Three board seats, general fund levy to appear on ballot

Three Whitefish School Board Trustee seats are up for grabs this spring.

Current Trustees Heather Vrentas, Shannon Hanson and Katie Clarke’s terms all expire in May.

Vrentas was first elected in 2011 and is seeking her fourth term on the board. Vrentas has lived in Whitefish for more than two decades.

Prior to joining the board again in 2017, Hanson served two previous terms on the school board before losing his bid for re-election to the board in 2012. He was selected to serve as vice chairman of the board in his second term and filled former Trustee Dave Fern’s seat after he left to join the Montana Legislature in 2017.

Clarke has a variety of experience in education, first teaching marketing and DECA in the Cherry Creek School District in Colorado before teaching strategic communication at Hawaii Pacific University. She also taught at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks and volunteered in the Corvallis School District. Outside of education, Clarke also served as a director on the hospital foundation board at Marcus Daly Hospital in Hamilton.

As of press time, no one had filed to run in the election, though the deadline for filing is not until March 26.

The district is also expected to ask voters to approve a general fund levy during the election.

In its Feb. 11 meeting, the board approved a call for election that includes the levy, but the specific levy amount has not yet been determined.

“At this time we do not set the amount of the levy, we just say there will be an election on May 5, where these two issues will be put on the ballot,” District Business Director Lucie Shea said.

The election is May 5.