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Onalaska board moves to approve superintendent candidate; record shows name inconsistencies and incomplete vote
Summary
The Onalaska School District board moved to approve a superintendent candidate during its March 10, 2025, meeting after a closed-session discussion. The meeting record alternately names the candidate as "Ben Barton" and "Glenn Barton," and the available transcript does not include a final, complete vote tally.
The Onalaska School District Board of Education moved to approve a superintendent candidate after a closed-session discussion at its March 10, 2025, meeting.
Board members announced a closed session to discuss a student disciplinary matter and "an offer to a superintendent candidate," citing state statutes as the legal basis. After the closed session, a board member moved "to approve [the candidate's] employment and contract as the next superintendent of the school district." The motion text in the transcript is inconsistent: in one place the candidate is named "Ben Barton" and, shortly afterward in the same exchange, the record uses the name "Glenn Barton." The board member who made the motion and the board member who seconded it are referenced in the meeting record with motions framed as "Motion by Aaron, seconded by Brian," but the available transcript segments do not clearly attribute the spoken motion to a single named board member voice.
The transcript then records a roll-call-style query of some members with affirmative responses (the minutes show prompts and responses for Brian, Sean and Mark; Aaron's response begins but the record is incomplete). The available text does not contain a clear final tally or an explicit statement that the motion carried. As a result, the public record in this transcript leaves the outcome and the precise vote count ambiguous.
The board invoked statutory authority for the closed session, citing "Section 19.85, 1, a, c, e and or f and 118.125" as the legal basis for meeting in private to discuss the student matter and the superintendent offer.
What the transcript makes clear: the board took up superintendent hiring as a formal motion immediately after closed session, and several individual members were recorded as responding to the roll-call prompts that followed. The transcript contains inconsistent name references for the candidate and does not include a definitive, complete vote tally in the segments provided.
Next steps: the board's official minutes or subsequent public materials should provide a final, authoritative statement of the candidate's name, the formal action taken, and the vote tally. The meeting transcript provided here does not supply those final details.
