Politics
Broward voters to decide 5 School Board races amid budget cuts, litigation
Broward County voters will weigh in on five School Board races Tuesday in an election arriving amid the deepest institutional turmoil Florida’s second-largest District has faced since the state removed four Board members in 2022.
Enrollment has fallen by more than 40,000 students over the past decade, dropping nearly 5% in the last year alone, according to the Florida Trib. That’s despite a population increase of roughly 100,000 over that span.
Accordingly, the District has seen reductions. In May, the Board voted to cut 1,000 positions to close a $90 million deficit. A July internal audit reported by the South Florida Sun-Sentinel found the District still can’t reliably document how student discipline is handled — eight years after the Parkland shooting exposed the same failures.
Broward County Public Schools is the sixth-largest District in the nation and has been fully accredited since 1962 — the first school system in the state to earn that distinction. Its roughly 180,000 students come from 174 countries and speak 157 languages, and the District also serves roughly 125,000 adult learners across its schools, centers and technical colleges.
Despite its financial strain, the District has posted academic gains. The Florida Department of Education awarded Broward an “A” grade on July 1 for the third consecutive year. Among district-operated schools, 129 earned “A’s,” 56 earned “B’s” and 27 earned “C’s,” with no “D’s” or “F’s.”
School Board races are technically nonpartisan, and all voters may participate regardless of registration.
A candidate must clear 50% of the vote to win outright; otherwise, the top two vote-getters advance to a Nov. 3 runoff.
Only District 6 has enough candidates to make that possible this year.
Here’s a look at the races.
District 1
Incumbent Maura McCarthy Bulman, 48, a Hollywood lawyer and registered Democrat, is seeking a full four-year term after winning a two-year term in 2024. The seat’s prior occupant, Rod Velez, an appointee of Gov. Ron DeSantis, was found to be ineligible to serve.
Bulman is far from wiping the proverbial blackboard clean of her goals for the District, telling Local 10 last month that she wants to continue improving facilities, bringing programming to her schools and rebuilding enrollment.
She defended the Board’s decision to close under-enrolled campuses as necessary to right-size the District.
Her challenger is Carmen Jaqueline Gimenez, a 64-year-old Hallandale Beach resident. Born in Venezuela, she is the author of three books totaling 378 pages, with few reviews on Amazon, and the founder, according to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, of a nonprofit called USA Refugees & Immigrants Corp., aimed at helping Venezuelans seeking asylum or temporary protected status.
Gimenez caught the political bug in recent years. In 2022, she ran for Governor as an independent, finishing third among four candidates on the ballot. Two years later, she mounted a run at the Hallandale Beach mayoralty, losing to Mayor Joy Cooper by nearly 37 percentage points.
She told Local 10 she agrees with DeSantis that the School Board is “a disaster” and said she would modernize school bus transportation and lobby state officials for additional funding if elected.
State records show Gimenez was registered to vote without party affiliation until after the 2024 election, when she joined the Republican Party.
District 1 covers Hollywood, Hallandale Beach, Dania Beach, West Park and part of Miramar.
District 4
Two Democrats are competing in District 4 to succeed Lori Alhadeff, who announced in January that she wouldn’t seek a third term after eight years on the dais.
Sharry Kimmel, 61, of Parkland, is a Broward College professor of teacher education with a doctorate from Nova Southeastern and 30 years in education.
Alhadeff recruited and endorsed her. Kimmel is running on a platform prioritizing fiscal oversight, transparency, mental health support and school safety.
She told Local 10 she would monetize District assets and install bulletproof glass at every school.
Her opponent, Nicole Morst, is a 45-year-old Coral Springs resident and parent advocate who chaired the District’s North Area Advisory Council, representing roughly 70 schools.
Three of Morst’s children are enrolled in Broward schools.
Morst’s platform highlights student safety, equitable education opportunities, and transparency and accountability of the District and its officials. Improving facility conditions — addressing mold, broken air conditioning and other issues — is also high on her to-do list.
