A longtime school volunteer has decided to make it a race for the American Canyon spot on the Napa Valley Unified School District board of trustees.

Simone Moultak would succeed Michael Douglas, the trustee for Area 3, who has decided not to run for re-election in November after eight years of service.

To win in November, Moultak will have to best Joe Schunk, an IT worker for Wells Fargo in San Francisco. Schunk, who announced his candidacy last week, filed his candidate papers Monday, according to the Napa County Elections Department.

Like Schunk, Moultak has been an active parent in the district.

The mother of three teens, Moultak, 52, has volunteered for parents clubs at all her children schools — Vintage High School, American Canyon Middle School, and Donaldson Way Elementary School.  Two years ago, Moultak worked on the Measure G campaign, the $183 million bond measure approved by voters to pay for the construction of American Canyon’s first high school and other projects.

The new school is scheduled to open in 2010.

Moultak, who is working on her candidate’s statement this week, said she wants to improve communication between the district and the parents across the K-12 district, which stretches from Yountville to American Canyon.

“I always have been passionate about education,” Moultak said.

Moultak is president of the Parent Faculty Student Organization at Vintage High School, where her youngest daughter, Marissa, 14, will be a sophomore this year.

Her son Brennan, 19, attends California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo while daughter Danielle, 18, a 2008 Vintage High School graduate, will attend UC Berkeley in the fall.

With only one child left at home, she expects to have more free time than she used to, said Moultak, who recalls that not too long ago, she used to carpool children to three different schools.

Her husband, Michael Moultak, served for six years as NVUSD trustee before he decided not to run for re-election in 2000.

Originally from Holland, Simone Moultak speaks four languages, including her native Dutch. She worked as a tour guide when she and her husband moved to American Canyon in 1989.

Neither Moultak nor Schunk have run for office before.

Schunk, 49, regularly attends NVUSD board of trustees meetings, a routine he said began a decade ago.

Schunk and his wife, Michelle Marin, have two boys, Zach, 16, and Jake, 14, both of whom will attend Vintage in the fall.

Marin, a nurse and a Boy Scout Troop 262 secretary, is a former site council member at Donaldson Way Elementary School and American Canyon Middle School. Schunk is a former webmaster at River Charter School.

Also up for re-election this year are Jose Hurtado, a Napa Valley College counselor; Alan Murray, a retired NVUSD administrator; and Frances Ortiz-Chavez, director of a Napa nonprofit organization, Puertas Abiertas Resource Center.

As of Tuesday, Murray was the only one to have filed the required papers to run for re-election.