7 trustees appointed to new Clarendon 4 board

With the consolidation of Clarendon 1 and Clarendon 3 officially on the books, the county's legislative delegation has appointed seven trustees to serve on the new district's school board.

The new district is named Clarendon School District 4, and delegation Chairman state Sen. Kevin Johnson, D-Manning, distributed a news release last week and spoke Monday on the delegation's appointments.

Tony Junious, Alex Craven and Ethel Marshall from the Summerton area join Jason Newsome, Ron Wingard, Luther Faulk and Jennifer Howard Powell from the Turbeville/New Zion area as Clarendon 4 trustees.

They were sworn in Monday night at the Clarendon School District 1 district office in Summerton.

Junious and Marshall come to the new board from the Clarendon 1 board, and, likewise, Newsome and Wingard come from the Clarendon School District 3 Board of Trustees. All resigned their posts to join the new board. Junious and Newsome were chairmen of their respective boards.

The new board has been named now to get Clarendon 4 "up and running" by its start date of July 1, 2021, Johnson said.

His initial recommendation to the new board is to hire an interim superintendent, Johnson said, because that leader will be needed to assist with the rest of the consolidation process during the next 15 months.

Beginning in 2022, new board members will be elected from six single-member districts and one at-large district based on lines drawn after this year's census.

Johnson said election voting will likely be in staggered terms to prevent a situation where the full board could turn over at one time.

Because the new board has taken two trustees from both Clarendon 1 and Clarendon 3, appointments were also made Monday to fill those empty seats.

Joseph Postell and Bessie Leonard were sworn into the Clarendon 1 board, and Amanda McConnell was sworn in for Clarendon 3.

The state senator said he hopes to have a final person appointed for Clarendon 3 later this week.