The Kodiak Island Borough Board of Education meets tonight for a special meeting and work session.

            The special meeting is mostly to approve teacher contracts. But the real action will happen behind closed doors when board President Betty Odell calls an executive session to discuss appointing someone to the vacant seat previously held by Peggy Tuttle, who resigned from the board after her Coast Guard husband was transferred out of state. During the executive session the board will also discuss the evaluation of Superintendent Larry LeDoux, who will be leaving at the end of the month to become state commissioner of education in Juneau. 

            Two people have applied for the vacant school board seat, and both are scheduled to be interviewed during the board’s work session. Peggy Rauwolf ran for the board last October in a field of three candidates, losing to current board member Melissa Borton by 15 votes. She says in her application for the seat that many people encouraged her to run again. Rauwolf works for GCI and has lived in Kodiak for more than 30 years.

            The other applicant is Ken McCarty, who is a relative newcomer to Kodiak Island. McCarty moved here last year to work at Providence Kodiak Island Counseling Center as director of the Safe Harbor Office. A licensed marriage family therapist, he previously lived in Redding, California where he was in private practice and was director of McCarty’s Resource Skill Center, a California state certified non-public school specializing in special education and learning disabled students.

            Odell says she’s not sure if the board will announce a selection at tonight’s meeting. Whoever is chosen will have to wait until the board’s next regular meeting, scheduled for June 23rd, to be sworn in and seated. That person will then serve until the October municipal election.

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