Board moves to fill empty seat left by Mary Boger

The Glendale Unified school board will interview applicants early next month to fill a seat left open when former member — and past president — Mary Boger resigned.

Glendale school officials announced Tuesday they plan to swear in the new board member at their Oct. 21 meeting, after interviewing candidates publicly on Oct. 8.

The school district will accept applications Sept. 4through 19, and the existing term will run through April 7.

While the four board members unanimously agreed to appoint the fifth member rather than call a special election, they are still at odds over whether applicants should intend to run for another term in April.

School board member Christine Walters said she would prefer candidates applying for the appointment not run for another term for various reasons.

“One of them being,” she said, “you will find yourself in your own personal hell during the election, trying to be a good board member and trying to run for office at the same time, and probably not serve this board well.”

School Board President Greg Krikorian said that of the thousands of parent volunteers and residents involved in the community, there will likely be several good candidates.

“I think there’s going to be a strong list of people we’re going to see,” he said.

He encouraged anyone to apply, whether or not they plan to run to keep the seat another term, and recalled how he sat on the board when it appointed Boger in 2001. At the end of that term, she ran to keep the seat in 2002 and continued to serve on the board through the end of August.

“For any dad or single parent out there or community member or mom that wants to run and put your name in, I strongly encourage you to put your name in,” he said. “If we limited Mrs. Boger to that one, eight-month term, we would have never had those benefits out of Mrs. Boger.”

The application contains 12 questions that candidates must answer, including the district’s strengths and weaknesses and why they want to serve on the board.

Board members will narrow down the pool to five candidates and interview them during a special board meeting, Krikorian said.

Applications are available at the district’s website, https://www.gusd.net, or by calling the district’s public information office at (818) 241-3111, Ext. 218.