In Santa Barbara, the race for school board is officially on.

At least two candidates — Ed Heron, immediate past president of the nonprofit Partners in Education, and Charlotte Ware, immediate past president of the Dos Pueblos High PTSA — filed papers with the Santa Barbara County elections office Friday, bringing to four the total number of hopefuls vying for three seats on the Santa Barbara School Districts board of education.

The other two candidates are Susan Deacon, president of the South Coast Community Aquatic Center, and the race’s lone incumbent, Annette Cordero.

In addition, at least two more people — Suzie Cawthon and Jacqueline Inda — pulled papers to run in the race. They join Brenda Lopez as potential candidates who have yet to take the leap. Like all potential candidates who are not incumbents, they have until 5 p.m. Wednesday to file. The deadline for incumbents passed Friday. Incumbents Nancy Harter and Laura Malakoff are not running.

Santa Barbara’s school board isn’t the only one on the South Coast to have a contest this November.

At the K-12 Carpinteria Unified School District, three candidates are vying for two open seats so far. They include retired Carpinteria High principal Lou Panizzon, incumbent Terry Banks and Royce Stauffer. Neither Banks nor Stauffer could be reached for comment this week, but elections officials confirmed they had filed papers. Meanwhile, the other incumbent whose seat is up for re-election — Amrita Salm — is not running.

In the three-campus Hope Elementary School District, there are no official candidates to fill the seats to be vacated by departing incumbents Elizabeth Owen and Todd Sosna. Two people, Michael Kling and Chad Prentice, have pulled papers.

In the single-school Cold Spring School District in Montecito, Bryan Goligoski and Elizabeth Ricard have filed papers for the two seats being vacated by incumbents Meyrl Winnikoff and Laura Wyatt. Patricia Noormand has pulled papers.

And for the single-school Montecito Union School board, three candidates are vying for two open seats: appointed incumbent Robert Kupiec and Brett Matthews and Mary Morouse. Steve Crossland has pulled papers, and incumbent Sunny Crandell had not filed by the 5 p.m. deadline, although there was a line out the door of the elections office at that time. Crandell could not be reached for comment Friday night.

In the Goleta Union School District, just the two incumbents — Susan Epstein and Dean Nevins — had filed by Friday afternoon.

Noozhawk staff writer Rob Kuznia can be reached at rkuznia@noozhawk.com.