Wednesday, March 19, 2008
The new board member has watched the board from a distance, she says.
WARREN — Kelly Bianco, a 39-year-old certified public accountant and the mother of three, was sworn in Tuesday as a member of the Brookfield Board of Education.
Bianco, of Oakwood Drive, replaces Steve Varga, who resigned at the board’s Feb. 16 meeting because of the death of his father.
Superintendent Steve Stohla said 11 people expressed interest in filling Varga’s unexpired term, but none of the candidates received the required three votes within the statutory 30 days.
The list of names then went to Judge Thomas Swift of Trumbull County Probate Court, who made the decision Tuesday and swore in Bianco.
The board has been divided because of personality clashes and the lack of money to operate the schools, Stohla said.
Bianco said she has watched the operations of the board “from afar.”
She is a 1986 graduate of Brookfield High School and received her bachelor’s degree in 1990 in math and accounting from Grove City College.
Bianco sought a seat on the board, she said, because she and her husband, Mark, have three sons in Brookfield schools and care about quality education. In addition, Bianco explained she wants to bring an end to difficulties on the board and can use her accounting background to help the district.
For the past 11 years, she has operated Strategic Valuation Group LLC, a financial consulting firm, in Howland.
Also, Bianco helped generate support for the passage of a 7.4-mill bond issue to pay the local share of the construction of a $34 million kindergarten-through-12th-grade building.