(Geronimo) – Despite just having a school board election three weeks ago, the Navarro ISD is still facing a couple of vacancies on its board of trustees. Those openings have now led the district to fill the positions by appointment.
Whitney Magness, the communications officer for the Navarro ISD, says the first position is that of newly elected trustee Katherine Ewald. Although publicly declining the seat just prior to appearing on the Nov. 3 ballot, Ewald still managed to be the top vote getter in the race. Magness says the second available seat is that of Board Vice President Rick Martin who suddenly passed away in August.
“When we canvassed the votes, they read Mrs. Ewald’s letter declining the position at this time and so moving forward we now have two vacancies that we have to fill. The Navarro Board of Trustees will be taking resumes for these two vacancies and both seats will actually serve on the board until the November 2022 regular board election and so we’ve asked all interested applicants to email their resumes to our current Board President Greg Gilcrease at greg.gilcrease@nisd.us and the deadline to submit them is Nov. 27 at noon,” said Magness.
Magness says the hole left behind by Martin has extremely been difficult for the entire Navarro community. She says the district realizes it has big shoes to fill.
“Its been very hard for the district, for the board, for teachers and loved ones, for the whole community really. Rick has been a true member of this community for a long time and losing him definitely hurt. You can just tell being at board meetings. It’s a different atmosphere because he was always cracking jokes and being engaging and also asking very thoughtful questions and always wanting to do what was best for kids and so we will be appointing someone to fill that role,” said Magness.
Magness say anyone wanting to be considered for a seat is encouraged to submit their resume by next week’s deadline.
“What will actually happen is the board as a whole will review all of the resumes that were sent in and then decide who they would like to speak with and basically interview and then from there, we’ll pull out who they would like to fill and so they’ll review those resumes at the next board meeting,” said Magness.
The decision to move forward by appointment was made during Monday night’s meeting of the Navarro ISD Board of Trustees. The oath of office was also administered at that time for the other newly reelected members of the Navarro ISD Board of Trustees. They include Trustees Renee Rehfeld and Clinton Scheib.
Again, resumes should be emailed by Nov. 27 to greg.gilcrease@nisd.us.