It’s been an eventful four years for the Brookfield Local School District and its board. And the race to shape the next four years continues that trend.

Joe Pasquerilla, the top vote-getter in the balloting four years ago, is running for a second term after a tenure that is best described as controversial. This time he’s teamed up with a pair of candidates he knows well and whose support he can likely count on: his wife and daughter, Ann and Rachel Pasquerilla.

Three seats on the school board are up for grabs Tuesday. Team Pasquerilla faces incumbent Kelly Carrier-Bianco, former board member Ronda Bonekovic, and Gwen Martino, a vocal critic of Pasquerilla’s tenure. Board member Dean Fisher isn’t running for re-election.

Joe Pasquerilla has had his share of headlines in his four years as a school board member, which included serving as president.

The district has spent more than $600,000 in legal fees for court battles in his tenure, and a group of Brookfield parents and community members called “Save Our Schools” accuses Pasquerilla of being the cause of those court battles by refusing to negotiate with the Brookfield Teacher’s Federation over their contract and by deciding to not bus Brookfield children to parochial schools in Warren. He has defended his actions in both instances, saying he was trying to save the district money.

He was also a key figure in the passage of a bond issue to build a new K-12 school building and pleaded guilty to assault after slapping fellow board member Ronald Brennan during a meeting.

When Pasquerilla ran for school board four years ago, he ran on a platform of controlling the district’s costs.

Mrs. Bonekovic served one four-year term as a board member which ended two years ago, and she decided not to run again.

She said she is back now because she would like to seek out grant money to bring back some of the classes cut over the last several years without putting the burden on taxpayers.

Mrs. Bonekovic has a daughter in seventh grade and hosts an exchange student from Spain.

“I care about all the students in this district, not just my own,” she said. “We need a positive school board, and not a fighting school board.”

Mrs. Bonekovic said that too much money has been wasted on frivolous lawsuits during the last several years, and she would make sure that wouldn’t happen when she was on the board.

She’s been involved in the district through the Brookfield Parents Association and several other parents groups.

Gwen Martino has master’s degrees in special education and school administration from Youngstown State University. She has worked for Warren School District for 36 years, 23 teaching special education and 13 working in the library as a media specialist.

Mrs. Martino said she would like to see Brookfield have a balanced budget, but “not on the backs of the children.”