City now taking applications to fill school board seat as Schmidt resigns

By Aldo Amato

Staff Reporter

MADISON — The Madison City Council is taking applications to fill the seat of Phil Schmidt who is stepping down from the board in June when his term expires.

The school board membership involves a five-year term  District 1 Councilman Tim Holcombe said that the city council will review applications April 19-26 and will appoint on May 13 whoever is elected to the Madison City School Board.

Phil Schmidt said that his years on the board were successful and that he is proud of what was accomplished in those years.

“There were many things that we accomplished that I am proud of,” he said. “One of the major things was the steps towards opening James Clemens High School. I was privileged to be a part of that process.”

Phil Schmidt will be stepping down in June. (CONTRIBUTED)

Schmidt said that a mixture of persistence and state funding helped make the process of building James Clemens go smoothly.

“If you wrote a script for how it went, it would have been perfect,” he said.

Schmidt said that the rezoning of Mill Creek Elementary was another one of his favorite accomplishments because it was a challenge but it all seemed to work out after every thing was said and done.

“We had to ease the overpopulation at Mill Creek,” he said. “There were a lot of people vocal about it and many were against it. But after it was completed, we did not hear any complaints.”

But what Schmidt said was his greatest accomplishment and hopes his predecessor focuses on is having an ear open to the good and the bad going on in the school system.

“Listen to the areas that people need help in,” he said. “Listening and understanding how we can improve new areas. We needed to talk about the weaknesses. That was probably my proudest accomplishment is that we were able to tackle difficult subjects in meeting in order to get to the next level.”