PORT RICHEY, Fla. — A Pasco County teacher is heading to the school board.

Elementary school teacher Megan Harding won nearly 60 percent of the vote on election night.

Harding's campaign signs around Pasco County summed up her platform, that it's time to put a teacher on the school board.

"I feel so unbelievably honored that the community decided to elect me," Harding said.

The 28-year-old defeated attorney Tara O'Connor for an open school board seat, winning more than 100,000 votes.

She teaches third grade at Fox Hollow Elementary in Port Richey.

Harding feels teachers need a voice when it comes to the decisions being made by the board.

"I'm going to be that voice for them. That's why I decided to run," she said. "I don't want our voices to be lost anymore."

There is one catch. She will have to actually give up teaching while she is on the board.

But she said it's worth it for every student she's ever had.

"It's bittersweet. But I'm doing it for them," Harding said. "I don't ever want them to think I was abandoning them because I'm not. I'm only giving them that greater voice."

Harding will be sworn in Nov. 17.