Greater Essex County District School Board to fill 2 trustee vacancies by appointment
CBC
If you want to become a public school board trustee in Windsor-Essex, this could be your chance.
The Greater Essex County District School Board (GECDSB) has decided to make appointments to fill a pair of vacancies.
The decision was made after several options were pitched at a meeting Tuesday night.
The board was looking for a way to fill vacancies created by the resignation of trustee Ron LeClair (LaSalle-Amherstburg), who resigned last month, and Nancy Armstrong (Leamington-Pelee Island), whose resignation the board voted to accept at Tuesday's meeting.
The agreed-upon process to fill both vacancies will involve the board putting a call out for interested candidates to apply.
Then, at a meeting on Dec. 15, candidates would undergo a short interview process, and the successful candidate would be appointed the following day at the scheduled board meeting.
The motion was put forward by Windsor Wards 3, 4, and 10 Trustee Malek Mekawi, who was appointed through a similar process last year to fill the vacancy created by the resignation of former trustee Sarah Cipkar.
"It's transparent, it's open and I think it's the most time-efficient process," he said.
Earlier in the evening, trustees rejected an option to offer appointments to the second place candidates in the 2022 election, and also decided against an appointment process with a slightly longer timeline.
It was a topic of heated debate, with trustees talking over each other at times before going to a brief recess and coming back to vote on the successful motion with little additional discussion.
Board chair Gale Hatfield, who was once again installed in the role Tuesday evening, said the trustee resignations, which now stand at three in the last year or so, happened for a variety of reasons.
"It's always difficult to accept a resignation from a trustee," she said. "But it's a personal decision and I can't judge what's going on in their life or why they're making this decision, and it happens."
Whoever fills the roles will be in office less than a year before the next election. General school board elections are held at the same time as municipal elections across the province on Oct. 26, 2026.
The provincial education minister, however, has said he is considering eliminating school trustees altogether and is expected to make a decision by the end of this year.
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