New Iron County School Board Member Michelle Tullis Ready To Make A Difference

Michelle Tullis is the newest member of the Iron County School Board, and she joined us on the radio show this morning to talk about how she joined the board and what she hopes to accomplish while serving. 

Tullis, as you may recall, was not elected to the board by voters in her district, but explained to us how she was selected to serve on the board. 

Get our free mobile app

“Lauren Lewis was my predecessor in the seat. She was getting married and moving out of state, so that vacated seat and the process went, you know, the district sent out the notice to the public giving everybody notification that the opportunity was available to apply to fill that vacated seat. And so I did. There were six others along with myself, so 7 total. And then during the open meeting of the school board meeting during May, they did the interview process and each of us, I think it was 90 seconds, to kind of give our our spiel as to why we think we would be a good fit for the school board and then they voted and well at that time they voted and then there was a little bit of a mishap. And we had to resume in June and re-vote on that. And did the swearing in on June 3rd,” Tullis explained. 

And Tullis said she had to jump right into the middle of important decisions right after joining the board saying, “right after I was sworn in, the financial budget was at that meeting. And so, going over all of that, there are some pressing things coming up this month. We have a lot to look forward to and a lot of work ahead.” 

While saying she has no specific personal goals or items on the docket, she explained her top priorities. “My goal is the students and our teachers and making sure that they feel like they have a safe place to educate our children now and in the future. We're in an interesting time now and just wanting to make sure that we educate our children well and we have a structured plan for, you know, 5-10 years down the road that will also be sufficient.” 

Tullis mentioned that as the student population demands, the school board has expressed interest in a new school in the district. She said, “I know that we would love to be able to build a new school in the South end of town. I know that was one of the hot topics last year, but, you know, we'll see how that goes.” 

Tullis also said a challenge facing the district is to safeguard the teachers. “I think our teachers is what's important, you know, making sure that we're staying close to our teachers and making sure that they have the tools that they need to make that uniqueness that we have here available still even with the growth, and attracting new teachers, because we're going to need new teachers and that (they have) that same desire for the community.” 

Tullis indicated she intends to run for re-election after she finishes serving out Lewis’ term. You can listen to our entire visit with Michelle Tullis in the podcast below.