With two children in the district, Chad Perry knows that the decisions the Barnwell 45 school board makes can affect not only its students, but his family.

Perry, 39, has a sixth grader and a ninth grader in the district, and his wife is a reading interventionist at Barnwell Primary School.

Perry is the only incumbent running for one of the two seats open for election this time in the school board race. The three other candidates are newcomers Dewayne Eubanks, Renee Geter and Rhett Richardson.

"If I have a vested interest, then it will make me more motivated to do my best job," he said.

Perry has been the board chairman since 2008. He was first elected in 2007. If reelected, this will be his second term.

Perry is a 1989 graduate of Andrew Jackson Academy and attended USC-Beaufort but did not graduate there. By next year Perry will complete his degree requirements for a degree in occupational safety and health from Columbia Southern University, he said.

Perry has been working at Clariant Corp. in Martin for 19 years as a health and safety officer, he said.

Perry knows the board and the district are facing many challenges.

"Every member of the board realizes that not every kid is succeeding. Then as a board member -- we are not successful," he said.

The board has had to make hard choices in a tough economy, but maintaining the goal of education while being adaptive is one of the biggest challenges it faces, he said.

"Adaptive" in this case is learning to efficiently use the money the district receives from the state, since that amount varies each year, Perry said.

"More bang for our buck" is a phrase Perry uses often in board meetings.

Each year the state provides only so much money to the district. With the recent economic downturns, the S.C. Department of Education enacted several budget cutbacks during the school year.

In the 2009-10 school year, the district endured two budget cuts from the state amounting to $797,000. A third cut is expected before the end of the state fiscal year, which closes out June 30, said Shirley Kitchings, the district financial officer.

The state budget crunch is the biggest dragon the school board will combat in the next fiscal and school years, Perry said.

The financial crisis South Carolina is facing caused some of the hard decisions that the board made recently, like the employee furloughs and teacher layoffs, he said.

Yet despite the money woes or the individual problems the school board faces from meeting to meeting, the overriding goal should be education, Perry said.

"We've just got to work hard for the kids, especially for the ones who might not have a voice," he said.