People in attendance at Lambert’s school board meeting Thursday expressed their appreciation and concern after it was announced that school Superintendent and Principal Nicole Simonsen resigned from her position.
Some appreciated her hard work for the school while others said they were concerned about keeping another superintendent on staff.
Simonsen took a job as superintendent at Culbertson starting July 1. Her last day at Lambert is June 30.
“For family reasons, I decided to leave Lambert and return to Culbertson,” she said.
The school board placed a one-year penalty for leaving her contract prematurely that some in attendance thought was harsh.
“We put in the penalty so things like this wouldn’t happen again. If we were lenient, we would not have a leg to stand on if another superintendent resigns. This would cause a precedent and cause the superintendent to hire a lawyer to fight us,” School Board Chairwoman Lacey Mullin said.
The school board unanimously approved Simonsen’s resignation and opening of her position.
The board approved to penalize her one-year in a vote of 3 to 1 with board member Sarah Huft opposed.
Simonsen suggested to the board to use the money from the penalty to hire a search firm to find her replacement.
In other news, Huft motioned, seconded by board member Jill Thiessen, to renew a three-year sports co-operative with Richey School. The motion passed three to one with School Board Member Brent Carda opposed.
“As far as the numbers and where we are at now, we need to be competitive. Most of our kids want to win and they can only do that with Richey kids,” Mullin said.
“I’m not for the co-op unless we improve the facilities at Richey,” Carda said.
“I don’t think we have the numbers and how realistic is it for Richey to make the changes they need to make,” Huft said.
