Nine Candidates, Two Open Seats: Pasco's School Board Races Land Five Days After the First Bell

Nine candidates qualified for the two open Pasco County School Board seats on the Aug. 18 primary ballot, the biggest field the board has seen in years, and the vote lands five days after Pasco students go back to class on Aug. 13. Because school board seats are nonpartisan and elected countywide, every registered voter in Pasco can weigh in on all three races, no matter their party.

The two open seats belong to District 1's Al Hernandez, who is finishing one term and not running again, and District 3's Cynthia Armstrong, who has held her seat since 2010. This board has seen very little turnover in two decades outside of retirements. Two of its five members will be new.

Unless someone clears 50% on Aug. 18, the top two finishers in each open race move on to the November general election. The third seat on the ballot, District 5, has only two candidates, so it is settled in August.

Who is running

Race	Candidates
District 1 (open)	Gino Collura, Kimberly Coward, Christopher King, Brian Perras
District 3 (open)	Matt Geiger, Sean O'Flannery, Kirk Phillips, Erin Stroupe, Mollyana Ward
District 5 (incumbent)	Megan Harding, Michelle Mandarin

District 1

The seat covers parts of Wesley Chapel and Land O' Lakes. Gino Collura, a business consultant and behavioral scientist appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis to the Pasco-Hernando State College board of trustees, is the early front-runner and has led on fundraising. His endorsements include Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson, Superintendent John Legg and outgoing Sheriff Chris Nocco. Collura says he grew up in Pasco schools and now has a child in them, and he has campaigned on teacher pay, cutting down on personal device use in class, and school safety technology. When he entered the race, two other filed candidates dropped out.

Christopher King is a retired U.S. Marine with four combat tours who founded a Dade City nonprofit focused on etiquette, human rights and human trafficking awareness. He ran for Dade City Council in 2020. King argues board members are not visible enough in the communities they represent, and he has pushed hard on cell phones in schools and on the gap between the district's "A" grade and its lower-performing campuses.

Kimberly Coward is an attorney, a former Pasco school counselor and a veteran of the Air Force Judge Advocate General's office who recently moved back to Pasco. She ran for the Broward County School Board in 2022. Brian Perras is a Pasco substitute teacher, youth athletics referee, podcaster and Navy veteran who describes himself as a constitutional conservative. His largely self-funded campaign pitches back-to-basics civics, more career and technical training, a four-day school week and an overhaul of school meals. He ran against U.S. Rep. Gus Bilirakis in the 2022 Republican primary.

District 3

Armstrong's seat covers southwest Pasco, including the New Port Richey, Trinity, Odessa, Elfers and Holiday areas. Five candidates want it.

Matt Geiger, who has worked as a school director for a residential academy tied to the Benfica soccer club, challenged Armstrong four years ago and lost. Sean O'Flannery is a military veteran and educator who has taught in Pasco, Pinellas and now Hillsborough, plus Florida Virtual School, and ran twice for the Pinellas County School Board in the early 2000s. Kirk Phillips is a retired human relations and technology specialist for the Air Force and private industry who ran for a state House seat in 2024.

Erin Stroupe is a parent activist making her first run. She organized against the board's move to hand a charter operator land for a future high school expected to serve her part of the county, a deal the board finalized last year for a Patel Foundation charter high school in the growing Trinity area. Mollyana Ward, a real estate agent, is also new to campaigns and has pointed to her ties to current and former officials.

District 5

Incumbent Megan Harding, a former Pasco elementary teacher, is seeking a third and final term. She has said she wants to keep going on the student performance and accountability gains made during her time on the board. Her challenger is Michelle Mandarin, a Republican Party activist from the party's patriot wing who ran for Pasco superintendent two years ago. With only two names, whoever wins on Aug. 18 takes the seat.

How to vote

Early voting runs Saturday, Aug. 8 through Saturday, Aug. 15, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily, at the county's early voting sites. Election Day is Tuesday, Aug. 18. Vote-by-mail ballots have to be in the Supervisor of Elections office by 7 p.m. on Election Day, not just postmarked. The registration deadline for this primary passed on July 20. Sites, sample ballots and mail ballot status are posted at pascovotes.gov.

One scheduling quirk worth knowing: early voting is open on Aug. 13, the first day of school. If drop-off and pickup eat your morning, the sites stay open until 6 p.m.

The winners inherit a board wrestling with growth, school boundary changes, charter school agreements and a budget that has to keep pace with new subdivisions. If neither open race produces a majority on Aug. 18, those two contests run again on Nov. 3.

Keep up with Pasco election coverage at Pasco County Community Website, follow us on Facebook, and join the conversation in our Community Forum if you have questions about a race or a candidate. You can read more government and politics stories and more education coverage from around the county.