By Lauren Young
After a month without a board president, the Jamesville-DeWitt Board of Education has finally selected someone to fill the position.
Board member and former board president Susan Petrosillo was selected as the district’s new board of education president after winning the majority vote at its latest meeting on Monday, Dec. 17 at the high school library.
The board voted between two candidates chosen by one member of the board — Petrosillo, nominated by board member Wendy Rhodes, and Vice President Virginia Murphy, nominated by recently-elected board member Ken Dawe. Petrosillo won the election with a total of five votes and took her oath afterwards, leading the rest of the meeting.
Petrosillo, a Fayetteville resident and a former board president with seven years of experience, highlighted increasing the board’s communication and having a “meaningful dialogue with the community” as her goals.
“Meaningful dialogue, and its cousin communication, are what motivate me to be your board president,” said Petrosillo. “As a leader, I am open and honest, I am transparent, and I have a commitment to continuous improvement and solutions.”
Petrosillo said she would support the administration and the board in “closing the loop on open questions and unfinished business” and “repairing the relationship with our community and one another.”
Petrosillo takes the place of former board president Mark Schulman, who resigned from the board last month after serving on the board for nine years and winning reelection last May.
Murphy will continue her role as vice president, for which she was reelected for last July. She has served on the board of education for 14 and a half years and was board president for three of those years and vice president for nine.
