The Humboldt County Office of Education (HCOE) will be appointing someone to the current vacant Trustee Area 5 position in a month.
“It’s only been vacant for a couple of weeks,” said Michael Davies-Hughes, the HCOE Superintendent. “So any interested party is asked to contact the Humboldt County Office of Education. We have a candidate information form that’s available on our website at HCOE.org, and that should be submitted by November the 30th.”
This is not a regular hiring process. It’s an appointment made by the remaining board members. It is expected that the board will interview potential applicants and then make that appointment on December 6.
“That interview would be in public and then the appointments and the deliberation of the board will also happen in public,” Davies-Hughes said.
The public meeting on December 6 will be held at the Annex Boardroom which is located at the HCOE Franklin Campus in Eureka. The Trustee Area 5 role covers the largest geographic area within Humboldt County.
“The county board meets once a month for their regular meetings,” Davies-Hughes said. “Sometimes there are special meetings, they have specific roles and responsibilities that include hearing petitions on charter schools, charter school appeals in their district, attendance appeals, which is when a student desires to attend a school other than their school of residence and they also hear expulsion appeals.”
The set of tasks within the board of education also includes overseeing the county education budget, approvals for local control accountability plan and more. It’s a big job that needs the right person.
“A passion for children, I think, is fundamentally one of the requirements of this position and then also, an interest in representing that trustee area and the needs and desires of individuals, families that are living within that trustee area,” Davies-Hughes said.
This position serves the McKinleyville to Del Norte County line and east all the way to the Trinity County line.
The previous area five trustees resigned effective October 29. That means the new trustee will serve out the remainder of that person’s term, which expires in December of next year. The new trustee can run for re-election next November. Qualified candidates must be registered voters in the area’s five trustee boundaries.
