INDIAN RIVER COUNTY — School Board member Carol Johnson will once again lead her fellow board members at the dais during meetings. The board voted unanimously Tuesday evening to name her School Board Chair.
Claudia Jimenez will serve in the No. 2 spot as Vice Chair.
School Board member Jeff Pegler nominated Johnson to the chairman’s post. No one else was nominated.
“Silence is affirmation,” Johnson said, clarifying that she did not voice a vote to her nomination.
Johnson nominated Jimenez to the vice chair’s seat. It, too, was the only nomination.
Jimenez attended the meeting by phone and was not there in person to be sworn in at the same time as fellow re-elected School Board member Matt McCain.
Indian River County Judge Paul Kanarek swore McCain in after addressing the full board.
“You’re job is so much different from what I do,” Judge Kanarek said. “I’m a decider all by myself. You’re a decider, but you’re a decider in a group.”
He encouraged the board to work together as a “we” instead of individually as “I”s.
“I congratulate you on your election to this job,” he said.
After the swearing in and the election of leadership, Johnson requested that the board remain seated rather than shift around given the change in chairman.
“I’ll just sit right here,” said Pegler, the former chairman.
“I know how anxious you are to get out of that chair,” Johnson joked with Pegler.
“It’s been a tough year,” he replied, drawing chuckles out of his fellow board members.
“I want to thank you all very much,” Johnson said of her election as board chair. “I’m looking forward to it. I really and truly am. I think this is a year that’s going to be filled with some challenges.”
She congratulated Jimenez and McCain for their uncontested bids for re-election, adding, “We have an opportunity to do something quite unique.”
Johnson explained that in the time since she’s returned to the School Board, there has been a “new cast of characters” every two years with the elections. This time, though, the board’s makeup has remained the same.
“We couldn’t ask for a better scenario,” she said.