A Vicksburg man who said he wants to beef up the public school system so more people will move to the city has entered the race for one of two school board seats to be filled Nov. 2.

Bryan Pratt, 42, is challenging roofer Jerry Boland for the Vicksburg Warren School District Board of Trustees District 1 seat Boland has held since 2004 when he defeated Pratt by 231 votes out of 3,835 cast in a five-person race.

“I want to see what we can do to continue to improve the district,” the director of information technology at Ameristar Casino said Thursday. “I’m trying to make the education system topnotch in the state and get people to try to come here.”

District 1 covers northeast Warren County.

No qualifiers have completed paperwork to run in District 5, where incumbent Tommy Shelton has said he will not seek a second term. Qualifying ends Oct. 1 for both races, which will be decided by plurality vote. School board members are elected to six-year, staggered terms.

Voter registration continues through Oct. 2, while absentee voting ends Oct. 30. Both are Saturdays, with hours in the circuit clerk’s office until noon.

Pratt helped establish the Vicksburg-Warren County Chamber of Commerce’s MS Scholars Program and, in May, was one of seven nominated for the The Craig H. Neilsen Excellence Award.

When contacted Thursday, Pratt said teacher morale and test scores are big issues in the district. Accountability ratings issued by the state improved in 2009-10 at five schools, but the 9,000-student district remained rated At Risk of Failing.

Both school board races appear on a general election ballot headlined by the congressional race in Mississippi’s 2nd District between Democrat U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson and Republican challenger Bill Marcy. Reform Party candidate Ashley Norwood of Canton also appears on the ballot.

Eight candidates are on the list of those vying for justice court judge in Warren County’s city-based central district — incumbent judge and funeral director James E. Jefferson Jr., Vicksburg Police Sgt. Beverly Prentiss, retired police Lt. Dora Smith, former constable Rudolph Walker, former U.S. Navy officer Henry Phillips, NRoute operations manager Audrey Jones Jackson, Cedars Head Start administrator LeVern W. Powell. Lester R. Smith, who is in the Warren County Jail on sexual battery and felony escape charges, also is a candidate.

Another judicial race on the ballot is for the state Court of Appeals, where Vicksburg attorney Ceola James is challenging incumbent Tyree Irving.