ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WROC) — Saturday, candidates for the Rochester School Board will compete in their last effort to qualify for the 2025 election. All five candidates will share their strategies to tackle what many parents and leaders are describing as an education crisis in the district. Each ca ndidate will have a few minutes to speak to the audience, followed by individual discussions with parents. The aim is to gather one thousand signatures needed to qualify for the election. The terms of Camille Simmons, current Rochester Board President and James Patterson, current commissioner expire in December of 2025. They are two out of five candidates seeking to secure spots as commissioners on the Rochester Board of Education. Commissioner Patterson recently filed a complaint against current board member Isaiah Santiago, accusing him of using a racial slut. A case that is still pending. Vince Felder, Kareem McCullough, and Trenton Jackson will also make the cases Saturday on why they feel they are fit for the position. News 8 sat down with Jackson Friday evening and asked why he is so passionate about joining the board. "The things that I went through being on the front line with students, it started with a phone call from a good friend of mine to volunteer at Franklin high school with a girls basketball team that didn't exist," Jackson said. "Students were fighting to have a student government and just to see that these students were trying to do something, and they didn't have the means to do it. I felt that it was my duty to do something." With past and present feuds and controversy among Rochester City School Board members, we asked Jackson how he feels about the Board he would walk into if elected. "We have to come together. And the main focus has to be on the kids. If the focus is on anything else, that's where you get dysfunction," Jackson said. "I know it's going to be difficult, but I'm not in I'm not here for politics. I'm here for the children, and that's my main focus." Saturday's forum will start at 2 p.m. at First Genesis Church on Hudson Avenue. For more information, click here. ...read more read less