Heather Felton

Heather Felton is a member of the School District of Manatee County school board in Florida, representing District 1. She assumed office on November 19, 2024. Her current term ends on November 21, 2028.

Felton ran for election to the School District of Manatee County school board to represent District 1 in Florida. She won in the general election on November 5, 2024.

Felton completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2024. Click here to read the survey answers.

Biography

Heather Felton was born in Salt Lake City, Utah. She graduated from Hilltop High School. She earned a bachelor's degree from Sonoma State University in 1997 and a graduate degree from Felician University in 2012. Her career experience includes working as an educator, journalist, and in religious ministry. She has been affiliated with League of Women Voters and her local teacher's union.^[1]

Elections

2024

General election

General election for School District of Manatee County school board District 1

Heather Felton defeated Mark Stanoch in the general election for School District of Manatee County school board District 1 on November 5, 2024.

	Candidate	%	Votes
✔	Heather Felton (Nonpartisan)	57.7	29,051
	Mark Stanoch (Nonpartisan)	42.3	21,275

	There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 50,326
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
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Nonpartisan primary election

Nonpartisan primary for School District of Manatee County school board District 1

Heather Felton and Mark Stanoch defeated Alex Garner in the primary for School District of Manatee County school board District 1 on August 20, 2024.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Heather Felton (Nonpartisan)	39.3	6,416
✔		Mark Stanoch (Nonpartisan)	31.4	5,135
	Submit photo	Alex Garner (Nonpartisan)	29.3	4,784

	There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 16,335
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
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Endorsements

Ballotpedia did not identify endorsements for Felton in this election.

Campaign themes

2024

Ballotpedia survey responses

Heather Felton completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2024. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Felton's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.

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Who are you? Tell us about yourself.

I came to Manatee County in 1997 as a cops reporter for the Bradenton Herald. On the job I met my husband, Sean, now a lieutenant at the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office. We married in 1999 and a year later moved to the Parrish area. Our two children attended and graduated from Manatee County public schools.

In my career, I was a journalist and editor, as well as faith formation director in church ministry. As a Manatee County English teacher, I worked for nine years in middle and high school, most recently teaching lower-level language arts and International Baccalaureate literature at Southeast High School. I left education in May 2023 and now works at a local private practice so that I can pursue advocacy for teachers, parents, and students.

I am also a member of the Manatee County League of Women Voters and attend Church of the Apostles in Parrish.

Please list below 3 key messages of your campaign. What are the main points you want voters to remember about your goals for your time in office?

Advocating for and prioritizing the needs of our students. The priority should be making decisions and voting in favor of policies that benefit the kids foremost – not playing politics or appeasing specific groups. If a policy will hurt kids, vote against it. If we can fund it and it will help kids, then vote for it. The kids - and by extension the staff and parents - should always be the focus.
Fair and equitable pay for teachers and paras. Florida is ranked 50th for average teacher salary. The board needs to work with the bargaining units to raise teacher pay for those who are already working here. The compression of the pay scale that has teachers with ten years of experience earning the same as a starting teachers provides no incentive for experienced teachers to stay or develop in their careers. We need to retain - not just hire - teachers.
Push for more fully trained & licensed social workers available in our schools. We are facing a mental health crisis in our country and our kids are not getting the care they need. Parents have a hard enough time getting access to these services for their kids, not to mention the high cost of care. With more staff available, parents can get care for their kids without transportation and cost issues, and kids can get the care they need and deserve, which benefits everyone, including the community at large.

What areas of public policy are you personally passionate about?

My passion is for ensuring a safe, supportive, and enriching public education for ALL Manatee County students. I want the rights of ALL parents and their children to be the focus.

As people often ask, I am opposed to the rampant banning of books. Books should be age and grade level appropriate and not every book should be available for every child. Parents should have - and always have had - the right to determine what is available to their own children.

I am a determined moderate and my focus is the kids – not the politics.

Who do you look up to? Whose example would you like to follow, and why?

I look up to people who are kind but still stand up for what is right - Fred Rogers, Dolly Parton, Malala Yousafzai.

Is there a book, essay, film, or something else you would recommend to someone who wants to understand your political philosophy?

No, I don't try to focus on politics. My focus is on doing the right thing for teachers and staff, kids, and their families.

What characteristics or principles are most important for an elected official?

Elected officials should listen to and act on behalf of ALL of their constituents to the best of their ability although we can't please everyone all the time. They should be practical, logical, and reasonable, and able to work with people of differing views. They should be able to compromise when necessary but hold firm on the big picture. Elected officials should be careful about overreaching and trying to influence areas that are not within their purview. They should have strong ethics and take honesty as a personal goal.

What qualities do you possess that you believe would make you a successful officeholder?

I am a moderate politically and personally. I can see and understand multiple sides of an issue and am willing to listen. I am willing to compromise when necessary, but I won't compromise my principles. I have been a teacher in our schools - Title 1 - for nine years and a parent of two public school students from K through 12.

What do you believe are the core responsibilities for someone elected to this office?

The school board’s primary role is to ensure that the school district has the resources necessary to provide our students with the best public education possible. It does this through financial and administrative policies that provide our district and school staff with the tools, facilities, and programs required to meet the needs of our children and their families.

What legacy would you like to leave?

That I cared and did what was right and I helped our students.

What is the first historical event that happened in your lifetime that you remember? How old were you at the time?

The explosion of the Challenger. I was in elementary school

What was your very first job? How long did you have it?

I was a file clerk at my dentist office my senior year of high school.

What is your favorite book? Why?

I have too many! It depends on what I'm in the mood for... but one of my favorite authors it Neil Gaiman and I love his book Neverwhere. I also love The Color Purple, The Lord of the Rings, Jane Eyre, and anything by Jane Austin and Agatha Christie.

