TONASKET – Director redistricting, which occurs every 10 years following the results of the U.S. Census has brought little change to the Tonasket School District.

The school board voted to approve the first reading of the preliminary redistricting at their Monday, Sept. 12 school board meeting. The motion, made by School Director Catherine Stangland, received a second from School Director Patti Baumgardner and passed unanimously.

“We’ve been working on this so long we wanted to get the process started,” said Jerry Asmussen, chairman of the school board. “We were not happy with what we had done earlier.”

Ausmussen said that the director districts remain “pretty close” to where they were before.

“The town district, Ernesto Cerrillo’s district, does move to include more people to the south. The rest of the districts are about the same except for some small jogs here and there.”

The board chairman said 10 years ago, after the 2000 Census, it was easier to define the districts as the school board was provided with cells that made it easier to follow.

“This time it was kind of goofy and not as well defined,” he said.

Under new business, the board moved to approve the extracurricular contract Memorandum of Understanding. They also moved to approve a medical leave of absence for Roger Prater and hired David Buchheim as head tennis coach.

The board then moved into a work session for training on iPads with Hanna Kliegman and Carl Stortz.

“We got new iPads because they were about one-third the price of new laptops that were compatible with our Apple systems at the school district,” said Asmussen. “The board wanted to move away from using personnel laptops because of security issues.”