Payton Perspective: Antioch School Board should appoint Julie Young to vacant seat
By Allen Payton
The Antioch School Board has to fill another vacancy with the recent resignation of Claire Smith.
This is the second time the Board members have had to fill a board position in less than a year. Last fall, after Barbara Cowan resigned with a little more than a year left in her term, the Board appointed Fernando Navarro to the empty seat.
During the appointment process, the person to receive the second most votes was Julie Young, who attends almost all school board meetings.
She is very knowledgeable about the issues and can hit the ground running, should she be appointed.
The Board is in the midst of searching for a new superintendent. They need a full, five-member board to help in making the decision.
If the Board goes through another appointment process to fill the current vacancy, it could take another month or two to do so, and then the new member wouldn’t be seated until a month after that. The Board is wanting to hire a new superintendent by June.
It makes sense to appoint Young at their next meeting so there will be a complete board for the hiring decision.
Julie is a very dedicated and intelligent individual. I totally agree that she would make aa great choice for appointed board member.Please do it now!
I disagree. I admire Julie’s dedication to her personal causes, and I admire the time and research she has devoted to them, but she does not (in my opinion) devote much attention to anything else on the board’s agenda. In fact, I think she was the candidate who during the last interview process admitted that as a new board member she would defer to the general opinion of the other board members in most things rather than question. Also, to choose her merely because she was the runner up is poor logic. One could put the same logic to better use and say that the board should appoint the person who received the next most number of votes in the last general election. But that isn’t the process. And in order to be equitable, fair, and transparent, the board should follow the process they created.
Allen,
I also disagree. I assume you were not at the March 8th school board meeting when Julie Young commented about the amount of money AUSD spends on special education students versus what is spent on regular education students. She stated that this seems backwards to her. She also said: “I just don’t understand why we don’t spend more money on people who are going to give back to the community.”
Don’t all students deserve a quality education, even special needs students who will contribute to the community?
As a teacher I believe they do.