At the first candidate’s night in eight years, three incumbents and a challenger running for a trio of seats on the Bolinas-Stinson Unified School District’s board spent the better part of Tuesday night discussing the district’s $9 million general obligation bond headed to voters next month. The bond will “improve student access to instructional technology; make health, safety and handicapped accessibility improvements; modernize outdated classrooms, restrooms, and school facilities; and renovate the multi-purpose room,” the ballot language says, and cannot be used for administrative or teacher salaries. Two incumbents—Nate Siedman, a lawyer, parent and youth soccer coach who has lived in Bolinas almost his entire life, and Jennie Pfeiffer, a former district teacher—as well as challenger Christine Cunha support the measure. Mr. Siedman stressed to the dozen or so attendees that the school buildings hadn’t had a “serious retrofitting” for earthquakes in over 30 years and that the multi-purpose room on campus was “deficient at best.” “It’s not needed in the sense that our school is in dire straits, but we could do a lot more for the school if the bond passes,” Mr. Siedman said. Ms. Cunha, the challenger and owner of a bookkeeping and small business consulting firm who has been on the facilities committee for the school since 2011, noted that the schools do not even have intercom systems and voiced support for a science lab. “I think that we need to make improvements in our school to have our kids be prepared once they go over the hill,” she said. Ms. Pfeiffer had reservations about the bond but supports it, stressing that she feels it should be equally dedicated to past, present and future: fixing old buildings; examining the need for new facilities; and studying how climate change and sea-level rise will affect the campuses. Incumbent Steve Marcotte, the lone dissenter on the board who voted in August against putting the bond on the ballot, said it is written too broadly and needs more safeguards for how the funds are spent. But Mr. Siedman argued that if the board has a financial commitment from the community, the facilities committee could work with an archi- tect to create a master plan (which in itself can cost between $30,000 and $90,000) to assess what’s most feasible. Mr. Marcotte stressed that he wasn’t against a better written bond, and, near the end of the night, when the discussion turned to what the district could improve, he said one of his biggest concerns were the middle schoolers who often leave Bolinas-Stinson unprepared for high school over the hill, where there is less hand-holding and nurturing. “We’re not an island in ourselves… So many times [what] we hear through surveys…is, ‘I wasn’t ready for high school.’ Whether because of organization, or content.” Although the district recently added Spanish classes and prides itself on its arts programming, the math skills of many students are not up to par, at least according to one parent at the meeting. The father of two children—one a seventh grader, the other in high school—said that Tamalpais High School “tracks Bolinas kids down automatically” when they arrive. “I do think we need help on math,” he said.