- Janine Plavac and Hunter Miller will compete in a runoff on Nov. 3 for the Alachua County School Board District 1 seat after no candidate won a majority in August.
- Miller aims to invest equitably in East Gainesville and rural schools and close the Black-white achievement gap in English Language Arts in the district.
- Plavac seeks to keep Alachua and Williams Elementary Schools open and plans athletic facility improvements, including upgrading Hawthorne High's football stadium.
The final seat on the School Board of Alachua County (SBAC) this election season will be decided next month.
Incumbent Janine Plavac will face Hunter Miller in a runoff election for the District 1 seat on Tuesday, Nov. 3, after neither candidate received more than 50% of the vote in the August primary election.
According to the official election results, 41,567 votes were cast in the District 1 race, which also included candidate Gabriel Lopez. Miller received 46% (19,067) of the votes, while Plavac secured 35% (14,753) of the votes.
Lopez, meanwhile, received 19% (7,747) of the total votes and did not qualify for the runoff, according to the official results.
In an interview with Mainstreet, Miller, a math teacher at Howard W. Bishop Middle School, said he was pleased with getting 46% of the vote in the primary election but acknowledged that there is still work to do to get the votes that he needs in the runoff.
In a separate interview, Plavac, a teacher at Saint Francis Catholic Academy (SFCA) and the current holder of the District 5 seat, said she was happy about the runoff, adding that it gives people more time to get to know her.
“I don’t think we had enough time in the beginning to really get in the community and really get out there and talk to people,” said Plavac, who was appointed to the SBAC in April 2025 to fill the vacancy of Kay Abbitt. “So, I’m OK with it. It’s just a long process. It’s draining. But I’m committed.”
If elected, Miller said his priorities as a school board member would be investing equitably in East Gainesville and rural schools.
“That has not been happening for the past several decades,” Miller said.
Another priority for Miller is closing the achievement gap in Alachua County.
According to the Florida Department of Education (FDOE), there was a 38-percentage-point gap between white and Black Alachua County students in English Language Arts (ELA) achievement during the 2025-26 school year, with 76% of white students scoring at or above grade level compared with 38% of Black students.
Miller said he wants to ensure that the school board is providing resources to the schools that need it “to make sure we can close that achievement gap and lift our African American kids to where they should be.”
If reelected, Plavac said one of her priorities would be to keep Alachua and Williams Elementary School open. In March, the SBAC approved a right-sizing plan that included the closure of Alachua and Williams, as well as Stephen Foster Elementary School. Foster has already closed, while Alachua and Williams are projected to close at the end of the 2027-28 school year.
“Going and talking to people in both communities [Alachua and Williams], it’s very apparent that the redistricting made decisions with the closures of those schools that really didn’t take in enough community input,” Plavac said. “I’ve always said that I thought it [the rezoning] was done too fast.”
Plavac also said she believes Foster needs to reopen. She noted that most of the school’s students went to Norton Elementary School and that it’s close to 100% capacity. Student enrollment numbers provided by Alachua County Public Schools (ACPS) show that Norton was at 86% enrollment as of Monday, with 584 total students.
If elected, Plavac said another focus for her would be athletic improvements at Hawthorne Middle/High School, specifically to the school’s football stadium.
“They need their stadium [to be] upgraded as good as we can do for them,” Plavac said.
At an Oct. 6 meeting, the SBAC voted 3-2 to authorize interim Superintendent Kamela Patton to bring back a list of improvements for local high school athletic facilities totaling up to $12 million. During that same meeting, the board, in another split vote, approved purchasing and renovating Citizens Field and building a new stadium at Buchholz High School (BHS).
While in support of renovating Citizens Field, Plavac said during the meeting that she also felt Buchholz deserved its own stadium. Speaking to Mainstreet, Plavac said her decision was based on the citizen input she heard at the meeting.
“I found that it was the right thing to do,” Plavac said, referring to the amended motion she made to also have a stadium at BHS. Plavac noted the branding opportunities for BHS at its own stadium and Eastside and Gainesville High School at Citizens Field, while also acknowledging the travel and scheduling benefits with two stadiums.
Miller said he was disappointed in the board’s decision, adding that the “most equitable choice” would be to have BHS, GHS and EHS share Citizens Field. He also said the $12 million being allotted for athletic improvements at the high schools needs to be “on pause” due to the $18 million that is being spent on the Buchholz stadium.
Miller said if the board is investing in an on-campus stadium, he would like Hawthorne to be the first recipient, given that the school is a three-time state champion in football and has a stadium in need of improvements.
For more information about Miller and Plavac and their stance on key issues, visit Mainstreet’s Meet the Candidates questionnaire, published in July.
Early voting for the general election begins Monday, Oct. 19, and will continue through Sunday, Nov. 1, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. More information can be found here.
Nick Anschultz is a Report for America corps member and writes about education for Mainstreet Daily News. This position is supported by local donations through the Community Catalyst for Local Journalism Fund at the Community Foundation of North Central Florida.