Filing for 5 Sumter school board seats begins on Monday

Every two years, impactful Sumter County elections not associated with the two major political parties in Democrats and Republicans take place.

These local elections are for Sumter School District's Board of Trustees, which are nonpartisan seats, and the two-week filing period for five board seats up in the November general election begins Monday, Aug. 3, and four of five incumbents said last week they plan to run for reelection.

Sumter school board is a nine-member board, and the Rev. Ralph Canty (Area 3), Tarah Johnson (Area 4), Matthew "Mac" McLeod (Area 6) and Phil Leventis (Area 8) all told The Sumter Item that they will file to run.

After confusion in communication on the matter in a text message early last week, board Chairman Shawn Ragin (Area 5) informed The Item on Thursday that he does not plan to file to seek reelection for the Wedgefield and Pinewood areas in the southwestern portion of Sumter County.

As the planning committee chairman for a proposed new charter school in Sumter, Ragin has said publicly before that he did not intend to seek reelection after his four-year term expires in November.

The filing period starts at noon Monday, Aug. 3, and closes two weeks later at noon, Monday, Aug. 17, and all candidates are instructed to file at the Sumter County Voter Registration/Election Office, 129 E. Liberty St., in downtown Sumter next to First Baptist Church. Office hours are 8:30 a.m. until 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Those offices are where The Item was formerly located until 2016 when the newspaper operation moved to 36 W. Liberty St.

All candidates who file through that office will be on Nov. 3 election ballot.

If no one achieves more than 50% of the vote on election day for their respective school board area, a runoff will occur later for the top two vote-getters.

The more candidates who file for a board area, the higher the probability for a runoff, given the 50% threshold requirement.

With nine voting trustees, five seats up during an election cycle can change the composition and voting patterns of the board.

Sumter's public schools were consolidated into one school district in 2011.