Former school board member hired as District 205 communication specialist

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Amy Pickrel resigned her seat on the District 205 school last month, but she’s not going too far.The 205 Board approved Pickrel’s hiring on Monday night in a newly created position in the district, as a communication specialist.

Superintendent John Asplund says when first hired he heard through community meetings that the public wanted better communication from the district.

Helping them hopefully achieve that will be this new position that will focus on helping the public understand what’s going on in 205, especially with changes looming in the form of reconfigured building schemes.

They started receiving applications but then Asplund was approached by the then-board vice-president.

He says he made it clear Pickrel would have to resign before she applied.

“She said ‘I really think this is something I would be good at’ and I said ‘I can’t even legally talk to you about it until after you resign from the board because there are definite legal reasons why board members can’t be seated as paid positions in the district.”

But her background was a perfect fit says Asplund.

Pickrel’s been a marketing coordinator with Martin-Sullivan for nearly four years, was a former program coordinator with the U of I Extension and holds a B.A. in Communication and media studies.

The schools chief says Pickrel outshined the others, in part because of her school board experience.

A previous version of this story read that Amy Pickrel was Board Secretary most recently, but she was in fact Vice President. This version has been corrected to reflect that.

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