Jeff Manley, an employee of Altru Health System, is the only applicant for the open seat on the Grand Forks School Board. Application deadline was Tuesday, Sept. 3.
Board members are expected to interview Manley and vote on his application for the mid-term vacancy at its meeting on Monday, Sept. 9. If approved, Manley may serve until the next School Board election in June.
The seat was vacated by Christopher Douthit, who resigned in July to accept a one-year position as interim principal at Schroeder Middle School.
Manley, a supervisor of the data analytics and the integration services teams at Altru, was a member of the Lewis and Clark Elementary School’s parent-teacher organization while his son attended there, he said in his application. His son is a high school student.
Manley is interested in helping the school district “get the most for the public’s dollar,” given that the school system “has very limited revenue coming in from the community and state,” he said, noting that “we have to spend wisely and be transparent to the community.”
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In July, Douthit was selected to serve as interim principal at Schroeder Middle School after an unsuccessful search for a permanent principal. The search will be re-started this fall, administrators have said.
When he resigned from the School Board, Douthit had served about one year. He retired as associate principal of Red River High School in the spring of 2018, after a lengthy teaching and administrative career in Grand Forks public schools.
