The San Diego Unified School District Board of Education Tuesday night will consider four finalists in the search for an interim successor to Marne Foster, who resigned.
The finalists are Brenda Campbell, LaShae Collins, Erica Dibello-Hitta and Sharon Whitehurst-Payne. They were selected from a group of 10 candidates who addressed the board for three minutes each last week.
Campbell is a retired administrator for San Diego City Schools; Collins is the district director for Assemblywoman Shirley Weber, D-San Diego; Dibello- Hitta, a native of Argentina who came to the U.S. as a sixth grader, teaches English as a second language to adults in the Sweetwater Union High School District; and Whitehurst-Payne is a retired teacher and administrator for the San Diego Unified School District .
Collins and Whitehurst-Payne are running for the seat in the June primary. Because the seat representing Southeast San Diego is up for election this year, board members opted against holding a special election to fill the position.
The final four will be allowed to speak again Tuesday night, and one of them is expected to be selected for the seat and sworn into office.
"It is our intention to have the best candidate serve as the interim board member and we will do everything we can to do that," said board President Michael McQuary.
Foster resigned two weeks ago after pleading guilty to receiving financial gifts over the legal limit. She admitted that a benefactor gave her son money toward a theater camp in 2014 and paid for his airline tickets.
