(Editor’s note: This story has been updated with additional information.)
Alachua County School Board member Janine Plavac is running for the board’s District 1 seat this fall.
“I think I’m needed on the board,” she said. “The community needs to have people who speak up for them and don’t have an agenda.”
Plavac filed to run for the seat earlier this month and currently represents District 5. She was appointed to the board by Gov. Ron DeSantis in April 2025 to serve out former board member Kay Abbitt’s term when she resigned in December 2024.
Her term ends this year.
Plavac said she decided to run because she wants to continue to serve teachers, children and parents in the district. She also wants to ensure the board is held fiscally accountable and, as they conduct a search for a permanent superintendent, chooses someone who values all employees and encourages them to work together as a team.
Tina Certain, who currently serves District 1, will not run against Plavac for her seat. Certain, instead, has filed to run for the District 2 seat on the Alachua County Commission as a Democrat.
No one else has filed to run for ACSB’s District 1 seat.
Although Plavac currently serves District 5, she lives in District 1, according to previous reporting by The Sun. Under Florida law, board members and those running for a seat on the board must live within the district associated with that seat.
As of Jan. 29, three candidates have joined the race for a seat on the board. Sarah Rockwell intends to keep her District 3 seat and has received $11,508 in campaign contributions as of Jan. 29, according to campaign finance reports.
Annie Muscato, director of development at the University of Florida Engineering School of Sustainable Infrastructure and Environment, and Jancie Vinson, a former employee for the Florida Department of Corrections, have filed to run for Plavac’s District 5 seat.
Muscato has raised $2,525 and Vinson has raised $1,200 to date.
Vinson ran for the District 5 seat in 2010 and again in 2014 but lost both races. She is a member of the Alachua County Local Planning Agency and Planning Commission.
Plavac spent 16 years as the director of Gainesville High School’s Academy of Health Professions before becoming director of the Health Sciences Institute at St. Francis Catholic Academy in Gainesville. She was named Alachua County’s Teacher of the Year in 2008.
Plavac said her background as an educator in both public and private schools remains an asset to the board.
This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: Janine Plavac enters race for Alachua County School Board District 1
Reporting by Chelsea Long, Gainesville Sun / The Gainesville Sun
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
