The district is racing to keep up with growth east of Interstate 805. Its current construction binge is funded by Mello-Roos taxes – a levy on new homeowners in eastern areas of Chula Vista – and money from Proposition BB, the $187 million bond measure passed by voters two years ago.

Seat No. 1 incumbent Jim Cartmill of Chula Vista has two challengers: contract administrator Bryan Felber of Chula Vista and elementary school teacher Lorenzo Provencio of Imperial Beach.

Greg Sandoval of Bonita is running for re-election to Seat No. 3 against risk consulting director Bob McAlister of Chula Vista and educational consultant Lorraine Staffiero of Chula Vista.

Arlie Ricasa of Bonita is running for re-election to Seat No. 5 against retired naval officer Archie McAllister of Chula Vista.

"I've grown concerned about where the Mello-Roos and Proposition BB funds are going and whether they're being spent properly," Felber said. At Sweetwater and Mar Vista High Schools, for example, the first major bond projects are new gymnasiums.

"I think classrooms are more important than gyms," Felber said.

Felber, 43, proposes an ethics hotline to receive teacher complaints and comments.

He has the endorsements of former board member Ruth Chapman, former Southwestern College President Chet DeVore and board candidate McAlister.

Provencio, 68, is trying to make his second comeback to the Sweetwater board. He was voted off the board in 1994, regained his seat in 1996 and lost again two years ago. He has more than 20 years of elementary and high school board service and more than three decades of classroom teaching experience.

Provencio said he's running as a watchdog, a trustee who has in the past asked for documents to justify expenses.

"I was a guy who complained. I was a guy who was always asking questions," he said.

If elected, he said, he would propose eliminating the three area superintendent positions – the tier of officials who report directly to Superintendent Ed Brand – and give those administrators and their secretaries jobs in schools with openings.

Cartmill is running for a fourth four-year term on the board. Cartmill, 43, said Sweetwater's academics are improving through Compact for Success, which guarantees admission to San Diego State University and financial aid when needed to South County seventh-, eighth-and ninth-graders who complete a list of college prerequisites.

As for the buildings, Cartmill acknowledges that the district should communicate more with the city and local developers to ensure that Sweetwater can provide classrooms for students from new neighborhoods. He said he's also studying having developers build the schools that serve the new homes they construct.

Cartmill said the gymnasiums have been built before classroom buildings in some cases because that's what committees at those schools asked for.

"One of my focuses on the board is seeing physical education as part of the curriculum, not just an add-on program," he said. Good physical education classes and buildings are vital to curbing child obesity, he said.

Cartmill has the endorsement of fellow board member Arlie Ricasa, Chula Vista Mayor Shirley Horton and Supervisor Greg Cox.

Bob McAlister, 45, a risk consulting director and Chula Vista safety commissioner, has the endorsements of Horton, Cox and candidate Felber.

He also criticized the use of bond money to construct gymnasiums before classrooms at two high schools, the construction of an administrative building before a cafeteria for the students at Chula Vista Middle School and the construction of San Ysidro High ahead of a high school in Otay Mesa that was originally planned to be built first.

McAlister called for an annual independent audit of Mello-Roos spending and a separate annual audit of bond money.

He questions whether construction bids have been fair because architects and developers donate to the campaigns of board members who later vote to approve contracts with their firms.

Staffiero, 49, works on dropout prevention in San Ysidro elementary schools, and she believes Sweetwater is fudging its dropout numbers to hide its failures. She recommended more outreach to help troubled students.

She, too, said the district needs to do more about overcrowding. She proposes stricter residency checks to remove students from other local cities and from Mexico who falsely report addresses to attend Sweetwater schools.

Staffiero also wants to see the district coordinate its construction planning more closely with Chula Vista city hall.

Sandoval, 48, a dean at Southwestern College, is running for a third term.

He said Sweetwater's record-low dropout rate and higher percentage of students completing University of California prep courses show the district is on the right track.

Sandoval said Sweetwater has begun preparing to help struggling students so they can pass the new high school exit exam, a new condition for receiving a diploma from a California public school. Sweetwater has added after-school tutoring, ninth-grade academies that give new high school students closer relationships with their teachers, and English classes that have no more than 20 students.

On school construction, Sandoval said the district has moved remarkably quickly in using bond money to repair and construct buildings. If gymnasiums came before classrooms in some cases, he said, it's because committees from those schools asked that the projects be built in that order. He also expects the board to approve his plan to start a district advisory committee to review growth forecasts.

Archie McAllister of Chula Vista is challenging incumbent Ricasa of Bonita for Seat No. 5.

McAllister, 62, is a substitute teacher and retired naval officer who ran unsuccessfully for Chula Vista City Council in 1996.

He said he believes the district is underreporting dropout figures, so he wants to examine the data more closely. He also wants to make preparation for the high school exit exam one of the district's highest priorities.

"I know what a terrific job these teachers are doing. The district doesn't seem to understand that," he said. But Sweetwater does need to help more students pass the exit exam, he said, and one way to do it is to more closely align what is taught in the classroom with the material on the test.

He proposed contracting with traffic engineers to monitor and fix the problems with traffic at overcrowded Eastlake High School. He said that as a board member he would ask the district to pursue money the federal government distributes to communities to help them accommodate children from military families.

The Chula Vista Elementary School District receives $135,000 in such money annually. Sweetwater doesn't apply for it, and that should change, McAllister said.

Ricasa would like to use a second term to encourage more parent participation and to align the content of classes with the content of the exit exam.

Ricasa, 38, is a Southwestern College administrator.

To manage the rapid population growth in the district, Ricasa proposed holding parent forums regularly at each school.

On facilities, she said, "I see that there could have been better planning on the district side as well as the city side" to mitigate overcrowding. "We need to have a more aggressive look in terms of a five-to-10-year master plan."

Mayor Horton, Supervisor Cox, Cartmill, the Labor Council of San Diego and Imperial Counties and Congressman Bob Filner have endorsed Ricasa.

The five-member board sets policy for 37,000 seventh-through-12th-graders at 21 middle and high schools throughout South County and oversees a budget of $269 million.