McLeod faces 2 challengers in Sumter school board Area 6 race

Editor's note: This is the last in a series on the five Sumter school board area seats that are up for election on Tuesday, Nov. 3. Each week leading up to Election Day, The Sumter Item has analyzed at least one area (alternatively called district) race and interviewed candidates on the ballot. Online this series, like other election information, will be free to read as a public service. School board candidate Q&As in their own words were included in our Vote 2026 Guide section published in the Sept. 26-29 Weekend edition.

THE AREA 6 RACE

Area 6, also known as District 6, mainly contains areas just south and west of the City of Sumter and includes the Privateer and Cane Savannah areas and Forest Lake Estates. Major roadways include Pinewood Road, Kolb Road, Cains Mill Road, Bethel Church Road and parts of McCrays Mill Road.

A northern boundary to Area 6 is McCrays Mill, and a western boundary line is St. Pauls Church Road and Pinewood Road running south. Eastern boundary lines include U.S. 15 South and Nazarene Church Road. Southern boundary lines include Avin Road and Poole Road.

District schools in Area 6 include Pocalla Springs Elementary, Furman Middle and Sumter High.

Three candidates filed and are in the race: incumbent Matthew "Mac" McLeod and challengers Sindy Beam and Venitia Reebel.

SINDY BEAM

Beam works at a Florence County business and is an engaged parent with three children at Lakewood High School. Her oldest child graduated from Sumter High in 2018, she added.

She is on the school improvement council at Lakewood that includes about eight parents. Beam said she has always been an invested parent, beginning initially with the local Head Start program, and then PTA's and school improvement councils at all grade school levels for about 11 years.

"I've always heard the more involved you are in your kids' school life, the better they are at school," she said. "I think it is true, and you can spot problems your kids are having a lot easier if you know exactly what is going on at the school and you are there."

She said she has never run for an elected office, and "the closest that I have come is when I ran for PTA."

Beam is running now because she thinks "Sumter school board needs to do better.

"I think we need different people on there with a more grounded approach," she said. "I think the schools need to come first and not enough people on the board are putting the schools first. I think Sumter County schools could be great, and there is no reason for them not to be great."

More trustees need a spirit of compromise and be willing to listen to others, Beam added.

She tries to watch the board meetings when possible and does keep up with the trustees' voting records. Beam said she learns more from reading the newspaper.

Her talking points, or platform, include "the kids and the schools first," equity in programs throughout the district's elementary, middle and high schools and board transparency.

Regarding equality in schools' programs, she noted through the Lakewood School Improvement Council she is now aware that the high school will be adding Advanced Placement classes in the spring semester for the first time.

On board transparency, more needs to be known regarding "why trustees are making the decisions that they are and their motives in the process.

"I kind of look at when I was doing PTA," Beam added. "Once a month, we said, 'This is what we are doing. Here's our books. This is what we spend money on, and this is what we are planning to spend money on. You can come up and look at the receipts.'

"I feel like that kind of transparency is only a good thing. It keeps everybody accountable. It lets the parents know what is going on, so they understand, and it makes for the right environment."

On the board "realignment/rezoning attendance lines versus master plan debate" that has been an ongoing feud, she was not aware of the underlying issues and that a project theme in the 4.5-year-old realignment study was to maintain all schools and balance schools' enrollments.

Also, Beam did not know that only minimal transportation efficiencies were achieved in the rezoning effort, and that at the elementary school level bus transportation mileage overall would be longer for those students. She added she does not think many parents are aware of those issues, but she remembered that when the plan was presented to the public in 2022 many parents in the city were upset.

Regarding new Superintendent Gerald Gary, Beam said she has never met him but she had heard good things. She said her focus is mainly at the school level and now at Lakewood with three children there.

According to Beam, the high school seems to be "moving in the right direction" under its new principal this year.

On incumbent Matthew "Mac" McLeod, she said she has never heard anything positive or negative regarding him and added that McLeod just happens to be in her area as a board candidate.

MATTHEW "MAC" McLEOD

A Sumter native, McLeod has owned a home repair business, McLeod Carpentry, for 25 years and was previously a teacher for 12 years at local private school Thomas Sumter Academy. He left that teaching position a few years ago and now has expanded his private business, he said. The operation has four employees, including his son.

McLeod's wife, Jade, was a lead district administrator in academics for nearly a decade but retired in the summer of 2025.

He graduated from Sumter's public schools and holds a bachelor's degree from the University of South Carolina.

Before two districts in Sumter County consolidated into one county-wide district in 2011, McLeod served about 5.5 years as a trustee on the former Sumter School District 2 board.

He has served on the consolidated board for eight years and in 2022 won the Area 6 race over two challengers.

McLeod said he is running for reelection at the urging of community members, including several teachers and administrators. He added that given his local roots in the school system and involvement as a board member for several years, he now wants to continue to serve the community.