She carries endorsements from Board members Debbi Hixon, Jeff Holness and Sarah Leonardi; a retiring member, Nora Rupert; and organizations like the Broward Teachers Union, Broward Young Democrats, Equality Florida, Moms Demand Action, and the Sun-Sentinel.
Kimmel is backed by state Rep. Mike Gottlieb, Tamarac Mayor Michelle Gomez, Margate Mayor Antonio Arserio, Parkland Mayor Rich Walker, several city officials, Florida NOW PAC, SAVE Action PAC, the Broward Jewish Democratic Caucus and the Florida East Coast Chapter of Associated Builders and Contractors.
District 4 has turned into a fight over Democratic credentials and past shortcomings. Kimmel, who has vacillated between registering as an independent and a Democrat over the years, registered as a Democrat just 10 days before qualifying.
A political committee supporting her campaign, run by campaign consultant Michael Worley, sent voters in the deep-blue District a text highlighting an endorsement Morst received, but never sought, from the Broward GOP, several of whose Facebook posts Kimmel liked, including the party’s voter guide that featured Morst’s name.
Kimmel dismissed suspicions of collaboration, saying she likes roughly 100 Facebook posts daily without reading them.
The same political committee later texted Republican voters about Morst’s support for Democrats.
Kimmel is also named in a federal lawsuit filed by the South Florida Muslim Federation over the cancellation of its Coral Springs conference, which she urged officials to press for. And a public records request produced nothing to support her claim of being named Broward “Teacher of the Year” in 1996.
Sun-Sentinel archives from that year name a different winner. The discrepancy may be due more to a misunderstanding; in Broward, each school in the District nominates its own “Teacher of the Year,” and Broward Schools then selects a districtwide winner from the resultant list. So, Kimmel may have been “Teacher of the Year” at her school at the time, Pembroke Lakes Elementary, but not Broward’s overall winner.
Morst, meanwhile, disclosed only a 2008 DUI charge when the Sun-Sentinel asked about criminal charges, omitting a 1998 Georgia case in which she pleaded to aggravated assault with a firearm and criminal trespass at 18.
She served five years’ probation and was discharged without adjudication of guilt in 2004. She denies any involvement with a gun and said she accepted the plea after her lawyer assured her it would clear her record.
District 4 covers Coral Springs, Parkland, Tamarac, North Lauderdale and part of Margate.
District 6
Incumbent Adam Cervera, a 43-year-old Coral Springs lawyer and the Board’s only Republican, faces four Democratic challengers in the cycle’s most contentious race. He was appointed by DeSantis in April 2025 after Brenda Fam resigned.
In December, he publicly — and successfully — demanded the resignation of Broward Schools Chief Operations Officer Wanda Paul over a terminated $2.6 million lease that led to a lawsuit from the District’s former landlord and a botched construction procurement.
Cervera is the first Republican in at least a decade to win the Broward Teachers Union’s endorsement, per the Miami Herald, and also has backing from police and firefighter unions, as well as the Sun-Sentinel, which called him a needed disruptor.
He wants a 7% teacher raise and supports the proposed statewide property tax referendum on the Nov. 3 General Election ballot, which would steeply increase homestead exemptions.
His best-funded challenger, 47-year-old Davie resident Jessie Bastos, is a Samsung sales executive and Broward Soil and Water Conservation District member.
She is running on her business acumen and a promise to improve school safety and expand career education.
Her endorsers include, among others, the Broward Fraternal Order of Police, Board member Rebecca Thompson and Davie Mayor Judy Paul.
Roberto Fernandez III, 46, of Sunrise, is an Army veteran and 21-year social studies teacher who helped write Florida’s Black history standards, which, among other things, require lessons on slavery to include how slaves learned skills that they personally benefited from.
He now says those standards need revision.
