CHELMSFORD >> Local election season is here, and three candidates are running for two seats on the Chelmsford School Committee.

Incumbents John Moses and Maria Santos are running to retain their seats against challenger Doreen Deshler in the April 1 town election. Each of the candidates participated in a March 19 candidate forum organized by the Chelmsford Democratic Town Committee, and each spoke about their candidacy separately with The Sun.

Moses grew up in Lowell, but has lived in Chelmsford since 2012, moving to the town after returning from a deployment with the U.S. Army in Afghanistan. He has been on the School Committee for nine years, and is now seeking a fourth term. He first ran in 2016 because of difficulties he ran into with his children in the school system.

“I moved to Chelmsford because of the schools … We move here, and we went to enroll our daughter, Ella, into kindergarten, and we found out there was no full-day kindergarten,” Moses said March 19 ahead of the candidate forum.

Motivated to run for School Committee to try to change that, Moses won the seat as the sole candidate on the ballot that year. Three years later, Chelmsford would get full-day kindergarten. Right now Moses is the longest-serving member on the committee.

Moses said he is seeking a fourth term because he feels the school system has been brought to a good place, but he sees “instability” on the horizon.

“We don’t know what is going to happen with the federal government and the Department of Education, and I think having stable, very experienced leaders is important. I still have kids in the school, and my friends still have kids in the school,” said Moses. “For me, it’s making sure the school is a foundational community that can work through hard problems.”

If he wins, Moses said communication and “planning for the unknown” in the face of possible lost federal funding will be among his top priorities.

“We’re going to put thought into the new school building project, which we are on track to do with the state, building a new middle school … Let’s say I get a fifth term, I would love to see that school fully built,” said Moses, referring to the Parker Middle School project. “My No. 1 priority is stabilization to parents. Making sure they know what is going on, making sure they know their School Committee is gonna be there, if there is another COVID, or another emergency in the government in the next four years … Our priority is to make sure the town is protected, the students are protected and the parents are protected.”

Deshler has lived in Chelmsford for 36 years, having lived in Billerica before that. She works as a behavioral interventionist in Burlington, where she works with autistic and developmentally disabled children to help them overcome different challenges. Deshler has seven children, four of whom went through Chelmsford Public Schools.

Deshler ran an unsuccessful campaign last year for Chelmsford’s Planning Board amid the town’s considerations for the MBTA Communities law. She said in a Saturday phone call she chose to run for School Committee this year because schools are “closer to my heart,” and more in line with her own professional experience. Her main concern is the physical state of Chelmsford’s school buildings.

“Our schools are in disarray. They are old and starting to fall apart, and they are in need of maintenance,” said Deshler, showing support for the Parker Middle School project. “We need to get them into better condition and give a better learning environment to the students.”

Deshler also pointed to what she said is a shortage of paraprofessionals in Chelmsford.

“We need more paraprofessionals, we need to look for them and the best way I can think of is by engaging with the parents,” said Deshler. “Because the parents are usually the paraprofessionals.”

Deshler billed herself as an advocate of parental rights, and said she wants to review the district’s curriculum if elected.

“I want to talk to and work with the superintendent to try to get a better curriculum in the schools so our children are scoring higher on their curriculum tests, so they can compete with surrounding towns, the rest of the country and the rest of the world,” said Deshler. “I want to make sure parental rights are ensured, and we ensure transparency about what kids are learning in the classroom.”

She said she’s also worried about the way schools today handle student readiness.

“I think students should be held back if they are unprepared, so they don’t end up struggling,” Deshler said. “We need to work on that, find out what we can do about that so we are not pushing kids if they are not ready to go.”

Santos has lived in Chelmsford for 37 years, and has two children who went through Chelmsford Public Schools, both now in college. Before joining the School Committee, Santos had been involved with the local parent-teacher organizations, and when her daughters went off to college, she wanted to remain involved.

“One of the things I really enjoy is coming to a consensus, being able to move forward and get to the next level for this organization,” said Santos in a phone call Friday. “I thought I could bring that to this committee.”

Santos works as a managing partner at her law firm, Alphen & Santos, where she concentrates on immigration law. She immigrated to the U.S. with her family from Portugal when she was 9 years old.

Over the years, Santos said Chelmsford has changed, and that change is reflected in the composition of the student body.

“I want to make sure we still get a really good public education. It is for everyone, it is for all children. For Chelmsford in particular I have seen a lot of data on the composition of our student body, and the percentage of our students who may be economically challenged,” said Santos. “We, as a community, have changed. The children who are coming to us and entering our system and need that really good education now have different needs than even when I joined six years ago.”

Santos is also on the committee for implementing the district’s strategic plan, which she would like to see to fruition.

“We are making sure it remains an organic, growing type of thing, ensuring there is equity across the board for all students, and identifying areas in the system we needed to work on as a school district,” said Santos.

She said she considers being on the School Committee “a service to the community.”

“I like to consider that I am a genuine person who has been able to be herself in this world, and that is what I want to make sure every student gets the opportunity to be,” said Santos. “Academic achievement, making sure every student can do what they can is a big part of that. That is my only purpose in running for School Committee and being on the School Committee.”

The three candidates discussed a number of different topics during last week’s candidate forum. One of the highlights of the evening had been the answers each candidate gave in response to news that President Donald Trump would sign an executive order eliminating the Department of Education the following day, which came to be.

Answering first, Santos said Chelmsford should “fight the good fight.”

“Let’s sue. It is going to be extremely important. In the area of immigration we have had to start preparing for the fights way in advance, because we had dealt with term one, and now we have to deal with term two,” said Santos.

Santos noted there are some things, like increased border protection, she agrees need to be addressed, but said other actions of the Trump administration are likely being done illegally. She pointed to the original creation of the Department of Education as a way of disbursing congressionally allocated funds to the states.

“Maybe they are planning to do it in a different way, we don’t know. Is it by eliminating the departments that they are also going to take the funding? We don’t know. So we need to see what is coming up, but I say we fight the fight,” said Santos.

Deshler said she doesn’t think Trump will hold off that funding just because the department is being eliminated.

“He is stopping the Department of Education to give it back to the states, where it belongs … That is who should be running our schools, not the federal government,” said Deshler. “The federal government is not going to stop giving their grants to the schools that comply with federal law. That’s just how it is. If we are going to comply, we are going to get our federal grants. If we don’t comply, we don’t get our federal grants, whether or not he does away with the Department of Education.”

Moses said Department of Education funding was federal funding typically reserved for things states did not want to fund themselves, while states already do run education.

“They didn’t want to educate Black children in the South, and they said, ‘We want to make sure this money gets to these kids.’ So all curriculum, all the rest of it is essentially run at the state level and from local school committees like this,” said Moses. “The federal government has no role in telling Chelmsford, or anyone in Massachusetts, what they are teaching or what their curriculum should be.”

Moses then echoed Santos by saying he would like to “fight the good fight.”