GRANGEVILLE, ID – The State Board of Education appointed 10 trustees to oversee the newly-created Grangeville and Clearwater Valley school districts in a brief special meeting in July.
The appointments are temporary with all 10 seats up for election in November.
The appointments come after residents of the Mountain View School District voted in May to split into two smaller districts. The deconsolidation process will take more than a year, with Mountain View operating as normal for the 2025-26 school year before the split takes effect in the fall of 2026.
The 10 new appointees will oversee the Mountain View district this school year, and will also begin setting up their own new districts as independent school boards with five trustees each.
There were 31 applicants for the 10 trustee appointments, EdNews learned through a records request. The State Board appointed a work group to look at those applications and make recommendations.
That work group included: Shawn Keough from the State Board of Education; Spencer Barzee of the Idaho Department of Education; Misty Swanson from the Idaho School Boards Association; Ted Lindsley, an Idaho County Commissioner; Kathy Ackerman, the Idaho County Clerk; Martha Smith, a Kooskia resident; and Lamar Johnson, an Elk City resident.
“It was rewarding to see that 31 different people had an interest in applying,” Keough said.
Keough encouraged those who were not selected to stay involved in their public schools and, if they feel strongly, to run for a trustee seat in November.
The work group recommended appointing all four current Mountain View Trustees who applied for a seat on one of the two new school boards in hopes of keeping some continuity and experience, Keough noted.
The State Board voted unanimously to accept the work group’s recommendations.
The selected trustees are:
* indicates a sitting Mountain View Trustee
Clearwater Valley
Zone 1: Karen Syron
Zone 2: Troy Biesecker
Zone 3: Aaron Teats
Zone 4: Thomas James Wellard
Zone 5: Jon Menough*
Grangeville
Zone 1: Tyler Harrington*
Zone 2: Jamie Russell
Zone 3: Melissa Lane
Zone 4: Bernadette Edwards*
Zone 5: Larry Dunn*
