Perla Tabares Hantman, a longtime resident of the Town of Miami Lakes, was recently elected with an outstanding 81 percent of the vote to her sixth term as a member of the Miami-Dade County School Board where she represents District 4, and is currently serving as its chair for the seventh time.
Throughout her many years of public service on the School Board, Hantman has worked hard in improving the District’s level of academic achievement, increasing the graduation rate to an al-time high of 77.2 percent (higher than the state’s average), strengthening bilingual education programs, bringing new technology to the classroom, upgrading student safety and traffic programs, significantly increasing the number of magnet programs include Cambridge, and closely monitoring District finances where administrate ranks have been reduced by 50 percent all along while protecting the classroom, where not a single full-time teacher has been dismissed for financial reasons.
During her tenure on the School Board, and as a result of working as a team with the Superintendent and other Board colleagues, the District, under her chairmanship, has received numerous national and state awards recognizing Miami-Dade County Public Schools as one of the most efficiently and effectively-run school districts in the nation.