The Bellevue School Board on Tuesday heard presentations from five applicants looking to fill the seat vacated by longtime board member Judy Bushnell on April 27.

Bushnell has served on the board longer than any other active member. Her term expires in fall 2011, and the board will appoint a replacement until then.

The five candidates are:

• Laura Blanch: President of the Clyde Hill PTA, she says the board doesn’t give the community enough notice of looming big decisions. She also says district-wide curriculums are good, but they should continue to allow individual teachers to instruct students in an “organic way.”

• John Connors: A father of four who served as chief financial officer at Microsoft before joining the venture-capitalist firm Ignition Partners in 2005. He says the district needs to improve its math and science curriculums.

• Stuart Heath: President of Elliott Bay Real Estate as well as Elliott Bay Law Group, where he is an attorney. He says he would bring a fresh perspective to the board as someone who is new to the district.

• Betsy Johnson: A former marketing executive for Microsoft who now serves as president of the Bellevue Schools Foundation and as a member of the Medina Elementary PTSA board of directors. She says the district needs to work on challenging kids more, helping the lowest-performing students meet standards, and collaborating with its employee unions to meet district goals.

• Cory H. Van Arsdale: Recently retired from a 14-year career at Microsoft to become a self-employed consultant specializing in online business and law. He also previously practiced law with Apple Computer and Sun Microsystems. Van Arsdale says the needs of individual students often get lost in the district because of its size, and that district-wide performance is subjective and hard to measure.

The school board is scheduled to interview candidates privately from May 10-13 and then vote on May 18.