McHenry Times

The board of education for the Huntley Community School District 158 held a special board meeting Nov. 15 to conduct interviews and select an applicant to fill a vacant seat on the board left by Lesli Melendy. 

The board deliberated in a closed session after five interviews  and returned to announce that they had chosen Jonathan Daley as the new board member.

The board originally had seven applicants for the position, but two of them ended up having to pull their applications. The board interviewed the remaining five candidates in the meeting, spending a half hour with each of them before going into deliberation.

The board gave each candidate three minutes to speak on themselves before being asked six questions, one from each board member. The interviewed candidates were Kate Policherie who lives with her husband and three sons who are students in the district, Steven Book who has three children in the district, Daley who has two children in the district, Andy Facadee who has a third grader and eighth grader in the district, and Andy Bittman who had two children graduate from the district and one in the high school.

“I believe I have a very solid and practical decision-making process that uses data, leadership and team building,” Daley said in his interview. “I’ve been leading teams for nearly 15 years. I've learned through the experiences what it takes to build a strong team and provide leadership for that team that leverages its strength. Collaboration: I have a strong ability to collaborate with others in pursuit of a common objective and seek diverse thinking and encourage constructive disagreement to reach a win-win scenario. And then perspective. I believe that I bring a unique perspective to the role of education. This perspective is shaped by my role, by the role that education played in my life and the great influence that a few educators had on my life and my career.”

He has a bachelor’s degree in business administration from UW Whitewater and a Master’s of Business Administration degree from Notre Dame. He will be sworn in at the Dec. 15 meeting.

The board will meet again at 6 p.m. on Dec. 15 at the Huntley 158 District Administration Building on 650 Dr. John Burkey Dr. in Algonquin.