BELLE — During its July 30 meeting, the Maries County R-2 Board of Education determined it will advertise to fill the vacancy left by the death of 13-year member Amy Kiso.

Superintendent Dr. Lenice Basham began the discussion.

“You need to decide what you want to do and how you want to start this process,” she began. “We do have a vacancy left by the death of Ms. Kiso.”

Board President Kenda Sanders asked about an application process.

“Is this an application they have to fill out?” Sanders asked.

Basham said if she remembered correctly, last time they filled out an application saying why they want to be on the board, why they should be chosen and a questionnaire.

Dawn Hicks said they would base their decision off of the application to choose who to interview.

“We discussed it later, and figured out who we wanted to appoint,” Hicks said.

Paul Shanks asked what the process would be if they didn’t like the applicants.

“Then you can appoint someone,” Basham said. “You can go to a person and ask them if they want to serve on the board.”

Sanders said that’s if no one applies. What if they didn’t have any qualified applicants?

“I’m concerned with the word qualified,” Basham said. “They have to meet the same criteria as you all did — pay their taxes, be a resident, a certain age. That’s qualified to the state. That’s a qualified candidate.”

Sanders said she is more concerned with no one applying.

Basham said there are several ways the board can address the vacancy, including reviewing who may have lost during the last election.

“However, that in this case that wouldn’t work because no one applied during the last election to be on the ballot,” she said. “We could go back to whenever was the last time we had a third person (run for the board).”

Shanks said they better advocate for applications to fill out the application.

Applicants will have to pick up the application in person like they would have had to do if they signed up.

“I think at that point we should probably give them the paperwork so they know if they qualify,” Basham said.

Sanders said she wants to start the process.

“I don’t want to wait,” she said. “I know we’ve talked about waiting.”

“We’re starting the school year,” Basham said. “We should have seven people if we can. Do you want me to get the application from our attorney to see what that looks like? We need to start talking deadlines. Do we want to have a special meeting before the next board meeting to interview candidates or do it during the board meeting? The last time we did it in open session it was such a long meeting.”

Shanks asked if they could appoint someone before school starts and Hicks said he would be talking two weeks before school starts. Open houses are Aug. 15.

Ashley Harris suggested putting the application out to the community for the month of August and then have a special meeting to review the applicants during the first week of September.

Basham asked the board what they want to do if the attorney doesn’t have an application form. Director Garret Bialczyk said he’d go back and look at what they used before for a point of reference.

“Do you want the application to be due the day before our next meeting?” Basham asked. “By Aug. 26 and you could review them at the board meeting.”

Sanders said that would give the board time to find applicants. Then they could set a special meeting date at the August board meeting.

Sanders asked if they could recruit board members at the school’s open house events.

The board determined they would have a table for one hour at each of the building’s open houses to hopefully recruit interest in being on the board.

Applications will be due at 4:30 p.m. on Aug. 26 so the board has time to review them before the Aug. 27 meeting.