STORY SUMMARY>>>

Six of the fourteen Board of Education seats are up for grabs during the current election cycle and with 18 candidates in four separate races that presents a significant challenge to voters, according to Debbie Berger, chair of The Learning Coalition.

"We conducted three focus groups on the voters of Hawaii and we learned that people tend to vote on last names that they recognize…or the first name in the list of an alphabet."

In order to clear up some of the confusion, the non-profit, non-partisan organization has placed a wealth of information on all of the BOE candidates on its website, TheLearningCoalition.org.

“What we want to do is make sure that people spend as much time voting for the right Board of Ed candidate as they would for any presidential race,” says Berger. “This is about the future of our state - it's about our children.”

Voters can also go to the Hawaii Office of Elections website to view profiles of the BOE candidates.

The primary election on September 20 will determine which BOE candidates will move on to the general election in November.

There are four candidates running for one Big Island Board of Education seat: Paul Bryant, William Sanborn, Patrick Walsh and Herbert Watanabe.

For the Kauai Board seat there are two candidates - Maggie Cox ad Larry Fillhart.

Three candidates are running for one Board seat for Oahu: Malcolm Kirkpatrick, Carol Mon Lee, and Denise Matsumoto.

Perhaps the greatest challenge for voters is the At-Large race with nine candidates vying for three Board seats: Lei Ahu Isa, Kanakanui Aiona, Janis Akuna, Marcia Linville, Pauline Namuo, Robert Peters, Garrett Toguchi, Terrence Tom and Randall Yee.

Andrew may be reached at apereira@khon2.com or ph. 591-4263.