School Board District 1 Candidate Mark Stanoch Launches Campaign Website

With over 6,000 employees, 52,000 students, and a budget approaching $1.4B, the Manatee County School District is a large, complex enterprise. As such, the District can benefit from my background, experience and successes in a number of important ways.”

Manatee County School Board District 1 Candidate, Mark Stanoch

BRADENTON — Manatee County School Board District 1 sees two candidates vying for the seat. The seat is currently held by School Board Member Gina Messenger, who has yet to file for reelection.

Mark Stanoch, of the Foxleigh area of Bradenton, filed earlier this year, but more recently launched a campaign website. According to votemarkstanoch.com, Stanoch has been a resident of Manatee County since 2008 after relocating from New Jersey.

A father and grandfather, Stanoch graduated from St. Peter’s College with a B.S. in Psychology and pursued graduate degrees in Management Science and Statistics at Stevens Institute of Technology and Rutgers University.

“I spent my entire career in technology. Probably, the role most similar to the school board was uniting conservative Dell with liberal Microsoft over the common goal of creating excellent offerings and driving joint revenue,” Stanoch shared online.

“I am an innovator.  I developed this leadership skill by successfully creating two technology startups both of which were sold to publicly-traded corporations.”

The website highlights three assets that Stanoch would bring to the School Board if elected: “Business experience, consensus building, and enterprise transformation.”

The local organizer of the Victims of Communism Scholarship Fund, Stanoch is also an active member of the Knights of Columbus Council and his local church.

A father to three boys, Stanoch’s oldest child is also a resident of Manatee County—two of his grandchildren attend Manatee District Schools.

“Providing the best possible education for all Manatee County children underlies the motivation for my campaign,” Stanoch shared through his campaign website about his decision to run for the District 1 seat.

If elected, Stanoch hopes to help lead Manatee School District toward achieving an “A” rating.

“I believe that our schools have been failing too many students by not providing them with basic life skills and those necessary for life-long learning,” reads the campaign’s mission statement.

“We must provide our teachers with the resources and environment that allow them to do their job effectively. And I believe that parents and taxpayers have for too long been denied the benefits of an A-rated school system,” the statement includes. To read Stanoch’s campaign mission statement in full—including his plan to meet these goals—click here.

Former English teacher Heather Felton has also filed for the School Board's District 1 seat. Should current Board Member Messenger not file as incumbent and no other candidates enter the race, the School Board's D1 election would come down to a Felton vs. Stanoch faceoff for the position.

School board seats are non-partisan and conducted during the August primaries. If no candidate receives a majority of votes, a run-off election between the top two candidates is contested on the November ballot.