HANOVER — The four candidates vying for three seats on the Hanover School Board all share a focus on inclusivity and a commitment to community service.

Incumbents Deborah Bacon Nelson and Kelly McConnell look to retain their seats, while Marcela Di Blasi and Anastasia Rodzianko hope to earn positions on the board.

The school district is “in a great place,” departing board member Rick Johnson said Tuesday. With a new strategic plan completed, he sees this as an opportune time to hand over the reins. Johnson has served on the board for seven years, the past three as Dresden Board chairman.

Whether through their children’s school experiences, their own work in the classroom or both, all four candidates share a passion for education and for supporting students and teachers.

Di Blasi, 38, is no stranger to the Hanover School Board, having served from 2020 to 2023. An assistant professor of Latin American, Latinx and Caribbean studies at Dartmouth, she was a founding member of the school district’s Equity Committee and voiced a strong commitment to inclusivity.

Di Blasi worries about the complex and often contentious environment in which school boards operate.

“We’ve never had a time when school boards were more politicized than now,” she said Monday. “There are a lot of things to be concerned about,” from book banning to attempts to gut sex education, she said.

Despite the challenges, she said her previous board experience has shown her how “beautifully run” the Hanover schools are.

“It’s really incredible and inspiring and humbling seeing what a complex organism the district is,” she said.

McConnell, 45, is a senior lecturer in French at Dartmouth and has served on the school board since 2015. She said she was surprised how much her business background, garnered from several years as a management consultant, has complemented her experience as a teacher in her work on the board.

“When I joined the board, I thought I would be sitting around the table talking about educational ideology, but it’s really about how we can put money behind our priorities,” McConnell said Tuesday.

McConnell said she understands that though board members all come to the table based on their own experiences, “we’re there to serve all of the children and all of the staff and all of the families in our community.”

“There have been times that I’ve had to put my own views aside” to focus on what is best for the district as a whole, she said. “And that’s tough.”

Nelson, 69, taught history for 27 years at Lebanon High School, and her work on the board is informed by that experience. She is passionate about supporting the “remarkable job that teachers in the district are doing,” she said Monday.

Nelson was first appointed to the School Board in September 2021 to serve in the position held by Brittany Joyce, who had moved out of the Upper Valley.

She then won election to the seat for a full term in March 2022.

She serves on the Staff Development Committee and finds it particularly rewarding to support teachers in their professional growth.

Rodzianko, 33, is a graduate of Hanover High School and serves on the board of Hanover Nursery School. A resident of Etna, she describes herself as a stay-at-home mom, and she too emphasized the importance of inclusivity.

While acknowledging that school board roles are not political offices, she said she felt that “there’s a minority of families that don’t feel represented and heard, so I felt it was important to try to run and represent them.”

“I just want everyone to feel included in our community, even if they are not super liberal,” she said Monday.

Rodzianko is particularly passionate about the role of technology in the classroom.

“As a parent, I try to limit screen time as much as I can for my kids,” she said Monday.

She hopes the School Board will consider “how technology is helping us and how it is hurting us,” she said, and would like to see a no-phone policy in schools.

Hanover and Dresden will hold an Annual District Meeting on Thursday at 5 p.m. at Hanover High School.

Voting for School Board will take place on Tuesday from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. in the Hanover High School Gymnasium.

Christina Dolan can be reached at cdolan@vnews.com or 603-727-3208.