The Juneau School District is now advertising the school board vacancy left by the resignation of Kim Poole.
As KTOO reported last month, Poole has moved to Oklahoma, where she is working in a family pharmacy. She was elected to the board in 2010 as a community member, who was personally unaffiliated with local schools.
At the time, she said her position could “help the community unite behind its educational system.”
While as a pastor and a pharmacist, she works with children and their parents, Poole never had children in the school district nor was she a former teacher or administrator, usually the type of candidates attracted to the education board.
Poole says she was able to look at the broader picture during her time on the board.
“I’d like to think that what I looked at was the whole situation, or the entirety of a situation without focusing in any one point,” Poole says. “And the job is not to placate everybody. The job is to remember that you have been elected to represent a type of leadership that comes from the community, not necessarily one that is going to favor everything the administration says, not one that is going to favor everything the educators say, not one that’s going to favor all the children and the parents (have to) say.”
Poole says everyone on the current board is a community member and works well together. She says members have been able to put aside their own children’s experience to look at the bigger picture.
Applicants for the seat must be registered Juneau voters, cannot be employed by the Juneau School District, and cannot be a member of the Alaska Legislature. They must be willing to take and sign the oath of office. They’ll have to fill out a questionnaire and appear before the board in an open question and answer session.
Applications are available at the school district website, or by calling the superintendent’s office at 523-1702. Applications must be received by December 2nd.
The person appointed by the board will fill out the remainder of Poole’s term, which ends October 2013.
