Six school board seats governing San Mateo High, Hillsdale High, Aragon High, and the city's elementary schools will appear on the Tuesday, November 3 ballot, but most have drawn little or no competition with the candidate filing deadline closing at 5 p.m. Friday, August 7.

Three seats on the San Mateo Union High School District board, Trustee Areas 1, 3, and 5, are up for election, according to the San Mateo County Elections Office. So are three San Mateo-Foster City School District seats: Trustee Areas 1 and 2 (each a full four-year term) and Trustee Area 3 (a two-year short term).

As of the county's Monday, July 20 candidate roster, the most recent available for individual races, only one SMUHSD race is contested. In Trustee Area 3, San Mateo resident Diana Harris, listed as a teacher and mother, filed to challenge incumbent Jennifer Jacobson. In Area 1, incumbent Teri L. Chavez of San Bruno is running unopposed. Area 5 had no candidates at all.

On the elementary side, appointed incumbent Stacey Ho of San Mateo is the sole filer for SMFCSD Trustee Area 3. Areas 1 and 2 had zero candidates as of July 20.

The pattern extends countywide. Of 32 trustee seats in the San Mateo Daily Journal's coverage area, 23 were uncontested or had no candidate as of Monday, July 27, the paper reported. Only five incumbents face a challenger.

"We don't put enough attention on school board races, and they can be really consequential," San Mateo County Superintendent-Elect Héctor Camacho told the San Mateo Daily Journal.

Camacho, who won the June 2 primary with 53.7% of the vote and served 11 years on the county Board of Education according to his campaign biography, said the job requires attending evening board meetings once or twice a month plus reviewing hundreds of pages of staff reports. The only formal requirements to run: be a registered voter in the trustee area and be at least 18 years old.

The stakes are tangible. SMUHSD's enrollment stood at 9,302 students in 2025-26, down 353 from 2021-22, according to state Department of Education data reported by the San Mateo Daily Journal. SMFCSD enrollment dropped 649 students over the same period to 9,708. Trustees set budgets, approve curriculum, and hire or fire the superintendent for those students.

Prospective candidates can pull nomination documents from the San Mateo County Elections Office in Redwood City. Contact: [email protected] or (650) 312-5222. If an eligible incumbent does not file by August 7, the deadline for that seat extends to 5 p.m. Wednesday, August 12.

Vote-by-mail ballots go out October 5 with early vote centers opening the same day in San Mateo, Redwood City, and South San Francisco.