A new Riverside school board member will be appointed to replace Tom Hunt, who died in June.
The board voted unanimously Monday, July 8, to name a new trustee, Riverside Unified School District spokesperson Liz Pinney-Muglia wrote in an email.
RELATED: Tom Hunt, longtime Riverside school board member, dies at 68
The new member would serve the rest of Hunt’s term, which ends in December, Pinney-Muglia wrote.
Tom Hunt, seen Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2011, while a candidate for the Riverside Unified School District board, has died. He lost a battle to cancer Saturday, June 22, 2024 — days before his 69th birthday. (File photo by Kurt Miller, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)
The board is accepting applications for Hunt’s former Trustee Area 4 seat. Candidates can apply on the district’s website. Applications must be submitted, along with a statement of economic interests form, by Tuesday, July 30, at 4 p.m.
Selected candidates will be interviewed during an open special school board meeting Tuesday, Aug. 6. The session will be 5:30 p.m. in the board room at the Riverside Adult School, 6735 Magnolia Ave.
Trustee Area 4 takes in the western end of the school district, including the city’s Arlington and Ramona neighborhoods.
Hunt died days before his 69th birthday from a battle with cancer. He was first elected to the board in 2007 and served until his death Saturday, June 22.
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Hunt worked to foster partnerships with businesses and community leaders and supported initiatives such as internships, job shadowing and the Advancement Via Individual Determination program. He helped bring the Dual Language Immersion program to the district and advocated for expanding career and technical education, a June 24 district news release states.
Most recently, Hunt was involved with the renaming of Highland Elementary School as Harada Elementary School, in honor of the Japanese family that fought to keep its Riverside home. Harada became the first school in the city to be named for an Asian American family.
The Riverside area lost another school board member shortly after Hunt’s death, when longtime Alvord school board member Robert Schwandt, 66, died from complications of a kidney and liver transplant.
Schwandt, who died Thursday, June 27, joined the Alvord Unified School District board in 2014 after his 2012 retirement from AT&T and served as board president in 2015, 2019 and 2023.