Fernandez said he wants a return to reading, writing and arithmetic over ineffective software-based instruction. The Sun-Sentinel called him Cervera’s strongest challenger.
Makai Henry, 20, of Davie, is a Nova High graduate, substitute teacher and son of a Broward teacher. He blames voucher expansion for the enrollment exodus and wants value-added programs to keep families in public schools.
Lester Wilks Jr., 38, operates after-care programs across 10 Broward schools and says the District wrongly treats parents like Department of Motor Vehicles customers rather than stakeholders.
The race has turned litigious. Cervera is suing Worley, Bastos’ consultant, for defamation over texts and a website claiming he used tax dollars to fund a Democratic Party ad — an appearance Cervera attributes to an administrative error.
That explanation aligns with how Leonardi, the School Board Chair, characterized events in writing. Education Commissioner Anastasios Kamoutsas announced an investigation into the matter in April.
Separately, Bastos has filed election complaints against a Palm Beach-registered committee backing Cervera, alleging that it used artificial intelligence to alter images of her without the disclosure required by state law.
Cervera denied any connection to the committee.
District 6 covers Cooper City, Davie, Plantation, Sunrise and Weston.
District 7
Two Democrats are running for the District 7 seat held for 16 years by School Board member Rupert, who failed to file the necessary paperwork to run for re-election this year, citing health concerns.
Cynthia Dominique, 41, of Margate, filed the day before Rupert withdrew. A 23-year Army veteran, combat nurse and nurse practitioner raising four children, she’s a Coconut Creek High graduate who teaches at Nova Southeastern.
She wants a public spending dashboard and better pay for teachers and support staff, and has proposed a school bus tracking app.
Rochelle “Shelly” Soffer, a 48-year-old Coconut Creek resident, longtime District speech-language pathologist and former Broward Teachers Union leader, qualified 25 minutes before the deadline.
She told the Sun-Sentinel she didn’t know Rupert was withdrawing. Columnist Steve Bousquet wrote that the sequence “cries out for an explanation,” noting the union quickly endorsed Soffer and that Rupert’s longtime adviser joined her campaign team.
Dominique holds endorsements from Sens. Rosalind Osgood and Barbara Sharief; Broward State Attorney Harold Pryor; Board members Holness, Leonardi and Thompson; Mayor Arserio; Pompano Beach Mayor Rex Hardin; Deerfield Beach Mayor Todd Drosky; the Sun-Sentinel; the Broward Democratic Black Caucus; and Florida Young Democrats, among others.
Soffer, meanwhile, carries nods from Rupert, Margate City Commissioner Joanne Simone, former state Rep. Jim Waldman, former Coconut Creek Commissioner Mikkie Belvedere, the Broward Fraternal Order of Police, Broward AFL-CIO and Broward Teachers Union.
District 7 covers Coconut Creek, Deerfield Beach, Hillsboro Beach, Lighthouse Point, Margate, Pompano Beach and tribal lands.
At-large Seat 8
Incumbent Allen Zeman of Fort Lauderdale, a 62-year-old business executive who unseated longtime School Board member Donna Korn in 2022, is defending his countywide seat against Sonja Azim.
Both are Democrats.
In an interview with Local 10, Zeman noted that the District’s recent gains — becoming an “A”-rated District, with more than 25,000 students previously below grade level now performing at or above it — occurred after his election.
He has repeatedly pushed for higher teacher salaries and said he would continue to do so with another four years on the Board.
Azim, 54, of Plantation, spent 14 years in education as a special education teacher and administrator, including as dean of Renaissance Charter School, and now works as a safety and security trainer for the District, according to the Sun-Sentinel.
She argues Broward has an equity crisis spanning facilities, academic programs and discipline, and wants comprehensive safety training for every District employee.
According to CBS News, she told voters at a John Knox Village forum last month that the District has “lost the trust of the people.”
Seat 8 is not tied to a geographic area. All Broward voters may cast ballots in the race.
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