When Morgan Hill School Board trustees gather at 5:45pm Tuesday
in a special meeting, their first action will be to approve the
process for appointing someone to fill the remaining two years of
former Trustee Tom Kinoshita
’s term.
When Morgan Hill School Board trustees gather at 5:45pm Tuesday in a special meeting, their first action will be to approve the process for appointing someone to fill the remaining two years of former Trustee Tom Kinoshita’s term.
“I just asked Carolyn (Superintendent McKennan) to put together the information on how it was done last time,” Board President George Panos said Friday. “But how we do it is a board decision. There are six board members, and if someone wants to tweak it, that’s fine.”
The board last appointed Russ Danielson to fill the remainder of former Trustee Susan Choi’s term in 2001 when she left the area to take another job. Current Trustees Jan Masuda and Del Foster, as well as Panos, were on the board at that time.
The 13 applicants, in order of their interviews Tuesday, are: Abigale Almerido, Jim McMahon, Earl Webb, Barton Fisher, Robert Whitelaw, Tracey Ciccone, Al Tervalon, Mark Sparacino, Joseph Briones, Donald Moody, Stephen Johnson, Michael Crocker and Robert Benevento.
The staff report also lists the proposed process:
n Each board member rates the candidates taking into consideration the criteria established in Bylaw 8430.
n Each board member establishes his/her own rank order of the top five candidates 1-5, 1 being high. Each board member’s rank is equal in weight. All six board members will have one candidate who scores 1, one who scores 2, etc.
n Individual rankings will be tallied on a chart for all to see.
n Individual rankings will be totaled for each candidate. The candidate with the lowest number is the highest candidate overall.
n The board members may choose the highest ranked candidate as the finalist, or they may ask two to five finalists to return for a second round of interviews.
n If a tie occurs, the candidate with the most number of first places would rank higher.
The bylaw referred to, School Board Bylaw 8430, talks about “desirable qualifications” for prospective board members, including “a deep sense of loyalty to associates and to group decisions cooperatively reached,” “a willingness to work through defined channels of authority and responsibility,” “a knowledge of the community which the school system is designed to serve,” and “a broad-minded and open-minded attitude, together with the ability to think independently, to rely on fact rather than prejudice, to hear and consider all sides of controversial questions,” among other characteristics.
The Board of Education will meet Tuesday at 5:45pm at the District Office, 15600 Concord Circle. Details: 201-6000.
Marilyn Dubil covers education and law enforcement for The Times. She can be reached by e-mail at md****@mo*************.com or phoning (408) 779-4106 Ext. 202.
