Jennifer DiBrienza and Jesse Ladomirak were elected Palo Alto Unified School District board president and vice president, respectively, at last Tuesday’s board meeting. Shana Segal and Shounak Dharap were also sworn in by Superintendent Don Austin.

Board member Todd Collins made the motion to appoint DiBrienza and Ladomirak, and the motion was passed unanimously without discussion.

The PAUSD board has a tradition of having the vice president become the next board president, according to DiBrienza, who served as vice president for the past year. This is due in part to the vice president’s involvement in the agenda-setting committee.

“The agenda-setting committee is really the board president and superintendent, with the board president being the one that really makes the decisions of what goes on the agenda and what doesn’t,” DiBrienza said. “But the vice president is also invited to those meetings so that they can sort of get an idea of how it runs.”

The position of vice president is typically given to the member who received the most votes in their election, DiBrienza said.

“When I was elected to the school board, I was the top vote-getter in my election,” DiBrienza said. “And so the first year after I’d been there for a year, I was then voted vice president and the next year became president.”

Segal and Dharap, who won 38.86% and 29.58% of votes, respectively, in the November election, were also sworn into their positions by Austin at the meeting. This will be Dharap’s second term on the board.