Usually in politics, a seat is at its most competitive when there is no incumbent.

Prince William School Board chairman Milt Johns is finding this year that the opposite is true as he actually has an opponent this year.

During his inaugural county-wide run in 2007, the former Brentsville District member ran uncontested in the general election.

Now defending his seat, the Gainesville resident faces Haymarket resident Myra Sawyers on the November 8th ballot.

Johns is endorsed by the Prince William County Republican Committee while Sawyers is backed by the county Democrats. School Board races are technically non-partisan affairs, so there is no nominating primary to determine the official candidate of either party.

However, the county committees often are involved in recruitment of candidates for office and then vote to endorse the ones they think self-identified members of their own party should support.

While Johns received praise on Sunday night by Del. Rich Anderson (R-51st) for being a "conservative" chairman, the chairman focused little of his stump speech at Anderson's house on red-meat partisan issues.

Instead, he stuck to discussing school construction, efficiency in spending and accolades received by county schools.

Specifically, he cited that since he was first elected to the board eight years ago, the county has opened 18 new schools

"I believe the school system is not just child-focused but customer friendly," said Johns.

He mentioned that while the operating budget has only increased by 1.35 percent during the past four years, graduation rates are "going up" and the high schools are all ranked in the top 7 percent throughout the country.

One issues that Johns inherited when he became chairman and is still an issue in western Prince William is overcrowding.

The opening of Patriot High School, the 11th high school in the county, this fall significantly reduced overcrowding at Brentsville District High School in Nokesville while also drawing students from Battlefield and Stonewall Jackson.

With a new middle school set to come online in the new Avendale subdivision between Bristow and Nokesville, Johns addressed the concern that students from around the Linton Hall corridor could be further divided on school selection.

"I would be very reluctant to split Braemar. So, obviously, we'll see what the boundary recommendations look like," said Johns.

Johns supported the development of a K-8 school in Nokesville to replace the 83-year-old Nokesville Elementary School, which has a capacity of 342 students.

The new school is designed to serve about 600 elementary school students and 300 middle school students when it comes online in three years.

That comes even though the higher-growth area of western Prince William is more around Bristow than it is in Nokesville.

"It was an out-of-the-box solution that we needed to get some middle school seats and some (more) elementary seats," said Johns.

One reason the chairman cited for Patriot's expected rapid growth is that the school is so new and so technologly advanced that students who would normally attend private schools are instead signing up for that public school.

When it comes to building construction, Johns said he has "always supported" moving up projects.

He argued that a new high school off of Hoadly Road in Woodbridge will actually affect western Prince William schools in that it will draw in students from Brentsville and Osbourn Park. That will then serve as a placeholder while the county finds land in western Prince William for the 13th high school due to open in 2019.

"I don't believe the proffer system right now appropriately captures the impact to the school system that the new developments bring," said Johns when asked further about overcrowding.

He lamented the lack of a completed access road from U.S. 15 directly to Gravely Elementary School in Dominion Valley but did not criticize the developer Toll Brothers for the delay.

Instead, he said the developer played by the rules and the rules allowed for the company to hold off on completing the access road until enough homes had been sold in what turned out to be a down real estate market.

"You can't blame the developer for that," he said.

In the classroom, perhaps the most controversial topics during the incumbent's chairmanship has been what to do with Math Investigations, which is an alternative way to teach math compared to more traditional methods.

Johns voted for the class to be optional at first, but when that vote failed on a 4-4 vote, the chairman then supported a compromise.

That compromise called for a "blended" approach, which incorporates traditional math teaching along with Math Investigations.

"(We) couldn't just walk away from a 4-4 vote," he said when asked why he supported the compromise.

He still supports parents having either an opt-in or opt-out option for the course, but deferred future judgment until the new text books come in during the spring.

"Right now, we're in the third way" to teach math, he said.

Sawyers declined an interview request on Monday as she was focused on taking her son out trick-or-treating. That happened to be the day after Johns spoke to a kitchen and living room full of GOP activists off of Davis Ford Road in Woodbridge.

Prince William County Democratic Committee chairman Bruce Roemmelt described Sawyers as focusing her campaign on "STEM" topics of science, technology, engineering and math.

On her website, Sawyers states that she would like to "create subject connectivity" in which different courses, like math and science, are more woven together.

"We need to teach subjects the way they exist in the world. For example, when you teach Art you teach about lines. Lines intersect and make angles. There are diagonal, horizontal and vertical lines. It is very natural to discuss math concepts while also discussing art concepts. Math, music, and art concepts can be introduced simultaneously," reads her page.

On the Web:

Milt Johns: http://www.miltjohns.com.

Myra Sawyers: http://www.myrasawyers.com.