Residents will choose from among eight candidates to fill six open spots on local school boards in Tuesday’s election.

Five people are running for the positions on the Evanston/Skokie School District 65 Board of Education and four candidates are vying for spots on the School District 202 Board of Education, which oversees Evanston Township High School.

Two of the four candidates on the ballot for the District 65 board are incumbents: Omar Brown, who could not be reached for comment, and Richard Rykhus, who declined to comment. The other two candidates are newcomer Jennifer Phillips and Adrian Dortch, who previously ran for both boards in 2007.

Phillips, a mother of three District 65 students, has centered her campaign on fiscal responsibility and technology in classrooms, as well as hands-on education that includes strong programs in the arts and science, technology, engineering and mathematics — known as STEM.

“The fact that we don’t have an instructional technology plan that is really focused on how to advance instruction and student learning is problematic to me,” Phillips said. “Evanston as a community could do a lot better thinking forwardly about educational technology, the science of how children and humans learn.”

Dortch, an alumnus of both District 65 schools and ETHS, is running for both boards and hopes to combine the two districts. He said he wants to streamline city education and narrow the racial achievement gap in the two districts.

“We have had plenty of people on our school board with a lot of degrees, and I feel like degrees are not going to fix our situation, nor is money going to fix our situation,” Dortch said. “We really need to get some real creative people in there that are willing to think outside the box.”

A large percentage of property tax dollars — around 65 percent in 2013, according to the city’s website — goes to fund Evanston schools, a number Dortch said could be diminished under one unified district board.

“I believe if (the districts) consolidate that it’d be easier for the taxpayers and easier for the constituents that live in Evanston,” he said. “There’s a lot of constituents that don’t have kids that are in the schools, and the schools don’t give anything back to the community.”

Incumbent Jonathan Baum, who has served on the ETHS board for four years, echoed Dortch’s desire to make the student transition from District 65 to District 202 more cohesive. However, Baum emphasized collaboration between the districts instead of combining them.

“The issue that I have devoted the most attention to, and that I find also is the one that resonates the most with the voters, is bringing District 65 and 202 together,” he said. “Four years ago, I ran saying that I’d like to see us provide a seamless educational experience for the students in District 65 and 202, and people said that I was crazy.”

Baum said he hoped to further strengthen the relationship between the two districts.

“We have made such tremendous strides over the past four years in terms of the two districts collaborating closely together and that’s the work that I would most like to continue in the next four years,” he said.

Mark Metz, an incumbent running with six years experience on the District 202 board, highlighted the need for board members to understand the financial constraints that both districts face.

“I think the public needs to recognize … we are going to face difficult financial times mostly because of the condition of the state of Illinois,” Metz said. “It’s really important to elect school board officials that have a good financial background and a good understanding of the budgeting process, and sort of help manage us through this.”

The two other District 202 school board candidates, newcomers Anne Sills and Monique Parsons, could not be reached for comment.

Early voting to elect the new school board members, which took place March 23 through April 4, resulted in 1,087 Evanston residents turning out to submit their ballots. Residents across Cook County will vote Tuesday to elect people to various public school boards.

Evanston residents can vote Tuesday.

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