Candidate Profile: Bridget Mendel

Bridget Mendel is running for the Manatee School Board District 1 seat currently held by Gina Messenger. She is a parent to three boys who have spent the last ten years in Manatee County Schools. A longtime educator who has taught in New York, Chicago and Manatee County, Mendel has been an active parent activist in the Manatee education community, where she's been a vocal critic of the overreliance on standardized testing.

Mendel has an undergraduate degree from the University of New Hampshire in Economics as well as an M.S.Ed. in Elementary Education from the College of St. Rose in Albany, NY. She comes from multiple generations of teachers, starting with her mother who served as Mendel's inspiration for going into teaching with an emphasis on reading remediation and early childhood education.

If elected, Mendel says she plans to make it clear that children and teachers are more than a score. She says that the high stakes attached to the state assessments must end as well as our reliance on educational technology in place of highly trained, highly qualified educators, especially in remediation classes. Mendel wants to restore valuable instructional time, invest in evidence-based materials, and high-quality professional development for our teachers.

Mendel has also been a vocal critic of current superintendent Cynthia Saunders and said that the grade inflation scandal was her inspiration for running for the board. Both Mendel and Messenger have a background as teachers but Mendel says her background in economics gives her an additional realm of experience.

"I also have an undergraduate degree in economics," said Mendel at a recent televised debate. "So I see where our millions of dollars are being spent needlessly on bloated layers of district administration. Our county spends more money on overpaid and underqualified admin instead of directing those dollars back into the classroom. I see tax dollars wastefully spent on instructional materials that are not independently researched or peer-reviewed. To see $96 million that was lost because of our board's unwillingness to collect impact fees from developers was very frustrating.

School board races are non-partisan and will appear on the August 18 primary ballot. If no candidate gets a simple majority of votes, the top two candidates will compete in a runoff election on the November general election ballot. However, as Messenger and Mendel are the only candidates in the race, there will be no need for a runoff in this race.