MARIETTA - Three of the seven seats on the Cobb School Board are up for election this year, and at least two could be decided in the primaries on July 20.

Two current board members, Dr. John Crooks of east Cobb, and Dr. John Abraham of northeast Cobb, have said they will not seek re-election. In south Cobb, Holli Cash is seeking re-election and already has two challengers.

School board members earn $19,000 per year, and the fee to qualify is $570. Candidates must qualify at their political party offices between 9 a.m. Monday and noon on Friday.

Cash, a Democrat and is vice chairman of the board, was elected in 2006. Her four children attend Smyrna-area schools - two at Campbell High School, one at Griffin Middle School and one at Nickajack Elementary. Cash said her experience on the board, as well as working in politics at the grassroots level, as well as being a PTA mother, sets her apart from any opponent.

"My youngest is 9, so I'm not going anywhere," Cash said. "I just think it's really important to have someone who has that knowledge of the district and has worked with so many superintendents."

The south Cobb district includes Campbell High School and the H.A.V.E.N. Academy

Patrick Stafford, Cash's opponent in 2006, is expected to challenge her again in the Democratic primary. At least one Republican, Tim Stultz, will also seek the seat.

Stultz, 31, is an independent IT consultant and a father of two preschool-aged children. He said he has decided to run after speaking with community members who are dissatisfied with Cash.

"I don't believe that the current school board member from Post 2 does an adequate job of representing the community," Stultz said. "I have been out throughout the community, talking with parents and associations, and they have told me themselves that she has not done what they had hoped that she would do."

While he was not particularly critical of Superintendent Fred Sanderson, he believes that the board needs to do a better job of looking critically at what he has done as superintendent.

"I believe that the next school board should evaluate him based on his performance thus far," Stultz said of Sanderson. "I would not say that the job is either safe or on the chopping block."

In the northeast Cobb post that includes Kell and North Cobb high schools and is now held by Abraham, two Republicans - Kathleen Angelucci and Bill Borden - have already announced they will run.

Angelucci may be remembered for her successful efforts in 2005 to oust Superintendent Joe Redden. Two of her children are Cobb graduates, and she has a third child who is a sophomore at Kell.

While she has been openly critical of the board and superintendent, Angelucci said she is mainly running to get the board's focus back on what's happening in the classroom, and she hopes to change the public's view of the role of the school board and its relationship with the public and the superintendent.

"I still feel like, just like I did four years ago, there is a lack of district transparency, which has not improved," Angelucci said. "They talk about accountability and ethics, but it is absolutely missing."

Superintendent Fred Sanderson appears arrogant, she said.

"It seems to be this tendency and this attitude that we are in charge and we don't care what the constituency thinks and we don't care what parents think," Angelucci said. "I'm hoping to bridge the gap in communication, and that means two-way communication.

Borden, a father of two adult children, one of whom is a Kell High School graduate, may be best known locally for completing the 2002 Iditarod Sled Dog Race, which is run over 1,151 miles from Anchorage to Nome, Alaska. He is a real estate broker and auctioneer, and is a motivational speaker, using his Iditarod experience as a teaching tool to share with children about how to set goals and reach them.

"I think I can provide an improved leadership to the Cobb School Board as well as build consensus among the school board," Borden said. "I see the need, with Dr. Abe not running, I'm hoping to be able to step in and fill that gap."Borden was named Kennesaw's Citizen of the Year in 2009 by the Cobb County Chamber of Commerce and Kennesaw Business Association, and he previously served on the Kennesaw Development Authority.

The east Cobb district that includes Walton and Wheeler high schools also has at least two Republicans - Jim Snell and Scott Sweeney - running.

Sweeney, a father of two children who attend Sope Creek Elementary, is an economics graduate of UCLA, the University of California at Los Angeles, and now works as a consultant to his family business.

He is running, he said, because "the school board is the agent of its constituents. The Board must act in a more responsible manner and hold the superintendent accountable. Now the superintendent has a stacked deck."

Snell, a former Dodgen Middle School principal who was employed by the district from the early 1990s until he retired last year, announced his candidacy in February.

"I kind of feel like I should be able to say, 'my campaign lives or dies based on what I've done in the last eight years,'" Snell told the Journal at that time. "If I've not earned that trust during that time then I probably don't deserve to be a board member."

Snell and his wife, Diane, have one son, Samuel, who is a senior at Davidson College in North Carolina.