Jeff Boie has attended his final board meeting, at least as a board member. Presented by Bob Geist with a going away present for his long ser – vice at the March 28 school board meeting, Boie reflected on his time on the board and what it had accomplished as a team.

"I guess in my 15 years and looking around this room here, its been a great experience," he FOND FAREWELL

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said. "One of the first meetings that I was on the board in 2007, I remember Bryce DeRoos at the time gave us a report on our test scores in the CESA school districts, which were like 30 schools. By the time he got done reading the results and show – ing us the results, Stanley-Boyd was last, number 30, and he (De Roos) made com – ments that we'd been last for many years." That wasn't the end of Boie's recollection, however.

"I remember that really ticked me off and I thought, 'we have to do a lot better than this," the father with three students in local schools at the time said. "We have to do something different." Remembering in turn that superintendent Jim Jones had thanked Boie for standing up at the end of the meeting and saying they needed to do better, the board had started planning to do just that. "So that's how it kind of got start – ed," he said of the change, adding that "it took all of us" for those then on the board, with Koenig the district administrator and also playing a role. The district had a large debt when Boie had started, and had worked on this alongside the curriculum as it went forward.

Through the years the people that Boie worked with had mostly left, but with – out each one playing a role the district couldn't have turned around. "A lot of it was the school board and great staff," he said of the local academic turnaround at Stanley-Boyd. "We always pushed and thanked our staff." Boie then switched to recollecting about the board as it had planned and undertook Oriole Park, and what that had taken.

"I was part of the Oriole Park thing, and Chad came on about that time. That was a big thing. But I told Jeff (Koenig), the biggest thing is that we got our test scores improved and kept them there. We're one of the school districts looked up to now across the state," Boie said in relation to local academics. The outgoing board member closed out by endorsing his re – placement in Area One candidates Becky Peterson.

"I wish Mrs. Peterson good luck, and to do great," he said. Peterson is running for Boie's in the April 5 spring election, after Boie decided not to seek re-election to the post.