The Gardner Edgerton school board has started the process to fill an open seat following a hotly contested race this November.
On Monday, the board formally invited those interested to apply to the soon-to-be-open Position 6 seat. The application period closes Wednesday, Jan. 7.
Board members also laid out a tentative timeline for filling the anticipated opening, suggesting they hope the process is completed by February.
The seat needs to be filled after Keith Davenport said he would not accept the seat despite winning the Nov. 4 election against incumbent Greg Chapman.
Davenport no longer lives within the boundaries of the area Position 6 represents. He moved to a different part of the district during the campaign and said before the election he would only take the seat in the area he had left if he won 60% of the vote, which did not happen.
The board will discuss how to proceed with applications, depending on how many it receives, at its January 12 meeting. People interested in the role must live in the northeast part of the district’s boundaries and contact the Clerk of the Board, Deb Starling.
Technically, the process to fill the seat won’t truly take off until Davenport formally resigns the seat at the board’s first meeting of 2026 next month.
“We can’t fill it until there’s a vacancy,” said board President Tom Reddin on Monday. “But, we can look ahead, project and start getting ready. We can advertise it, we just can’t fill it until the seat is open.”
The appointed board member will serve the entirety of what would have been Davenport’s term until the next general election.
Davenport changed course multiple times during campaign
In November, Davenport narrowly defeated Chapman, who was seeking his third term on the board. The margin between the two men ended up being 24 votes.
Though Davenport won the seat, he no longer lives in the member area he was seeking to represent.
After he filed to run for the school board earlier this year, Davenport moved out of the District 3 area in the Gardner Edgerton School District — calling into question his eligibility to serve.
There are seven members on the Gardner Edgerton school board, with two board members each representing one of three geographic areas and an at-large member. Position 6 generally represents the northeastern corner of the district.
At first, Davenport said he would no longer seek the office. However, a month before the Nov. 4 election, he declared the reactivation of his campaign in order to oust Chapman.
Davenport said his interpretation of guidance by the Kansas Secretary of State’s Office suggested he could still take the seat, but Chapman maintained through Election Day Davenport was ineligible.
Still, in a seeming nod to the unusualness of the situation, Davenport said before the election that he would only take the seat if he won more than 60% of the vote.
However, he garnered just 50.23%, and Davenport has said he plans to resign from the seat come January.
In a post-election statement, he also shared concerns about the board filling the seat too early.
“A vacancy for this seat will not be created until after the new Board of Education is seated,” Davenport said in a Nov. 13 email. “Any movement to fill the seat prior to that time would be unethical and unlawful, intentionally subverting the will of voters.”
At his final meeting on Monday, Chapman thanked the community and district administrators at the conclusion of his more than two terms on the board.
“It’s been a wonderful eight and a half years,” he said. “Obviously, not all of it’s been fantastic. But all-in-all, just thinking back this past month of everything that — I’m going to say I accomplished, but obviously we all worked together — everything that I was a part of accomplishing, I’m very proud of all of that.”
What are the steps for filling the seat?
Once the application period closes Jan. 7, Starling, the board clerk, will review any applications received to ensure they meet the legal qualifications for the role.
After that, applications will go to the board for review. The board can either set a date to interview candidates or pare down the list before inviting applicants for an interview.
“That night of the January meeting, we can see how many applications there are and then determine if we’d like to use a rubric,” said Board Member Heath Freeman. “Then, to either schedule a special session later in January or just use the [regular] February meeting to see how many we’d like to interview that night after scoring a rubric.”
Two years ago, when the board appointed now-outgoing board member Patrick Ross, it used a rubric to reduce the number of applicants down to two before initiating the interview process, Reddin said.
The board’s policy dictates that interviews must be conducted during a public meeting, followed by a discussion in open session before a candidate is selected.
The board will decide in January whether to hold the interviews at the February 9 meeting or if it wants to schedule a separate special board meeting to do them.
