The race for two Fayette County School Board posts will be decided Tuesday, Nov. 3 when voters choose between Mickey Littlefield and Carolyn Fludd for Post 5 and Greg Powers and Roger Marietta for Post 4. Powers defeated incumbent Dr. Bob Todd in the July Republican primary.

Key issues in the race for school board include the appointment of a new school superintendent in 1999, keeping educational facilities in balance with the county's growth, and creating ways to financially support that growth through a bond referendum or a special local option sales tax.

Political newcomer Greg Powers said he is running for the sake of the county's children and believes his business accomplishments will serve him well as a board member. "The board's position is to set policy and set up a good administration. The current board is not doing that," he said. "I have a business mind; I built a business," Powers added.

He established Powers Heating and Air Conditioning and is currently employed by All Weather Heating.

"The biggest thing we have to deal with is hiring a superintendent," Powers said. He advocates promoting a suitable candidate to the position. "Let employees with a commitment to the community be the ones to guide the system. We have had enough outside experts."

Powers supports expansion of the school board from its current five members and is a proponent of improving technical and trade education. "We are the only county that doesn't have a coordinator for the youth apprenticeship program," he said. He supports setting up a program for students interested in service-oriented jobs.

A proactive approach to dealing with growth, and the school attendance zones should be established by the board, according to Powers. "We need to identify where the schools are going to be built," he said. Finally, he advocates putting students' needs "into the forefront of board of education meetings instead of hidden agendas."

Powers and his wife of 17 years, Bonita, have two daughters, Molly, 8, and Becca, 3.

His challenger, Roger Marietta, a Democrat, is no stranger to politics. He served as Fayetteville's mayor from 1988 to 1990. He is an educator in the Georgia State University system who lectures on political science and public administration.

"I have a broad basic platform, a candidacy of issues," Marietta said. "We need to open up the system and allow the public to give feedback without feeling like they're attacking the board. We should open up the lines of communication; students need to be heard. Let's get the students involved," he said.

Marietta believes that it's essential to slow growth in the county to 4 percent or less. "There's no legal way to stop growth. The issue goes back to checks and balances," he said.

There is also "no easy or perfect solution to solve the school boundary issue," claims Marietta. "It's a very sensitive issue." But open communication between citizens and the board could facilitate solutions, he believes.

Passage of a special local option sales tax would be possible, Marietta said, if the community had more input into how the money would be spent.

His choice for a new superintendent would not be restricted to local candidates. "We want to have the best candidates for superintendent and we should not limit ourselves," he said. "I would like to have a citizens's committee to help develop criteria for hiring a superintendent," he said.

Marietta has been a Fayette County resident since 1973. He and his wife, Joanne, have three daughters, Melissa, Renee and Shannon.

The Republican candidate for Post 5 is Mickey Littlefield, a State Farm Insurance agency owner, who is basing his candidacy on the point of view of a businessman and parent. "I'm in business for myself. I understand the value of a dollar more than people who don't write their own payroll," he said.

Littlefield advocates drafting a master boundary plan to be posted for all citizens to see. "We need to get together with the county planning commission, the county planner and the county commission and understand where development is going," he said. "Draw a master boundary plan and that's the way it is."

He supports a future bond referendum to provide funds for capital improvements and is looking ahead to the task of hiring a new superintendent. Littlefield's ideal candidate for superintendent would possess strong administrative and people skills. He advocates looking within the school system first, before taking the search beyond the county or nationally.

For Littlefield, the primary job of the school board is setting policy. "I want to see more openness between the board and the people." Littlefield and his wife, Margaret, have been married for 25 years and have two children.

Running on the Democratic ticket against Littlefield, is Carolyn Fludd., a three-year resident of the county who has experience designing data processing systems. She and her husband, Virgil, now run an executive search firm from their home. Fludd said her previous work experience has taught her to "think logically...to think above the crisis," and to also fine-tune her problem-solving skills. As two-time president of the North Fayette Elementary Parent Teacher Association, Fludd is running on a "voice of the parents" platform. She believes it is important to keep "your eyes and ears open" to the needs of the children and the schools. The current parental debate over the University of Chicago math curriculum in use in the county's schools is applauded by Fludd. "This is a caring group of parents; they've done a lot of investigating and study into this," she said. Fludd also believes that it's time to "see what's out there" in terms of new educational products and learning tools.