Oswego School District to accept applications for open board seat starting Jan. 3

Applications will be available for a vacant seat on the Oswego School District 308 Board of Education beginning Jan. 3.

Board Secretary Ruth Kroner announced Oct. 25 that she will be stepping down from the board this month since her husband has taken a new position that will require their family to move to Arizona.

Board President Donna Marino announced at the Dec. 6 meeting of the board that the applications to fill Kroner’s seat for the remainder of her term will be available to the public beginning Jan. 3.

Kroner was elected to a four-year term in April 2019. Her seat will be included on the April 2023 election ballot.

The board will have 60 days to appoint an individual to Kroner’s seat once she is no longer a resident of the district.

Applications will be made available to the public on the district’s website beginning Jan. 3, and the position will be open online for two weeks.

The board will interview a select number of candidates in late January, Marino said, and then choose Kroner’s replacement from the roster of interviewed applicants.

“Ruth has been a huge help to me as a new board member and a new board president, and I am certainly going to miss her a lot,” Marino said during the meeting.

Superintendent John Sparlin also thanked Kroner for her time on the board, adding, “You have been an outstanding board member and we thank you for that...It has been a pleasure and honor working with you over the years.”

Marino previously stated that the board will need to select an Oswego Township resident “in order to represent those constituents” since Kroner has been a resident of that portion of the school district. Oswego Township covers the northeast portion of Kendall County, including most of the village of Oswego, parts of Aurora and Montgomery and the unincorporated Boulder Hill subdivision.

Board Attorney Maureen Lemon of Ottosen DiNolfo Hasenbalg & Castaldo, Ltd., said that two provisions of the Illinois School Code apply to filling a school board vacancy.

Lemon cited the two passages, which state, “Whether elected or appointed by the remaining members or regional superintendent, the successor shall be an inhabitant of the particular area from which his or her predecessor was elected if the residential requirements contained in Section 10-10.5 or 12-2 of this Code apply.”

The second passage cited, Section 10-10.5(a), “Sets out the mandatory board representation rule applicable to community unit school districts.

“Because the school district is currently subject to the residency restrictions contained in Section 10-10.5, the person who fills the vacancy must be a resident of the particular area from which the board member vacating was elected,” Lemon said.

During the public comments portion of the Dec. 6 meeting, former board secretary Jared Ploger questioned the accuracy of the Illinois School Code passages that Lemon cited, saying that they excluded large groups of the OSD 308 community from applying.

“You are attempting to create a precedent and create divisions that don’t exist. That’s a problem,” Ploger said.

Theresa Komitas, OSD 308 director of communications and public relations, said that while the temporary replacement for Kroner’s seat must come from the area she resided in, any member of the community can run for her seat in 2023.

Those with questions about the process to fill Kroner’s seat or who are looking to be placed on a notification list for the start of the application process can email board Secretary Ursula Studer at ustuder@sd308.org.