Candidates with business backgrounds would be best suited for the Clayton County school board, the Clayton Chamber of Commerce president said Monday.

The chamber released its recommendations for Districts 2 through 8 for the July 15 primary. Districts 1 and 9 are not up for re-election this year.

The chamber, which represents about 625 businesses, graded 19 of the 32 school board candidates based on their responses to an eight-page questionnaire. Candidates who did not complete the questionnaire were not graded.

"We felt like it was the right thing to do in terms of let's try and vet these candidates a little more," said Geoff Fulton, president of the chamber's board of directors.

Candidates were given an A-F letter grade based on their professionalism, the quality of their answers, experience in fiscal responsibility and personnel management and lack of conflict of interest. The chamber was specifically looking for candidates who did not have affiliations with unions or trade associations.

"I believe all the candidates joined the race with the best intentions, but I'm not sure they all have a grasp on how to run a $612 million budget and a grasp that it's the board's job to set policy, not implement policy," Fulton said Monday.

The candidates were asked questions about how to avoid micromanaging, improve schools with technology and work with diversity.

Retired Wachovia executive John Askew, financial analyst Tammie Hardy and Ed Rigdon, head of the Georgia State University marketing department, were the only candidates who received an A.

The three have advanced degrees.

This is the first time the Clayton chamber has become involved in school board elections. The questions are modeled after ones used by the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, Fulton said.

"If things were running smoothly, I would just as soon not get involved," Fulton said. "But this affects all of us."

On Feb. 15, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools gave the school district until Sept. 1 to meet nine mandates or lose accreditation.

At the end of February, the chamber took out an advertisement in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution asking for all nine school board members to resign.

—- ON THE WEB

The candidates' questionnaires can be viewed at www.claytonchamber.org.