A Lake Wales resident less than a year removed from high school is seeking to join the Polk County School Board.
Kasen Hampton, 19, has filed to run in District 6. That seat is now held by Justin Sharpless, who is seeking a second term.
District 6 covers southern Polk County, though voting takes place countywide. School Board elections are nonpartisan races.
Hampton is a student at Polk State College studying public administration. He graduated in 2025 from Candlelight Christian Academy in Lake Wales. Hampton said he attended Janie Howard Wilson Elementary, a public school in the Lake Wales Charter system.
Asked why he chose to run at such a young age, Hampton answered, “That our current system was not working, for one. That teachers are paid only $500 over the minimum required wage. I wanted to fix that. Our education system is wildly underfunded, specifically our reading and literacy programs — our financial literacy programs as well.
“I think that if we fund them correctly, we will be able to kind of raise our overall literacy for our students.”
Hampton also cited student safety and mental health as motivating issues for his candidacy.
“As someone who was bullied in elementary school, middle school, I believe that the main factor to our students for mental health is bullying and that we should do more to rid our schools of the sort of children who pick on other children for their looks, for how they talk, or their disabilities, whether they be physical or mental.”
Hampton clearly does not consider his youth a liability.
“I think we need student representation,” he said. “There’s a lot of educator representation but no student representation. I plan to change that, be more involved in politics and being kind of like a representative of the Florida youth and getting people to vote, getting them to feel like it doesn’t matter what age you are or what your background is, you can do it if you put your mind to it.”
If elected, Hampton would likely be the youngest person ever to join the Polk County School Board. Current member Sara Beth Wyatt first gained election in 2016 at age 24.
Hampton filed last year to run for the Lake Wales City Commission, but he did not qualify to appear on the ballot.
As of March 31, Sharpless had reported $14,875 in campaign contributions.
Gary White can be reached at gary.white@theledger.com or 863-802-7518. Follow on X @garywhite13.
This article originally appeared on The Ledger: College student files to challenge Polk School Board member
Reporting by Gary White, Lakeland Ledger / The Ledger
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