State Board of Education President Michael Kirst had better hope that Caitlin Snell, the student representative on the Board, doesn’t have any big exams next week at Point Loma High in San Diego. With three openings now on the 11-member board, he may need her presence, if not her vote.

With four days before the Board takes up a big agenda, including whether to pursue a wavier from the No Child Left Behind law, Gov. Brown has yet to nominate anyone for the vacancies he has long known were coming. And his press office isn’t giving any signs when the nominations will be announced.

The Board needs a quorum of six to meet and six to pass any motions. There haven’t been any tight votes lately (Brown appointed all of the current members except for Caitlin), but you never know.

One spot has been open for a year, since Greg Jones resigned with a year left in his term. The terms of Yvonne Chan and Jim Aschwanden expired in January. The current eight members are Kirst, Trish Williams, Carl Cohn, Aida Molina, James Ramos, Patricia Ann Rucker, Ilene Straus, and Snell, 17, the student representative and full voting member.

It takes a two-thirds vote in the Senate to approve a State Board nominee, giving senators, especially Republicans, for now, one of their few points of leverage. But because of redistricting, it’s quite possible that Republicans will fall short of even a third after November –  if Brown chooses to wait that long.

No one is saying whether the governor has already run names of any potential nominees up the flagpole.