Two Kootenai Joint School District School Board trustees and the superintendent resigned during a special meeting June 27.

Trustees Richard Meyer and Jon Verkist parted ways with the board after the 3-2 vote to buy out Superintendent Lynette Ferguson's $128,435 per-year contract, including benefits, that was supposed to continue through June 2020.

"I worked well with the other board members, I just didn't think this was fair," Meyer said Monday. "I thought she was doing a great job. She deserved to continue on with another two to three years on her contract."

The Kootenai School Board oversees matters at the Kootenai Junior/Senior High School and Harrison Elementary School. The schools, though small, fare well academically: Kootenai scored 351 out of 400 in a recent Index of Education Quality evaluation, which has an average of 268 to 273. The high school's 2019 average SAT score of 1082 was well above the state average of 976.

Ferguson served as superintendent and as the elementary principal, according to her contract. She has held the position since 2010. With the schools and students performing well, Meyer said he disagreed with the board majority on encouraging Ferguson to resign.

"She was upset," he said. "Here she is, doing a great job, great record and she worked her heart out because she worked as superintendent and principal. They’re going to replace her with two people. She worked nights and weekends and her husband volunteered to help out. When somebody’s doing great job, you keep them. You do everything you can to keep them," he said. "The product is the kids and the kids are performing very, very well."

Attempts to contact Ferguson were not successful.

Board Chairman Ralph Kahn said he was limited in the comments he could offer: "We did accept the resignation of two of our board members. It being a personnel issue, I cannot comment further."

Calls and emails to other board members and teachers regarding the matter were not returned as of press time.

Minutes of the special meeting were not posted on the school's website as of Tuesday afternoon.