Friday deadline to apply for vacant MUSD board seat

Friday is the deadline to apply for a vacant seat on the Maricopa Unified School District Governing Board.

Those interested in joining the board may download an application here. Applications must be notarized and received in the Pinal County School Superintendent’s Office no later than 5 p.m. Friday, Jan. 22.

To qualify, applicants must:

• Be a registered voter in the state of Arizona

• Have lived in the school district for at least one year

• Not be employed by the school district (nor your spouse)

• Not be a member of any other School District Governing Board

• Have no immediate family members, who currently reside with applicant or who have resided in applicant’s home within the last four years, are members of this Governing Board.

The five-member MUSD Governing Board is composed of volunteers who help set district policy and establish budgets, determine educational goals for the district and encourage parent involvement.

The vacancy was created with the Sept. 29 resignation of longtime board member Patti Coutre, who took an administrative assistant position in the district’s Facilities & Operations Department.

Upon her resignation, Coutre endorsed Tracie Armstead-Payton in the Nov. 3 election. Armstead-Payton was the lone challenger to the three incumbents – AnnaMarie Knorr, Torri Anderson and Jim Jordan, who was appointed to the board, for one of three seats.

Jordan edged Armstead-Payton in the November election to retain his seat on the board.

Since Coutre’s resignation took place mid-term, the appointee will serve out the remainder of her term and could then seek re-election in November 2022.

The Pinal County School Office waited until after the general election to keep politics out of the appointment process, according to senior administrative assistant Mark Krumrey.

Once applications have been received, county school Superintendent Jill Broussard will review them to determine candidates to interview for the position. Once a candidate is selected, the county will conduct a background check through a private organization which must be passed for an appointment to be offered. The appointee will be sworn in at the next regularly scheduled MUSD board meeting. The earliest that could happen is at the board’s Jan. 27 meeting.

To date, one application for the seat has been received. Since it came in prior to the official posting of the position, its review is on hold until the posting closes. Krumrey indicated interviews for the position would begin as soon as possible after the posting period ends because “they want to get that seat filled as soon as humanly possible.”