The race for two School Board seats this March is drawing a long-time veteran of the board, the current vice chairman and a four-time candidate. The three are split on their priorities.

Cindy Chagnon, a 12-year School Board member, wants to see the opening of Bedford High School to its completion with the addition of seniors next year. Terry Wolf, who was first elected in 2006, says she, too, has unfinished business on the board and can be a more effective member with one term of experience behind her.

Bill Foote is determined to make his case for more accountability and transparency in the school budget process for a fourth time. Foote says the school district could do a better job of putting useful information in the hands of voters at the deliberative session, and coming up with realistic budget numbers. In recent years, the school district has had large surpluses -- something Foote sees as a problem.

At the end of the 2007-08 school year, the district had $2.1 million left over. The year before, it had $1.8 million. The district has used the surplus funds from one year to offset the taxes for the next, but Foote believes it is unfair to taxpayers to raise the extra money.

The surplus last year was, in part, the result of health insurance premiums that were lower than expected, but the district has to budget for the expected amount or otherwise risk coming up short, according to school officials.

But Foote said that still does not explain why there have been surpluses for years.

“If the Town Council can call their budget within $100,000, how come the School Board has to go $1 million plus?” he said. “I think we deserve to have absolute concrete numbers.”

Chagnon and Wolf said they are aware of the financial pressures taxpayers are facing because of the recession. Wolf said she believes the budget the board proposed f o r next year struck the most fair balance between students and taxpayers.

Beyond the budget, Wolf said she is running because the district is in a time of transition. Even after the high school becomes fully operational with four grades next year, she said it will still be growing in successive years as enrollment is expected to rise. Plus, she said the district is in only the second year of restructuring its lower grades into three kindergarten-throughfourth elementary schools and a new fifth- and sixth-grade intermediate school.

Chagnon, who was an English and social studies teacher at the high school level for six years, has a passion for educating every child, and it hasn’t faded with time. Her focus has been on curriculum, and she said the courses the high school is offering are so interesting she wishes she could be a student again.

“Every time I see the Program of Studies for the high school, especially the junior and senior year electives, I just want to go back to school. They worked so hard to energize and excite the kids on every level,” Chagnon said. “That’s kind of the thing I want to keep the focus on -- what are we doing with curriculum in the classroom to capture the imagination of students?”

The two School Board seats will be decided in the March 10 election.