Grandville — Psychology professor Amy Campbell will be the next member of the Grandville Public Schools Board of Education after a unanimous vote by the Kent ISD School Board Monday evening.
“I’m excited that they selected me; I look forward to (serving), building relationships and just getting to know everyone,” said Campbell, a professor of school psychology at Grand Valley State University, mother of children at Cummings Elementary School and former president of the Michigan Association of School Psychologists.
Campbell will step into the Grandville board seat vacated by Barb Palmer earlier this year and finish out the remainder of Palmer’s term, which runs until the next election in November 2026.
She said her top priorities will be “just getting acclimated to the school board and learning everything I need to get started.”
The Kent ISD School Board needed to select an individual to fill the open seat on Grandville’s BOE after the district’s board members were unable to come to a majority vote on any of its top six candidates. This process follows Michigan law, which states that if a vacancy on a local school board is not filled by the district within 30 days, the decision must be made by its intermediate school board.
The law also gave the five-member ISD board full control over the interview and selection process. For Monday’s meeting, they elected to conduct fresh interviews with the two candidates who deadlocked the Grandville BOE, Campbell and small-business owner Mary Gunther, before making a decision.
“Ultimately, only two candidates remained as the top choices by Grandville board members, and both received a split vote,” said School Board President Andrea Haidle in explaining the ISD’s chosen process. “Because we do not live in Grandville, and are not immersed in that community, and in order to honor the Grandville board’s work in this process to this point, we are only considering their two top candidates, Dr. Amy Campbell and Mrs. Mary Gunther. We sincerely believe — all of us do — that it is the correct thing to pick up where the Grandville board left off.”
Haidle, a member of the ISD board since 1999, said she’s never before been asked to select a board member for a constituent district.
“This is a new one for all of us (board members) … we’re just trying to do our due diligence as necessitated by the rules under which we are governed,” she said.
The Community Weighs In
Of the eight individuals who spoke during the public comment period, several requested that the ISD School Board restart the process from the beginning, suggesting that the interview process was not completed objectively in Grandville.
“Unfortunately our time was wasted, because we had three school board members that collaborated, that did not follow school board policy and made a mess of the whole process,” said Bob Persky, a retired Grandville teacher and former board member who was one of 19 original applicants for this open seat. “They did not objectively decide; they did not use independent thought … they only came up with one candidate out of the 19 that they were willing to back.”
During deliberation, ISD School Board treasurer Laura Featherston acknowledged these comments, making a motion to table Monday’s vote, review Grandville’s original 19 applicants and select six to interview. This motion did not receive support, however, as other board members indicated they felt comfortable making a decision that evening.
Grandville Superintendent Roger Bearup said he was thankful for the ISD School Board’s help to finish the selection process and is looking forward to moving on.
When asked if the ISD’s decision reflects the goals and desires of the greater Grandville community, Bearup said, “Yes; both candidates were high quality options and I am certain Mrs. Campbell will be a great asset to our district.
“The Grandville Board of Education and community as a whole has far more in common than not. We all want the best education possible for our students and we love our community. I am confident we can and will move forward with a focus on those commonalities.”
In a statement provided to SNN following Monday’s meeting, on behalf of the Grandville BOE, board President Jason Heyboer wrote, “We’d like to thank the 19 members of our community who applied to fill our board vacancy and the Kent ISD for their assistance in filling this position. Special thanks to Mary Gunther for agreeing to sit for another interview with the ISD, and congratulations and welcome to Amy Campbell for being chosen as our next board trustee.”
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