Pottstown School Board Picks Stilwell to Fill Vacancy

Photo by Evan Brandt

A TALL 'TAIL' INDEED: Pottstown Schools Superintendent Stephen Rodriguez, right, presented Superintendent's Awards to Robert Decker and Christopher Sperat Thursday for their efforts in helping to state The Little Mermaid, this year's all-district musical which, according to Decker, entertained 2,674 audience members, involved 165 in each performance and 212 overall,  and required 10,095.5 man-hours of effort before the curtain rose for the first time.

The Pottstown School Board voted 6-2 Thursday night to appoint former board member Kim Stilwell to fill the board vacancy left by last month’s resignation of Ron Williams.

In doing so, the board by-passed two candidates who ran for the post and were the collective choice of nearly 2,000 voters, and instead chose someone who had been on the board, but chose not to run again.

Stilwell, whose term expired in December, will serve until the end of Williams’ term in December of 2019.

Kim Stilwell

Also under consideration were unsuccessful candidates Thomas Hylton, who had collected 1,107 votes in his reelection bid in November; David Miller, who had earned 838 votes in the November election; and Madison Morton, who was seeking a board seat for the first time with this application.

The board interviewed all four candidates publicly last week.

When it came time for nominations, only Stilwell, Morton and Hylton were nominated. Five votes were necessary to be named to the board.

The board then voted by name for the candidate of their preference. In the first round, Stilwell won four votes from Bonita Barnhill, School Board President Amy Francis, Susan Lawrence and Kurt Heidel.

Morton was supported by votes from Emanuel Wilkerson and Raymond Rose, while Hylton won votes from Vice President Katina Bearden and John Armato.

With no candidate receiving five votes, Bearden said that the best board is one which is diverse with different members with different expertise. She said given the financial challenges that the district faces, someone with Hylton's demonstrated mastery of detail, research and independent thinking was the right person to fill this interim post.

No other board members spoke, they voted again and reached the same result 4-2-2.

At a bit of an impasse, there was discussion of either soliciting other candidates, or voting again at a workshop meeting later this month.

That was when Rose asked for another vote, saying he wanted the matter settled Thursday night.

In that round, Rose and Wilkerson both switched their vote to Stilwell, giving her six votes, while Armato and Bearden again voiced their support for Hylton.

Ironically, when Stilwell was elected school board president in 2015, it was Hylton, then also a board member, who spoke on her behalf, saying her experiences as a parent with a child at each level of Pottstown schools, as well as her long record of activism, qualified her to be the board president.

Here are the Tweets from the meeting: