of Rathjen’s $39,000 in  campaign donations, 31% are self-funded. Meanwhile, Hanson has brought in $16,000 in cash, with 44% self-funded.

Notably, Clay County Sheriff Michelle Cook, who attended the panel event, donated $500 and endorsed Hanson’s run. In her campaign materials, Hanson touted her work to bring the Clay County Sheriff’s Office back into schools. Clay’s school board budgeted nearly $7 million in 2026 for a security program.

According to the latest report from advocacy group PEN America, Florida is the epicenter of book bans in the U.S.

“Well Clay County is,” Hanson told The Florida Trib at The Club Continental after the candidates spoke, referring to how the county has led the state in book removals in recent years. 

Hanson has been a mobilizing force behind those restrictions. On her campaign website, she touts spearheading a media policy to vet inappropriate materials which “led to the removal of nearly 500 titles from school circulation.” Those titles include international classic One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez and the popular romance The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks.

Referring to PDF samples from removed books emailed to The Florida Trib, Hanson said, “I want you to read these books. I want you to tell me, do you think children should be reading these books?”

Since 2024, parents of Clay County students have had the option to block their children from having school library access.

“Ninety-five percent of the books removed are illegal in the state of Florida,” Hanson said. She referred to obscenity laws under Chapter 847 which ban the distribution of pornographic material to minors. The laws don’t apply to “school-approved instructional materials” that provide a “major tool” for instruction.

When asked about a general concern that students can already access sexual content online, she said, “Not my child, not my phone. My grandkids don’t have phones.”

Rathjen says he also wants parents to have a strong say in what students read in schools. A day before the panel at The Club Continental, Rathjen was at the Garber Automall, preparing  for the Clay Education Foundation’s Tools 4 Clay Schools event, where donated school supplies are distributed to teachers.

With his daughter Savannah in tow, Rathjen said there has been an “overcorrection” in removing books en masse from shelves. Instead, he wants to see books “vetted proactively” and to be rated – like the movie rating system – before they enter schools. 

“As a parent of three daughters, I would be livid if they were assigned a book that I found out was sexually explicit in nature to something that I was not ready to talk to them about,” said Rathjen. “But we’re no longer in the battle of the books – we’re in the battle of the budget.”

Busted budgets

Clay County District Schools has scrambled to maintain teacher wages and to keep its budget on track. In 2025, the district took what it called “aggressive steps” to make up for a projected $60 million shortfall, including budget cuts, a reallocation of positions and review of vendor contracts. 

A few months later, in a 2026 school board workshop, Clay County District Schools Superintendent David Broskie cited the expanded school voucher system as a significant drain on funding. 

“I don’t know about anybody else in the room, but I’m upset,” said Broskie as he presented results from a state auditor report. He said the report showed that the Family Empowerment Scholarships voucher program, expanded under Gov. Ron DeSantis, had a “myriad of accountability challenges” including running $400 million over budget.

Broskie said in Clay County vouchers diverted $30 million from public schools to private and homeschools.

Despite criticisms of the voucher program, Rathjen says he doesn’t want to see more restrictions on homeschooling or charter schools. He proposes that voucher funds should be kept within public school budgets until families at charter or private schools directly request it. 

Faced with a deflating budget, Rathjen – like Hanson – plans to prioritize school security.

“Our partnership with our Clay County Sheriff’s Office stays. Everything else, we go through it with a fine-tooth comb,” Rathjen said.

But Hanson countered that the board already performed a careful review of the budget when it faced the projected $60 million budget shortfall. 

“Fine-tooth comb, what? Do you want us to tell teachers to cut their air off when it’s hot at four o’clock?” Hanson said. 

Despite budget challenges, the school board secured raises for about half of the district’s teachers for the 2025-2026 school year. But that decision sparked anger among the county’s educators, since only those with at least 10 years of teaching experience qualified for a raise. 

Teacher salaries in Florida have been the lowest nationwide for three years in a row, and Clay County sits below the statewide average, at just over $51,000 in the 2024-2025 school year, according to the Florida Department of Education.

Hanson defended her role in securing salary raises for teachers. She said she consistently speaks out at Clay School Board workshops about the issue of teacher wages.
“I’m a loud voice. I’m not a loud voice for misrepresentation of facts or ideas, but I’m a very loud voice for teacher pay,” she said. 

Clay County school board members also faced criticism from the teachers union for giving themselves a pay raise.

“It was a negligible amount. But it wasn’t the amount – it was the principle,” Rathjen said, who committed to not taking a pay raise if elected to the board.

In November, Clay County residents will vote on whether to extend a $1 million property tax – or $1 in tax for every $1,000 of property value – to subsidize teacher pay. 

“We do have to support the 1-mill, unfortunately,” said Rathjen, who laments the tax increase but calls it necessary. 

Teachers want transparency, more money

Sifting through the free teacher supplies at the Tools 4 Schools event, Corrine Johnson, a former behavioral health assistant and now kindergarten teacher at Lakeside Elementary, said she wants transparency and more support from her school board members.
“Be more present, come to the classroom more,” Johnson said. “Don’t just do a walkthrough for five minutes. Really come spend a day with us teachers.”

Oakleaf High School ESOL teacher Esmeralda Evans referred to a pack of Crayola markers she tucked inside her tote: 
“We would love to see more money in our pockets as educators. Because we’re always giving to our students, to pay for things like this,” Evans said. “It’s important that our voice is heard.”

To find your local polling location, check out the Voter Focus lookup tool.

Laura Pellicer, a master’s student at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY in New York City, is a 2026 summer fellow with The Florida Trib. You can reach Laura at laura.pellicer@floridatrib.org.