AUBURN — Ward 3 School Committee member Tom Kendall will run for chairman at Wednesday’s meeting.

If elected, Kendall would replace David Das, who did not seek re-election Nov. 8.

Kendall has been a board member for four terms, or eight years. He began in the 1980s.

He’d like to become chairman, he said, because he’s interested in continuing initiatives the School Department started on new ways of learning that better engage students.

Those initiatives include the iPad tablet computers for kindergarten students, which are hoped to boost learning and test scores in math and reading by 2014-15.

The Auburn Middle School is developing a new “expeditionary learning” model. The idea is also to better engage students through more active and challenging learning, learning that involves the community. For instance, in expeditionary learning students might learn about environmental science by studying the Androscoggin River.

At the high school a new way of teaching being designed is called “Vision 2020.” The idea will be for students to take more control of what they learn by setting their own goals. Also, students would receive more personalized learning to meet their needs, and teachers would act as teachers but also coaches.

If elected chairman, Kendall said he hopes to be more effective, since he’d have more access to education officials at the local and state level. He said he would not “run” the meetings but would “conduct” them in a fair manner.

Kendall is self-employed, works as a sports event timer (he recently timed a national ski competition in Rumford). He’s active in the Auburn Ski Association and is a graduate of Edward Little High School and Dartmouth College.

He is married to Nancy Kendall, a former School Committee member and chairwoman.

— Bonnie Washuk