Amid a series of financial challenges at the district level, voters have two candidates battling for an open school board position representing District 5 in the Glades County School Board.
Incumbent Patricia Pearce is running for a second term against Lauren V. Thompson, a former educator who previously taught kindergarten and first grade at Moore Haven Elementary.
Pearce originally planned to retire after her first two terms. She said she felt a responsibility to stay given the lack of experience of current members on the board.
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 other School Board [member] that [has] the most time and experience is retiring and has already gone through DROPs, so there’s absolutely no chance of her staying,” she said, referring to District 1 representative Crystal Drake, who is retiring.
The Florida Deferred Retirement Option Program, or DROP, allows eligible individuals to ‘retire’ on paper while continuing to work.
Thompson, a mother of four, did not respond to multiple requests for comment from The Florida Trib. She has not run for the school board or any other public service position prior to her current campaign.
Housing
Glades County Schools received an ‘A’ grade from the state’s Department of Education for the most recent academic year. “Right now we’re in a great position. We’ve been an ‘A’ school for the last two years, we don’t have any concerns,” Pearce said. “We’re on top of our game so it’s all praise and wonderful right now.”
One of its more pressing issues, however, is tied to housing and the long-term growth of the county. “We don’t have any homes for growth in Glades County,” Pearce said. “That [is] what’s holding up our growth.”
According to the State Housing Initiatives Program, qualified homebuyers in Glades County can receive support to buy affordable homes that meet acceptable living standards.
Pearce said she and her peers have had joint conferences with Moore Haven City Council members and Glades County commissioners in an effort to address the problem. Pearce said her foremost priority is to work with them in the near future.
“We’re setting up meetings right now to see how we can get a developer in that can actually build a project that could house young families,” she said. “Because there’s not any available housing whatsoever.”
Finances
Lauren V. Thompson stood up at a candidate rally in July and talked about her experience from when she was a teacher and why teachers are leaving the school system.
“They [teachers] loved everything about teaching. It was a lot of the other administrative stuff that hangs over your head as a teacher that really affected their desire to continue teaching,” Thompson said.
Speaking of administrative concerns, the Florida Department of Education announced in March that it had found the Glades County school district to be in a state of financial emergency because the school district does not have enough in its fund balances.
Anastasios Kamoutas, the state’s Commissioner of Education at the time, addressed the Glades County School Board district in a letter with precautions that the district will need to take in light of its situation. Kamoutas is now president of Polk State College.
Florida legislators attempted to pass a bill during the most recent legislative session that would have created a school district stabilization fund which would have assisted school districts in Glades County and Union County.
The state House did not consider it, but Kamoutas did establish an emergency board to oversee the finances of both the Union County and Glades County school districts, too. Parents in an April 6 story from WINK were concerned about classroom resources and impact, given that their school district had to receive financial help from the state to stay afloat.
Thompson, a former teacher in the district, addressed the situation in a June campaign video. “Audits show that we spent more money than we had, emptying out our rainy day fund. And leading to teacher cuts and staff cuts,” she said. “It is not sustainable and not okay.”
Pearce said there was a decline in enrollment of 400 students that put them in a bind.
“We had 400 [students leave] because of new schools, school choice, home schooling,” she said. “We had five new schools open in our district in the last three years so they’re private schools.”
If elected, Thompson has a longer-term goal of becoming a “student” to the budget every month. “Being a student means you ask questions, sometimes hard ones. But I don’t believe you can lead something you don’t understand.”
She also intends on spending time in district schools every month.
“Not to evaluate but to listen to teachers, students and parents,” she said.
