OCALA, FL (352today.com) – Marion County voters will decide the District 5 school board seat on November 3, 2026, when incumbent Chair Dr. Sarah James faces first-time candidate Donald “Donny” Barber in a runoff.
James received 31,511 votes (49.2 percent) in the Aug. 18 primary, falling just short of the majority needed to win outright. Barber received 22,577 votes (35.2 percent). Ualthan Bigby finished third with 9,989 votes (15.6 percent) and was eliminated.
The nonpartisan race is voted on countywide. James, who took office in November 2022, is seeking a second term. Barber, a lifelong Marion County resident, is city manager of Archer and works in business development for a Gainesville engineering firm.
In separate interviews with 352Today, the candidates outlined positions on classroom displays, library materials, school safety, spending, construction contracting, student achievement and career education.
Ten Commandments and library materials
Asked whether he supports displaying the Ten Commandments in classrooms, Barber said, “I have no issue with it, and I would vote ‘yes’ if I were asked.”
James declined a yes-or-no answer. She said she previously addressed the question for the Coalition of Christian Families and would prefer the Legislature set rules, similar to the state’s chaplain legislation, which she said she supported after it passed.
“If we allow the Ten Commandments, what then will happen when we are presented with, I don’t know, Sharia law being broadcast or public,” James said. “So I don’t want to set a precedent that we can’t then legally not allow others.” She added that legislative ground rules would help “conservative Christian school boards like us” act “without legally having ramifications and requirements to support religions not aligned with our community.”
On sexually explicit material, Barber said he had not inspected school library holdings and could not endorse current offerings. “As far as the policy regarding seeing material if it’s found? Yes, I think it should be removed,” he said. “I’m not for censorship, but I do think that parents need to take control of those particular areas, and they need to choose what to put in front of their children. So anything controversial, that’s not what the school system is for.”
James said, “The line is with the law. There’s no place for them in our classrooms.”
School safety and School Resource Officers (SROs)
Barber said he would support turning school safety operations over to the Marion County Sheriff’s Office. He said the sheriff has offered to hire Safe Schools staff and supply school resource officers at all 50-plus schools.
“I would even prefer the contract that the sheriff brought forward that would supply all SROs,” Barber said. He argued that contracts with the Ocala Police Department and the Belleview Police Department cost more because of retirement packages under the League of Cities rather than the Florida Retirement System. He said his opponent prefers local city officers, but that officers often do not live in the cities they serve.
“My opponent has stated that she’s for it because she wants officers that are local, but I worked with the Williston Police Department for many, many years, and it was very rare that we had an officer that lived in the locality of their department. Law enforcement officers, on average, are 45 minutes to an hour from where they’re posted, and there is no difference there with the Ocala Police Department or the Belleview Police Department. And so, I don’t believe that that argument holds water. So, I believe the sheriff’s department should consolidate, should take over everything,” Barber said.
Barber also said sheriff’s deputies serving as SROs should handle absenteeism and truancy on a case-by-case basis, including connecting families with programs or agencies when needed.
James was asked how she would structure and fund a more centralized command for safety coordination, and whether she would revisit or support placing the Department of Safe Schools under the Marion County Sheriff’s Office.
“I believe our Safe Schools department is structured well and works best to support our students’ needs across Marion County Public Schools. The partnership between Ocala Police Department, Marion County Sheriff’s Office, Belleview Police Department, and Marion County Public Schools is a product of positive relationships that put students first,” James said. “Regarding a more centralized command, we continue to enhance our internal procedures within these partnerships so that MCPS has information immediately both during and after school hours. Student safety will always be a top priority and our current structure supports that priority.”
Budget, staffing and construction
The district’s tentative 2026-27 budget is about $1.23 billion, nearly $79 million smaller than the prior year. District officials have also described staffing reductions that included 54 teaching positions and seven assistant principal posts.
Barber said the district could cut $20 million to $30 million and called for an independent forensic audit. He listed proposed non-salary reductions he said total $5,365,103, including cuts to plant operations, energy, administrative technology, purchased instructional services, board and general administration, community services, transportation and facilities acquisition.