According to McLeod, the new administration to include Gary has made improvements in the district "and hopefully with new board leadership in place after the election we will be getting a fresh start to work with the superintendent to help him make more needed improvements."

McLeod's talking points, or platform, include promoting safe learning environments for children, ensuring a stable and highly qualified staff is in place and expanding opportunities and programs for students.

Regarding safe learning environments, that includes further implementation of a uniform discipline code for all district schools and up-to-date facilities as far as proper maintenance and technology concerns.

On qualified staff, that includes teachers and all positions in the district because they are all critical to district success, McLeod said.

He added that he would be for re-exploring the district-wide salary study from a few years ago to "ensure that no one is overlooked when it comes to competitive pay, including custodians, cafeteria workers and bus drivers."

"It's not just the teachers and the administration that matter, it's everybody," McLeod said.

As far as opportunities and programs for students, he added he is for expanding community partnerships, dual enrollment, Advanced Placement courses and technical learning experiences at Sumter Career and Technology Center.

"I feel like the more opportunities and options that students have," McLeod said, "then the better the district will be and the community as a whole regarding workforce needs."

With his previous voting record, McLeod was part of a previous board from 2018 to 2022 that voted in early 2019 to reopen Mayewood Middle School less than a year after it was closed by another board.

After the vote, then-state Superintendent Molly Spearman placed the district on a fiscal emergency declaration. In reflection, McLeod said Thursday that he does not regret his vote to reopen the school, but he does regret that it placed the district on fiscal emergency.

He added that Mayewood had a football field for the middle-schoolers, but currently students from the K-8 R.E. Davis College Preparatory Academy, which is one mile away, have been able to use the field and additional locker rooms have been constructed.

"It would have been better for the students to have the field at the same location, but I think things have worked out well," McLeod added.

Because of physical land issues at R.E. Davis, a field was not feasible on site when previous district administrators investigated the matter.

He said he has never been aware of any overcrowding issues at the K-8 school and school leaders have been able to keep the grade levels separated.

As far as the issue of realignment - or rezoning attendance lines - as opposed to a board master plan and which should come first, McLeod favors the master plan as a key initial step. That is the route of the board majority currently with a facility study in process now, and then the full board will receive recommendations from Superintendent Gerald Gary.

A new board after the election could change that planning and process, but he said he thinks there are many complex factors involved and it should be a "very extensive process."

McLeod added the facilities study is needed because it has been eight years since one was conducted. He also thinks the community should be part of the master plan process with reestablishing a committee.

The current board leadership of Chairman Shawn Ragin and Vice Chair Brian Alston were against a thorough master plan coming before rezoning attendance lines to essentially bolster some rural schools' enrollments and potentially save those schools long-term. Publicly at community meetings they said no schools should be closed.

Ragin and Alston have long been for implementation of a 2022 realignment plan that was broad-scale to affect all district schools with a project theme to balance schools' enrollments by shuffling students from higher-enrollment schools in the City of Sumter to lower-enrollment schools in the rural areas.

McLeod was a member of that ad-hoc board realignment committee at the time that worked with an outside consultant, but now he says the study was "shortsighted and didn't involve a needed master plan."

"I feel like that is the first step," he added, "and nobody exactly knows what the ultimate changes need to be. And it may just be rerouting the bus routes. It may be expanding one school. Like I said, nobody knows what the changes need to be right now, but we need a master plan and work off that to do our other studies."

He added rezoning attendance lines ideally should have been with the 2011 consolidation, but it was not.

According to McLeod, when it comes to that ultimate plan and rezoning lines, it needs to be as fair and objective as possible for all schools.

"We need to look at the entire student body across Sumter County to encompass the City of Sumter and county areas," he added. "In the district, the student body is all students and not just a couple particular schools."

Regarding the new superintendent, McLeod said he thinks Gary is for equity and equality for all schools.

"He is absolutely for that," he added. "He is 100% bought in on Sumter School District as a whole from what I have seen so far. I think he has been a refreshing change for the district, and I appreciate that he doesn't mind saying what he thinks needs to be done."

In McLeod's several visits to schools this year, he said he has never heard a single negative comment by district employees regarding Gary.

"Instead, I have only heard that he is the one that can make a difference in a positive way. He is what we've needed. And, those are the people that deal with him on a day-to-day basis."

McLeod added that Gary is very knowledgeable of public education and also Sumter County because he is from here.

In his current four-year term that is concluding at this time, he changed his stance on some major topics such as now supporting the removal of a 50% grade floor for students and being for a board master plan concept.

In response to The Item's questioning on those matters, McLeod pointed to the example of the grade floor that became a major community issue in 2025. Ragin and Alston wanted to reimplement a floor, and it required two board readings last year.

In the first vote, McLeod voted in support of reimplementing it, but in the second vote, he voted against it and was a swing vote.

