BROWARD COUNTY, Fla. — With Broward County District 7 School Board Member Nora Rupert not seeking reelection, two candidates are now eyeing the seat to help lead the district that includes Coconut Creek, Deerfield Beach, Hillsboro Beach, Lighthouse Point, Margate, Pompano Beach and some tribal land in the county.

U.S. Army veteran and nurse Cynthia Dominique described how she would tackle the district’s severe financial challenges if elected.

“I believe we have to take a holistic approach,” she said. “We have to find a way to pay our teachers more, including the staff who make learning possible, the bus drivers, the cafeteria workers, the custodian staff.”

Candidate Rochelle “Shelly” Soffer is a school speech language pathologist and former teacher.

“When we get the budget, we have to scrutinize the budget,” she said. “Where are we over-spending, where are we under-spending when we make these allocations, when we make these projections? Where are the projections not aligning?”

Both candidates detailed how they would address the district’s declining enrollment as families opt out of traditional public school.

“Why are they looking at these other avenues? What is it that we are not doing as a county that would make them come back?” asked Soffer. “Now we’ve heard safety and security, but we also gotta look at programming.”

Said Dominique: “The programs that we implement, the technology that we implement, we should be scrutinizing everything to make sure it’s actually improving student outcomes and we’re getting a return on our investment.”

School board elections are nonpartisan.

While you do have to be registered to vote, you are not required to be registered with a political party in order to vote for who you want to see represent your district on the school board.

Election day is set for Aug. 18.

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