Board positions up for election

In November, three of the five Mercer Island School Board seats will be up for election — positions 1, 3 and 5. School board directors are elected to four-year terms by Mercer Island voters.

Specific responsibilities of board members include systematically measuring the district’s compliance with Board Policy 2020, monitoring the superintendent’s performance, setting district policy, adopting an annual operating budget, placing levies and bonds before voters, and ratifying contracts negotiated with the local bargaining unit.

The board will present an overview of board governance for interested community members at special informational meetings. The first will be held at noon on March 5 in the school district’s board room, Administration Building, 4160 86th SE.

The second will be held at 7 p.m. on March 14 in the city council chambers at Mercer Island City Hall, 9611 SE 36th St.

Individuals who wish to run for one of the three seats up for election must file with King County Elections between May 13 and May 17. To run, an individual must be a registered voter living in Mercer Island. If more than two people file for a single position a primary election will take place in August.

March 5 biology symposium

The community is invited to attend the Mercer Island High School Biology Symposium, an event where all the MIHS Biology students — about 400 students — present posters on various projects they have been working on in class. The symposium will be held from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. March 5 in the commons at the school. This year’s topics ranging from brain function, future technologies to saving the environment and the behavior of single-celled organisms to functional artificial neural networks.