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At
a meeting on June 19, 2001, the GCISD Board of Trustees
interviewed six candidates for Places 1 & 7. The
applicants had 15 to 20 minute interviews with the current Board. After the interviews, the
Board discussed the
applicants for over an hour before they reached their final
decision.
Mark Born, President
When
the doors reopened and all the attendees were in place, Mr. Born,
President, stated, "We want to thank everyone who
applied. We had a long discussion and really appreciate the
high level of applicants and are only sad to say that there are
going to be four people who are not going to be on the Board. It was a difficult decision...let me cut to the
chase, the two people we believe that will best serve the District
with the remaining year of the two terms that are there. One
will run for election for three years, one will have to run for
election for the remaining year on Place 1. We would like to
welcome James Hamilton and Mary Ann Nicholson to the Board."
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| Reactions
after the announcement. |
The
two new Board members then drew a slip of paper that stated which
position they would fill and were then sworn in to their
positions. Mr. Hamilton will fill Place 1 while Mrs.
Nicholson will fill Place 7.
Mr. Hamilton and Mrs. Nicholson draw
for their place on the Board
Mr.
Born concluded with, "Once again, I want to thank everybody
who applied, we really appreciate your interest. We are
going to go San Antonio, this week, Thursday, Friday and Saturday
for training."
James Hamilton being sworn in. |
Mary Ann Nicholson being sworn in. |
Mrs.
Nicholson made a motion to adjourn with a second by Mr. Hamilton.
Following
are comments received by LNO regarding the individual views of
the Board on the appointment process and the items that are top of
the list now that there is a complete Board and Superintendent.
Barbara Keeney and Fiona Sigalla |
Fiona Sigalla and Mary Ann Nicholson |
Mrs.
Fiona Sigalla
"It was a very difficult process because we
really felt like we could work with all the candidates. They
all had special qualities that they could bring to the Board and
had all shown a great interest in the District. We had to
look for the ones that we thought had the greatest assets that
what they could bring to the Board, hit the ground running and
work together as a team to lead our District. The most important issue right now is
budget. We have to work with Dr. Singer and take a look at
our expenses for the coming year and see how we can continue to
reach for even higher level of academic excellence given the
revenues that we have."
Mary
Ann Nicholson |
James
Hamilton |
Tim
Raine
"We discussed all the applicants in detail and
what we perceived were their relative strengths and weakness were
and skill sets and who would best compliment our team for the
period in which they were appointed." He continued,
"I believe our first focus is going to be team building so
that we can all get together with the Superintendent and start out
on the same page and set a higher view of the things that we want
to try to accomplish or set in motion. Beyond that, I would
think some of the things that we have previously set out and
approved are going to be high on the agenda, such as, the curriculum
audit which is very important."
Mark Born
"We were looking at the personalities of the individuals
involved and the skill sets that they were going to be able to
bring to the Board and how they would compliment our existing Board. When looked at James' resume and Mary Ann's resume it
took a little bit of time because we had some excellent people
that applied." First priority, get Dr. Singer on Board,
the budget and the curriculum audit started and a Board retreat."
Barbara
Keeney
"We
were able came to a consensus on the appointments. The hard
part was narrowing them down. We wanted all of them."
Nancy Coplen
"I was delighted with the two
people. We have an incredible source of people that are very
well qualified and we are really fortunate to have that. At
this time we feel very comfortable with the two to fulfill the one
year obligation. We had to look at how we would work
together well as a Board and fulfill what we need to
do." She continued with, "The budget is most
important, we have to get that done."
James Hamilton
"I feel great...very
excited." When asked about the main focus he continued,
"I am a technologist by day. I am anxious to look at
the District's technology and the future conversions of
communications in the classroom. I think this is very
exciting."
Mary Ann Nicholson
"I am very excited. I have a lot of
hard work ahead of me to try to get up to speed and learn all the
State codes but I really feel positive about where our District is
and where we are going. As we discussed earlier, we need to
look at taking it from a state recognition to a national
recognition. We have the talent here with the students and
the teachers. It's going to be an exciting place to
be." When asked her comments on the main focus of the Board, "I think the first focus is going to be the budget, we
have to get a viable budget for the District. Second would
be that we need to unify, we need to do some healing, there are
some people in the District that are hurt and we need to address
their concerns. Get them to join us in moving forward."
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