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HINSDALE – Hinsdale Township High School District 86 seated its newly elected board of education, which voted Kay Gallo as its president during its Monday meeting.
Recently re-elected Jennifer Planson was voted for the position of vice president and new board member Kathleen Hirsman was voted as secretary.
Bill Carpenter was the other elected member sworn in.
The board also officially announced the resignation of member Victor Casini and said it would immediately start accepting resumes for the position, with a deadline of 5 p.m. May 11.
Applicants should submit a letter of interest and their résumés to the board by emailing boe@hinsdale86.org, or mailing their documents to the attention of Board Recording Secretary Debra Kedrowski, 5500 S. Grant St., Hinsdale, IL 60521.
Gallo was the only nominee for board president and received a yes vote from all the board member who were physically present.
Board member Claudia Manley did not attend the meeting, but board member Ed Corcoran, who was participating by phone while on a business trip, said he would not vote for Gallo.
"I fear we will have the [teacher's] union on both sides of negotiating table," he said.
Gallo said that, as the new board president, she would like to foster an environment where each board member has the right to voice their opinion.
The new board leadership already showed a difference in how they conducted the meetings.
During public comment, speakers were given five minutes to talk, instead of the previous two minutes.
Planson suggested the board consider eliminating the finance and facilities committees and have the topics be part of the regular board discussions.
Corcoran said he advised against doing so because it could significantly increase the workload during regular board meetings with many pressing finance and facilities issues coming up.
Planson also was in favor of re-establishing the district roundtable, where board and district staff members could meet to discuss issues.
Gallo and Planson both suggest that the board president no longer be part of writing the Board Briefs, a newsletter sent to residents after each meeting to recap what happened. The administration would be solely responsible for the newsletter.
Because the previous meeting ended before the board could take any action, the board had to vote on items during the meeting.
Among the expenses they approved were $275,055.50 to replace the core switches for the district's network, create wireless access points in every classroom and install a new Internet firewall.
District administrators said these upgrades would improve computer performance immediately, strengthen the network security and give the district the ability to use one-to-one computing if it chooses.