He said he would spare classroom salaries. “I’m a fiscal budget hawk, except where it comes to salaries and where it comes to classroom investment,” Barber said. He also proposed consolidating school fleet maintenance with county operations and said South Marion High School, which he put at about $165 million after change orders, “is a catastrophe” that “could have been value engineered.”
James said classroom and construction dollars come from different funds. “Construction is funded out of a capital outlay,” she said. “We cannot pay teachers from that money, and the money we use to pay teachers cannot be used to build schools.” She said most new construction voters see is funded by sales tax and bonds used to address overcrowding in southwest Marion County.
According to James, she stands by the decision to shift health-care costs onto employees as an alternative to cutting jobs.
James was also asked about a 2024 investigation by Orlando law and lobbying firm GrayRobinson into possible improprieties involving a high school construction procurement. The report described a phone call in which James told then-Superintendent Diane Gullett she was on James’ “[REDACTED] list,” and found it violated district policy for James to sit on a selection committee, score bids and conduct interviews.
James said she would not “get into the nitty-gritty of the report.” She said she “went all the way to the governor’s office and was found to not have violated any ethical standards.” In hindsight, she said, “I wouldn’t have picked up the phone and had a conversation with the superintendent that afternoon, and I would have waited to have a conversation the next day. So, I love when God gives us opportunities to learn so we can handle ourselves differently in the future.’
Student performance, culture and career education
Florida assigned Marion County Public Schools a C for 2025-26 and ranked it 58th among 67 districts. The district said it scored 59 points after the state raised the B threshold from 57 to 60.
Barber said academic programs matter but are “secondary to culture.” He said employees do not believe “the administration of the school board has their back,” cited pay compression for veteran teachers, and argued turnover explains falling reading and math scores.
“There’s no program that we can implement in reading and math that is going to fix these scores if we don’t have the staff on board to totally transform our district,” he said.
James said chronic absenteeism is down 5 to 10 percent from 2022 and should remain a focus. “When students are in school, they can achieve. That’s what our data demonstrates.”
“We need more students to come to school regularly so that they can learn what we are teaching and then show achievement,” James said.
On career and technical education, Barber said concepts such as finance, entrepreneurship and trades should start in elementary school, with middle-school exposure and closer ties to the chamber and local employers. He said he wants legislation allowing companies to hire students below minimum wage for apprenticeships and state rule changes so high-school students either dual-enroll toward an associate degree or leave with a job or military enlistment.
“My goal would be to see seniors walk out of high school with a high school diploma, alongside a college degree, perhaps even a four-year college degree,” he said, or already “teamed up with a local company and started a job a couple months after graduation.”
James said CTE expansion has been a priority since 2022. “More than 500 students year over year are getting access and passing assessments for career and technical education.”
Closing appeals
Barber said James “raised five times the amount of money, and yet she’s in a runoff.”
“Now, what I want to say to Marion County is, they may have questions about me. They may have questions as to what my plans are. What I will tell them is, I don’t know everything, but I have a desire to listen, to learn, and to work toward equitable solutions for every community within Marion County, whether they’re ethically different than myself, whether they’re rich, whether they’re poor, you know, whatever the case may be, I want the community to know that I will be the most accessible school board that will ever occur,” Barber said.
“I don’t want to see improvement. I want us to be the best,” he said. “We’re in crisis mode. We’re beyond that. It’s time to have transformative change in our school system, and I promise to bring them.”
James said the principles from her 2022 campaign have not changed: recruit and retain staff and keep a “student-first budget.”
“We are looking to continue to recruit and retain qualified personnel while balancing a student-first budget, which we’ve done consistently every year since I got elected. We are going to continue to expand access to career and technical education, which we have done since elected. More than 500 students year over year are getting access and passing assessments for career and technical education. So we are expanding access in all of our schools. The focus remains the same. We want students to come to school on time, be present and ready to learn, and then we will deliver them a quality education. So on November 3, I’m asking for the voters to show up and support Dr. Sarah James from Marion County School Board District Five,” James said.
The general election is November 3, 2026.