But in spite of their unique backgrounds, the 15 candidates running for three vacant seats on the Board of Education have something in common: they believe in public schools.

“As much as we worry about public schools and criticize them – and we should – public schools are better places to be educated than private or parochial schools,” said Dan Kelly, the only incumbent running for re-election, a school board member since 1991.

This Tuesday, voters will decide which three candidates will join the seven-member school board starting in January. Earning a stipend of $500 a month, the new members will face pressing district concerns such as declining enrollment, increasingly segregated schools and the search for a new superintendent.

In addition to Kelly’s seat, two more seats are being vacated by board members Eddie Chin and Sarah Lipson who decided not to run for another four-year term.

At 15, the number of candidates running in this year’s election is the largest number since 2000, when 13 challengers ran.

Kim-Shree Maufas, a public school parent and a first-time candidate, explained why she ran for the office.

“A lot of parents have become disconnected. They feel like they aren’t really supported and connecting to their kid’s education,” she said. “There’s lots of frustration. It doesn’t need to be like that.”

Endorsed by the United Educators of San Francisco, a 6,000-strong teachers union, she said the school board needs to do a better job of communicating with parents and educators, helping them feel more involved. The union also endorsed Hydra Mendoza, and Bob Twomey.

As an African-American woman, one of Maufas' main concerns is how to create more diverse school environments for students.

“The classrooms are not diverse. When are we going to address that?” she asked. “Not just ethnic and racial diversity, but also socio-economic diversity.”

Solving the issue of diversity is a two-part process, most candidates agreed. The district must first improve the current student assignment system, which disregards zoning rules and fans out students throughout the district, while then also ensuring that every school is of high quality.

But it’s a problem not easily resolved.

For one, the student assignment system currently in place has been widely criticized for further segregating schools when the intention was to fully integrate them.

“[Our schools] are becoming increasingly segregated,” said Kelly. “It’s happening in San Francisco and other parts of the country as well. Partly because of court rulings that say you can’t use race.”

A 1999 settlement with Chinese-American families has prohibited the district from using race in school assignment. The families sued because they felt that a race-based system was discriminating against their children. Today, the district is using other criteria such as a family’s home language and household income to determine student assignment, which some feel has defeated the purpose of the program.

“We need to get right back to neighborhood schools,” said Omar Khalif, a Bayview-Hunter’s Point resident and one of the candidates looking to diminish the role of student assignment and reinforce neighborhood schools instead.

“The school assignment is not working for everybody right now,” he said.

“I think we may have to have a balance,” said Bayard Fong, another candidate and the father of three public school children. “A lot of parents want choice for a lot of the programs, which means attending outside schools.”

Fong is a proponent of improving neighborhood schools, but he acknowledged that integrating schools is equally important. The school board plans to discuss the current arrangement and hopes to implement a new system in time for the 2008-2009 school year.

When it comes to building better schools in every neighborhood, a lack of resources has been the determining factor, according to some candidates.

The roughly 60,000-student school district has suffered from declining enrollment over the last few years, caused mostly by the high cost of living in San Francisco. Families are simply moving to the suburbs.

“It’s just too overpriced,” said Khalif, “and it’s hard to stay in San Francisco when it’s like that.”

A loss of students means a loss of state funds, which are based on attendance figures. This year alone, more than 1,000 students left San Francisco public schools, continuing a five-year trend of declining enrollment. The drop will cost the district an estimated $6 million in state funding this year. The trend is expected to continue for another five years.

In an unpopular move last year, declining enrollment and lack of funding at the tune of $5 million forced the school board to close, merge or relocate more than a dozen of the city’s schools. Since 1996, about 6,000 students have left the district.

Yet the most important issue that the new school board will address in the upcoming year is that of hiring a new superintendent. Gwen Chan has been the interim superintendent since February when former superintendent Arlene Ackerman resigned. Chan has agreed to stay on through June 2007.

Although Chan has done much to rebuild relations between her and the school board after infighting plagued Ackerman’s tenure, the results of the upcoming elections will determine how things will shape up for the coming year and for the future superintendent.

Candidates said that they’d like to see more involvement from the community in the hiring process.

“The goal is to have an open process, make sure we have good local people not strictly importing outsiders,” said Fong.

“We’ll certainly have community participation,” said Kelly, adding that any decision regardless of how high-level it is must first keep the students in mind.

"It’s about what’s best for the kids," he said. "I don’t mind thoughtful discussion as long as we’re thinking about the kids."