The school board seat that governs Lakewood Ranch High School is open for the first time in years, and three candidates with sharply different ideas about reading instruction are competing to fill it before the Aug. 18 primary.

District 5 incumbent Richard Tatem, the board's vice chair, is not seeking reelection. The seat covers 16 schools in eastern Manatee County, including Lakewood Ranch High, Braden River High and several elementary and middle schools feeding into them.

Camden Bedinghaus, 23, Jonathan Mullis, 49, and Chantal Wilford, 53, are the three candidates. Because school board races are nonpartisan, voters of any party affiliation can cast a ballot. If one candidate wins more than 50% of the vote Aug. 18, that person takes the seat outright. Otherwise, the top two advance to the Nov. 3 general election.

Who's running and who's paying

Mullis, owner and CEO of Physical Therapy Doctors of Florida in Bradenton, leads fundraising with approximately $28,000 raised, according to campaign finance records reported by WUSF on Monday. His donors include Knowledge is Power PAC, Ford Drywall & Stucco Inc., Manatee County Commissioner Tal Siddique ($150) and the county's chief of finance, Neil Unruh ($500). Mullis is president of the Bradenton Kiwanis Club and a Manatee Tiger Bay Club board member. He has one child in Manatee County schools and one who graduated.

Bedinghaus has raised about $5,800, with endorsements from Manatee Patriots, America First Party of Florida and Stand for Health Freedom. He graduated from the University of South Florida in May with a bachelor's degree in economics and is director of the Turning Point USA Manatee County hub. He qualified for the ballot by petition rather than paying the roughly $2,000 fee.

Wilford has raised nearly $4,000, all from individual contributions of $300 or less. A substitute middle school teacher in District 5 and former translator, she ran for the same seat in 2022 and lost. She founded the Education Matters in Manatee County Facebook page, which has 2,700 followers, and volunteers with the Lakewood Ranch Little Free Library Club. The Bradenton Times and Equality Florida Action PAC have endorsed her.

Literacy plans diverge

All District 5 schools earned A or B grades for the 2025-26 school year, according to the Florida Department of Education. The district overall maintained its B grade, a mark it has held since 2017, per WUSF's reporting. Still, all three candidates say early reading proficiency remains a concern, and each frames the solution differently.

Bedinghaus told WUSF he would declare a "reading emergency" on his first day, apply for federal and state grants for early intervention, and cut programs that don't serve at least 80% of students. He said he'd redirect those savings as performance-based teacher bonuses and create a parent transparency portal showing lesson plans and instructional time allocation.

Mullis proposed a community volunteer mentorship program pairing parents, community members and high school students with K-2 readers who need one-on-one help two or three times a week. "I don't know that we can afford to hire a whole bunch more college and career teachers, but one of the things I really want to work on is getting the community more involved in the school system," Mullis told WUSF.

Wilford told WUSF she wants teachers to have more leeway choosing reading programs and would create a mechanism for parents to "challenge the challenge" on book removals. She said each parent should be able to decide what books their child can access, but that shouldn't be the only way a book remains available.

What's next

Early voting runs Aug. 8 through Aug. 16, from 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily. Lakewood Ranch-area sites include Lakewood Ranch Town Hall and Lakewood Ranch Library. Election Day is Aug. 18, with polls open 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.