In a unanimous vote, the San Diego Unified School Board has chosen its appointee to fill the seat left open by former Trustee Marne Foster.
Dr. Sharon Whitehurst-Payne will be the new representative for Subdistrict E in southeast San Diego.
Whitehurst-Payne received her Masters of Science in mathematics from Duke University and her Ph.D. in administrative and policy studies from UCLA, all while working as a district resource teacher in the SDUSD, she wrote in her application.
She has since held consulting positions with the California Commission for Teaching Credentialing, the State Department of Education, the California Academic Partnership Program and Project GEAR UP for middle schools.
"My only reason for running to is to give people choices, options. We've heard from one segment of the community tonight, but I think everybody deserves to weigh in on the issue...and that’s why I'm running...with choices, true choices...so that's my motivation," Whitehurst-Payne said before the board Tuesday night.
The other trustees heard from four candidates at their meeting. They had decided to appoint someone to fill Foster's seat, instead of holding a special election, and received 16 applications at the start of the process.
Earlier this month, Foster resigned from the board and pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of accepting gifts in excess of the legal limit.
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Whitehurst-Payne will only hold the office until December, when an elected trustee may be voted in during the general election.
