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The Steamboat Springs School Board will likely return to full strength tonight.

School Board members are scheduled to choose between two candidates, Laura Anderson and Jerry Kozatch, to fill the District 5 seat left vacant by the Aug. 28 resignation of former School Board President Tom Miller-Freutel. The agenda for tonight's meeting includes interviews of the candidates, appointment of the new board member and an annual update of the four-year improvement plan for each school in the Steamboat Springs School District.

Former teacher Denise Connelly is the new board president. Tonight's appointment will return the School Board to its intended size of five members.

Kozatch is a member of the city's Education Fund Board, which recommends how the School Board should spend revenues from a citywide, voter-approved half-cent sales tax. Kozatch is president of the Fund Board's Technology Commission and a former member of its Educational Excellence Commission. He is also a former, six-year member of the school district's District Accountability Committee and a former member of the Parent Information Committee at Strawberry Park.

Kozatch's two children attended Strawberry Park Elementary School, Steamboat Springs Middle School and Steamboat Springs High School. Anderson's two sons have followed the same path, and are currently students at the high school.

Anderson is actively involved with Parent Information Committees at each school, and with accountability committees at the middle school and high school. She is the former middle school parent representative to the District Accountability Committee.

Anderson created the Partners in Educating and Advocating for Kids Success program. She is the chairperson for PEAKS, which is a support group for parents and teachers of high ability students.

The School Improvement Plans outline future goals, needs and methods for improving areas such as academic achievement, school climate and social competence of students, at each Steamboat Springs school over the next four years.

The School Board reviewed the updated plans earlier this month, as did the accountability committee, which has recommended board approval of the updates.

Also on tonight's agenda is a resolution of School Board opposition to Amendment 39 and Referendum J, two ballot issues that would require each school district in Colorado to spend at least 65 percent of its operational expenditures on items identified as directly impacting classroom instruction.

"These amendments are misleading to the public since revenues provided to school districts will not change as a result of either measure," states the agenda packet prepared by school district staff. "It takes the responsibility and authority for making decisions about our school district away from the locally elected Board of Education."