On April 5th, 2011, the polls will be open to vote on four new school board members. The four current members, whose terms are up in May, have all decided not to rerun.

MariAnn Leibrant a, one term board member, decided not to rerun because, as stated in the Landmark, “  I have decided to give back some time to my family and my business. “

Along with Leibrant, Larry Herbst and Sue Kleinmeyer, who have been on the board for longer, decided not to rerun.

President James Marciniak also announced he would not run for reelection.

Being on the school board requires a lot of time. School board members watch over educators and the administration to make sure they are adequately doing their jobs. The school board also approves budgets, fires and hires teachers, and approves contracts. This new school board will be the board to approve the new teacher’s contract in 2014.

Hoping to fill the vacant board positions are Tom Powers, Tim Walsh, John Keen, Gary Gryczcan, Lenora Giurini, and Louis Surprenant.

Surprenant has a daughter, Carly Suprenant, a junior at RB.

Carly is confident in her dad, and said, “My dad is a very fair person and I know he will make great decisions to help out our school.”

Powers has a daughter, Madison Powers, a junior at RB and seventh- grader, McKenna at S.E. Gross Middle School.

Madison said, “I’m used to having my dad as a School Board member because he was on the board at Gross.”  Powers is currently the vice president of the Brookfield Elementary District 95 school board.  

“It will be nice to have him on the RB school board especially because McKenna will be going to RB soon,” Madison said.

Along with being on the District 95 school board, Powers is an architect and managing principal of the Chicago office of IA Interior Architects.

Walsh has a daughter, Kate Walsh, a senior at RB. He also has two other daughters who went through RB. Also in the Walsh family is an eighth grader at L.J. Hauser Junior High School.

Kate said ,“My dad’s been on boards before, like for our swim team, so I know he’ll do a good job. It’s just very time consuming.”

Walsh was the President of the Otters Swim Club at the Riverside Swim Club.

Keen has a daughter, Johanna Keen, a senior at RB. Also, Keen as a son, John Keen, who is a sophomore at RB. The Keen family has three more children who plan on attending RB in the next few years. Keen attended RB and graduated in 1979. He is a radiologist at Stroger Hospital.

Gyczan and Giurini both have children who will be incoming freshman at RB next fall.