Marlette) – The Marlette board of education has voted 5-2 to hire Ann Wood as the district’s interim junior high/senior high principal. Board members Mark Huggett, Steve Quade, Janet Mutch, Gina Kraft and Mike Hall voted for the hire, while Jay Burton and Nik Woods voted against the measure. Wood was the former executive director of administration, curriculum and operations at Croswell-Lexington Community Schools. Wood, and her sister Julie Western, former superintendent, left with nearly $800,000 in severance pay earlier this year.
Marlette school board President Mike Halll said Wood’s contract is day-to-day and not for a set period of time. Her pay has not been determined yet. He added that he and Marlette Superintendent Sarah Barratt had both searched at length for options to replace former junior/senior high school principal Kyle Wood, who accepted the principal’s position at Croswell-Lexington High School last week. Hall said, “I wanted options and I don’t want to at all sound like we settled – because that’s unfair to Mrs. Wood – but the options were take a teacher out of the classroom and abandon some kids or put (her) in there and I couldn’t support taking a teacher out of a classroom and having a substitute teacher teach the class,” he said.
Barratt would have been able to appoint Wood without board approval, but brought it the board due to the Cros-Lex, according to Marlette officials. Hall said the board made it a point to keep the meeting as transparent as possible and that Wood answered questions from the board and the public for more than an hour. Wood began her role as interim principal Monday morning and is in the process of negotiating her pay with Barratt.
