Sonoma County Board of Education appoints new member

12/11/2015 -

The five-member Sonoma County Board of Education, which provides community stewardship of county-wide education initiatives, has appointed Andrew Leonard to fill the Area 3 seat vacated in November by Khaalid Muttaqi.

Leonard, an Education Program Officer for United Way of the Wine Country, was selected from a pool of three candidates at the board meeting held Dec. 10. Other candidates included Karyn Pulley, a private educational consultant and former trustee for the Cotati-Rohnert Park Unified School Board, and David Rosas, a contract worker for Keysight and former Roseland School Board trustee.

"I am excited to have Andrew on the board,” said County Superintendent of Schools Steve Herrington. “He will bring valuable new perspective and experience.” Herrington also thanked the other candidates for applying.

“We were lucky to have an incredible pool of applicants to choose from,” he said.

Leonard, 29, was sworn in that day and will fill the seat through a provisional appointment until the end of 2016. He will have the option of running for re-election in 2016.

At the same meeting, Board Member Gina Cuclis was elected president and Peter Kostas was named vice president.

Learn more about the County Board at http://www.scoe.org/pub/htdocs/countyboard.html