PORT TOWNSEND — A former teacher will become the newest member of the Port Townsend School Board after her unanimous approval by current board members Monday night.
Constance Welch, 64, was named to fill a vacancy that formed after Holley Carlson, 51, submitted her resignation June 7.
Welch will serve out Carlson’s term, which ends in December 2017.
Board members Pam Daly, Nathanael O’Hara, Keith White and Jennifer James Wilson supported Welch, who was the only applicant for Carlson’s position.
Carlson was the board’s chair when she resigned.
Since that time Daly, who did not seek re-election this year, has served as chair.
She will remain in that position until after the board’s first meeting in 2016, at which time it will select new officers.
Daly will be succeeded by Laura Tucker, the only person who filed for that seat.
Welch, who grew up in Port Townsend, began teaching in the district in 1986 and retired in 2014.
Carlson said in her resignation letter that she had used poor judgment during an event on school grounds by participating in a toast with “an incremental amount of alcohol” May 29 at the end of an eighth-grade dinner-dance she helped chaperone.
No children were present when adults toasted “a job well done,” she said, but the toast with alcohol violated the school district’s zero-tolerance policy concerning drugs and alcohol.