If you could be any fictional character, who would you want to be?

Depends on the day - Hermione Granger, Elizabeth Bennett, Black Widow, Rey Skywalker, Cinder from The Lunar Chronicles, Agent Carter. Women who are strong and smart and stand up for what is right.

What is the primary job of a school board member in your view?

I stated this previously, but the school board’s primary role is to ensure that the school district has the resources necessary to provide our students with the best public education possible. It does this through financial and administrative policies that provide our district and school staff with the tools, facilities, and programs required to meet the needs of our children and their families.

Who are your constituents?

The people of Manatee County - those in District 1 who were eligible to vote for me - as well as all the rest of the county population as my votes on the board effect everyone.

How would you support the diverse needs of your district’s students, faculty, staff, and community?

Visiting the schools and talking to the stakeholders is a great way to learn their needs. In addition to attending PTO and faculty meetings, attending open houses, sporting events, and other activities gives you a chance to see the community in a natural setting and see how all the moving parts fit together. Additionally, taking phone calls and responding to emails also gives the stakeholders a chance to present their needs and concerns.
Through these things, I can bring the needs to the board for discussion.

How will you build relationships with members of the broader community? Which groups, organizations, stakeholders will you specifically target?

Similar to the above, it takes visiting areas of the community and getting to know the stakeholders with whom the district can partner to better serve our students, as well as benefit those groups/organizations. Examples include local business owners who may be able to sponsor school events and organizations that can assist our students and/or their families through services.

What constitutes good teaching? How will you measure this? How will you support advanced teaching approaches?

Good teaching is reaching the students. It is presenting the material in a way that gets most of the students to engage with it in a productive way. How that looks depends on the teacher, the students, the age, the grade, the subject matter. There are a wide variety of variables. A teacher may not teach the same curriculum the exact same way in any of the five or six classes she teaches because the students may have different needs.
The way to measure is to see what the child makes of what they have learned, how they articulate that learning, and show that they are able to take what they've learned and adapt it to different scenarios. I support advanced teaching approaches because I used them myself.

In what areas would you like to expand curriculum? For example, do you see a need for advanced technical training or apprenticeships? What sort of innovative programming would you advance if given the opportunity?

Apprenticeships and technical training are important to me, as is providing financial literacy for our students. Not every child will go to college, so they need options that will help them learn marketable skills, such as the district's technical school. This needs to be promoted more widely at the school and community level.

What strategies or plans would you advance to ensure the schools are properly funded?

We need to support the renewal of the mill in November. Without it, our teachers will take an $8,000 pay cut. We also need to look at ways to cut extraneous spending and to work with other districts to petition the state for more funding for the public schools.

What principles drive your policies for safety in schools?

As long as guns are readily available, we need to have security in place to keep our schools safe. I've been married to a law enforcement officer for nearly 25 years. I am very aware of the laws surrounding gun ownership, right to carry, etc. I have also experienced the reality of a having a loaded gun in my classroom. Safety first.

How might you support the mental health needs of students/faculty/staff?

I am advocating for more licensed mental health counselors in our schools to help our students, the continuation of the half-dozen free sessions of mental health care for teachers and staff, as well as ENCOURAGING teachers and staff to take a mental health day when they need it. Mental exhaustion is just as detrimental as the flu. We have to support our teachers beyond giving them a mug and a certificate.

Tell us your favorite joke.

What is invisible and smells like carrots?
Bunny farts!

What existing district policies would you like to change, or what new policies would you like to implement?

I would like to make changes to the book removal policies our district and add a policy in which we can reexamine books that were removed in a panic two years ago.

Describe your ideal learning environment for students.

My ideal learning environment is one where students are welcomed and loved and treated with respect. When we treat kids like people, they usually return the favor and develop a bond with the adults around them. Additionally, in an ideal learning environment, there is less pressure to perform (score high on a test) and more encouragement for learning and growth (memorization isn't learning). Kids won't learn or develop when they are afraid or tired or hungry, so these needs must also be met. There should also be room for activities that get the kids creating and exploring. Not everyone learns the same way, so we need to vary our instructional styles from time to time to reach everyone.
Finally, there needs to be clear rules in place. Children need structure and thrive when they know what is expected of them. They will rise to expectations.

How do you feel like your school district handled the coronavirus pandemic? What, if anything, would you do differently in the future?

Generally, I think they handled it as well as they could with maskers and anti-maskers fighting it out throughout the community. I felt supported by my administration and the district through it all.

What will you do to build a relationship with parents in the district?

Again, answer calls and respond to emails. Be available for conversations at PTO meetings and through Q&A events at the schools.

What are your preferred strategies for faculty, staff, and administration recruitment?

The big issue isn't recruiting staff in our district - it is retaining them. This needs to be addressed by resolving the compression of the pay scale and ensuring that teachers are made to feel valued at all levels of the district. We are losing teachers every year to career changes or other districts. This has to stop.

What are your views on financial transparency and government accountability?

I fully support Florida's Sunshine Laws and believe that government should be transparent and accept responsibility for its decisions.

Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.

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School District of Manatee County school board District 1

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Footnotes

↑ Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on July 21, 2024

[1] Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on July 21, 2024

[1]

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Heather Felton

Contents

Biography

Elections

2024

General election

General election for School District of Manatee County school board District 1

Nonpartisan primary election

Nonpartisan primary for School District of Manatee County school board District 1

Endorsements

Campaign themes

2024

Ballotpedia survey responses

See also

External links

Footnotes

Information about voting

2025 Elections

2026 Elections

2024 Election analysis

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Public Policy

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