KANE — The Kane Area School District school board will meet tonight to fill not one, but two vacancies on the board.
School board member David Westerburg resigned in June while school board president Ken Kane resigned earlier this month. Kane and Westerburg join Mark Paup and Harry Steele as school board members who have resigned since the general election in November.
The November election brought John Ball and write-in candidates Linda A. Anderson, Claire Ann Depto and Susan Grolemund into the mix. Former board members Ed Kocjancic and Gary Ziegler decided not to seek reelection in November. However, Ziegler agreed to finish Paup’s term, which will end in December 2015. Major Thomas Kerek (Ret.) was named in June to fill Steele’s vacancy, which also will end in December 2015.
In fact, the Kane Area School Board only has two of the nine-member board left from last year with Ziegler and Dick Coleman.
The school board will be filling both Kane’s and Westerburg’s vacancies tonight in a tumultuous year for the board.
The three candidates who will be interviewed at today’s meeting are Keith Hastings, Krista Jamerson and Tim Shrubb.
Hastings, a 2000 graduate of Franklin Area High School and a 2004 graduate of Geneva College in Beaver Falls, has been teaching in the Forest Area School District for 10 years as a math and physics teacher, as well as being a head teacher.
Hastings said that he welcomes the idea of sitting on what he described as a “fresh board” with new ideas. He described the board, both the current members and those who resigned, as an excellent group of people with whom to work, and he is confident that the members of the board will move forward as yet another baton is passed. Hastings said that the experience that both Kane and Westerburg brought to the school board will be “missed and felt.”
Jamerson, a 2001 graduate of Penn-Trafford High School in Harrison City, was recently named corporate assistant vice president of Northwest Savings Bank in Warren. She holds a PhD in instructional management and leadership from Robert Morris University, as well as a bachelors of arts in accounting.
Jamerson said that while the board is still somewhat green, she does not foresee any problems as long as they can work together as a team and keep their focus on the children.
“As long as the board has a common goal of making decisions that are best for the students and the community,” Jamerson added.
Shrubb, a 1989 graduate of Kane Area High School and DuBois Business College, works for the Dickinson Center as a management information system technician.
Shrubb said his interest in serving on the school board was first piqued by the bullying incidents in the school district that have been brought up over the last several months. He said accountability is a key issue. Shrubb said the school board needs to justify to the taxpayers and the students every decision that is made.
Shrubb also said it is time for younger people to step up to the plate and serve, saying that there have been too many years of retired or almost-retired people serving on the school board.
Shrubb said the school district needs to return to the greatness it had when he was a student.
“We used to be a school district everyone tried to emulate,” Shrubb said. “We need to get back to that.”
The Kane Area School Board will meet today at 7 p.m. in the Kane Area Middle School auditorium.
