NASHUA – Only two candidates will run in the Special Municipal Election for the vacant Board of Education seat March 20: former long time board member Sandra Ziehm and recently retired elementary school teacher Susan Porter.

Ziehm served on the board for 12 years in three consecutive four-year terms, and has served on “just about every committee.” She ran as an incumbent in the November election, but neither she, nor incumbent president George Farrington were elected.

Her experience, she said, is needed on the board, especially not that there are three new members, Gloria Timmons, Heather Raymond and Raymond Guarino.

“The learning curve is humongous,” she said, “there are so many areas you need to be well versed on … We have 2,000 teachers, 22 buildings, 500 homeless families and more than 50 language.”

The costs associated with the proposed renovations to Elm Street Middle School, as well as the Brentwood program are “huge issues” that Ziehm believes she could help with because of her real estate experience.

The board could also use someone familiar with the parliamentary procedure and proper decorum, she said.

“I always say that if you can’t say something nice, you shouldn’t say it.”

Porter, however, could bring an entirely different set of experience to the board: 34 years as an elementary school teacher.

Porter retired in June after 28 years at Mount Pleasant Elementary School and before that, six in Lowell. Throughout her career she taught every grade (except kindergarten) pre-k through fifth, and also spent 12 years as an English Language Learner teacher.

“I’m a firm believer that public education the backbone of our society,” she said, adding that she wanted to stay involved in the field after retirement.

One of her focuses if elected, she said, is looking at the whole child.

“Children are children, not data points. Test scores are not the only things that matter,” she said. “We want to create educated, thinking, well-informed student who will succeed in whatever they choose to do.”

Having a teacher on the board, especially one who only recently retired, could offer valuable insight to what it is like on the “front lines,” she said; someone who knows firsthand what happens after policies are enacted.

Ziehm said herself that she was glad to see her opponent was a retired teacher.

“We all bring different skills,” Ziehm said. “What are the skills we each have vs. the skills most needed in the district?”

That, as she said, is what the public needs to decide March 20. The polls will be open from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Hannah LaClaire can be reached at 594-1243 or hlaclaire@nashuatelegraph.com