There will be two new faces on the Concord School Board in January after voters opted to elect mostly newcomers at the polls Tuesday.
Challenger Sarah Robinson won the District C School Board seat with 2,947 votes, beating out incumbent candidate Gina Cannon, who received 1,468 votes.
A similar flip occurred in District B, where newcomer Cara Meeker won with 2,899 votes, defeating incumbent candidate David Parker, who received 2,029 votes.
Incumbent school board president Jim Richards, who was running unopposed in District A, was re-elected with 3,126 votes. This will be Richards’ fourth term on the board.
All three will begin their new terms on Jan. 1.
Concord voters also approved four changes to the charter, the governing document of the Concord School District, and rejected one change. The edits were proposed by the nine-member Concord Charter Commission after a year of work and placed on the ballot for community input.
In a vote of 10,041 to 2,327, Concord residents overwhelmingly approved Question 2, effectively changing the name for the clusters of wards that school board members represent to “school voting zones,” instead of their previous name, “districts,” which Commission members felt was too easily confused with the broader Concord School District.
The charter will also be edited to reflect that when school board members move out of their zone, they must vacate their seat and a new member must be appointed.
In a vote of 8,708 to 3,353, voters also approved Question 5, adding language to the charter clarifying that the school district clerk and treasurer will be selected “in accordance with state law,” which in this case means by ballot vote. The question leaves the method of selection open to change, if the state law changes in the future.
Concord residents also agreed 9,073 to 2,905 with Question 4, an amendment to change the way the district’s charter document can be amended in the future. From now on the Concord School Board can edit the document directly through a three-fifths majority vote, by bringing a charter amendment to a city-wide ballot vote with a seven-member majority vote, or by establishing a new Charter Commission with a six-member majority vote.
Voters also okayed Question 1, an amendment to tidy up and “eliminate obsolete references” in the document, with a vote of 8,993 to 3,339.
However, Concord residents largely rejected Question 3, an amendment that would have allowed Concord School Board members to set their own stipends. Voters rejected the question 7,223 to 5,244. As a result, school board members will continue to be paid the same amount as city councilors – $1,000 per year.