At the time of the second reading, he said that he called around to more of his constituents and many others contacted him.

"After talking with some of them and hearing their thoughts on it," McLeod said, "it kind of enlightened me to that they're right.

"Not that I have learned it these past four years, but I had to reflect that votes are not my votes, votes are my constituents' votes. I am their voice, not my voice."

He added that Sumter school board's votes impact the entire community.

"It's not about a small group; it's much wider," McLeod said. "We impact not just the students and employees of the district; the board impacts the entire county - all of Sumter - in the decisions we make."

As a reference, he added whatever board decisions made regarding students later impact the whole community when they enter the workforce, military or wherever.

"What they have learned as children growing up, you know a lot of that sticks with them," McLeod said. "And if we are not making the decisions best for them and our community, then we are doing wrong. It's not about the 12,000-plus students, but the 100,000-plus residents of Sumter."

VENITIA REEBEL

Reebel was born in Sumter and has extensive family roots in the community, she said. She then lived here 2004-09 when she went back to school at the University of South Carolina.

After a move to Austin, Texas, she returned to Sumter in 2019 because her family was here.

Reebel has been an educator for 15 years at all levels from pre-kindergarten through the college level as a dual-enrollment instructor for University of South Carolina Sumter. Most of her service time in South Carolina has been at private schools, and she is a teacher at Manning-based private school Laurence Manning Academy, where she is in her third year and teaches 11th-grade English. She still holds the adjunct professor position at the local college.

She also homeschooled her son for some years, and he was a homeschool graduate who participated in dual enrollment at USC Sumter during his senior year. He is a USC senior in Columbia.

Reebel added that her son "is a big, big reason why I am so invested in education and academics."

She has never taught in public schools and noted that her college majors were English and history and not education. Reebel added she did look into the certification process, but it would have involved a considerable number of steps to become a public school teacher.

She ran for the Area 6 seat four years ago, but Reebel said she thinks she has more support now and has been meeting and talking with people since the start of her campaign. She considered running this time for more than a year, she said, because she cares greatly for the local community and wants to help Sumter continue to make strides in education.

"I want this community to be known for academic excellence," Reebel added, "where people want to come here because of the schools and the teachers want to work at the schools for various positive reasons."

Additionally, she thinks there could be more school board and district transparency and somewhat better governance, she said.

Reebel watches board meetings online and keeps up by reading The Item's coverage.

Her talking points include academic excellence, student safety, enhanced transparency, good governance and community collaboration and involvement.

Regarding proper governance, that involves being a good steward of the taxpayer's money.

"When we are looking at facilities and items such as that," Reebel added, "let's prioritize things and what needs to be done first. It means what's important gets done, and student learning and safety are priorities in that area."

On potential county millage requests for additional funding, she said initially the school district and board need to meet their current budget first.

Once that is achieved, all avenues must be looked at when making decisions like how people do with their household budget.

"Requesting additional funding has to be justifiable to the community at large, and that involves transparency as well," Reebel said.

Regarding collaboration and communication, the district must work well with its teachers, district families and the community at large to include churches, civic groups and businesses, she added. Those groups must get involved as well.

"Schools and communities are cyclical and related," Reebel said. "The schools affect our community, and the community affects our schools; so, I think we all have to get together on that. I think everybody should be invested in the public schools."

On Gary, the new superintendent, Reebel said she thinks everything is "really positive" to date.

"For me, I like the fact that he is invested because he is from here and he came back," she added. "I think it's a great fit for Sumter. I am ready to work with him because I think he is going to do remarkable things. He's from here, and I can't stress that enough. He's invested and does care; otherwise, he would not have come back. I think he will make the best decisions he can for all of Sumter."

Regarding realignment/rezoning or a board master plan, Reebel is aware of the current facilities study to get updated data and she thinks the route of long-term planning is necessary with short-term and long-term goals along the way.

She was not aware of many items in the 4.5-year-old realignment study or that a project theme was to balance schools' enrollments. Additionally, Reebel did not know a greater bus transportation challenge currently is a lack of students' home addresses, according to district administrators, and their plan to address the lack of addresses in the spring to improve bus efficiencies next school year.

Reebel did know that district enrollment is down and school capacity levels and facilities' ages are also key factors moving forward.

"Dealing with a master plan, I know it will be a hard road and complex, take board compromise and we might have to make some tough decisions," she said. "But all students need to be taken into consideration and the teachers."

On her view of McLeod, she said she has met him and Beam and considers the race "a friendly competition and that is good." Reebel did say that she would probably differ from McLeod on some issues and votes; "otherwise, I would not be running."

Finally, she added, she is passionate and cares about the community and the schools.

"I want Sumter to be the best it can be, and I'm invested," Reebel said. "I think what's important now is just bringing everybody together with the common goal of helping our schools be the best that they can. We have really good people in this community, and I have been super blessed."