DAKOTA CITY — Two new members took the oath of office at Wednesday’s meeting of the Humboldt Community School Board.

Both members were elected earlier this month.

Bob Myott is new to Humboldt.

“I’m not originally from Humboldt,” he said. ”My wife is. We moved back here last year to Humboldt. I’m an attorney in town. I felt like joining the school board. I have a young daughter, she is 3. She will be in the school system soon.”

“I definitely want to see more transparency between the board and the community,” he added. ”I want to build a strong relationship between the board and the community. It is great to see the town support for the schools.”

Michael Heier is originally from western Kansas and went to school at Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas. He has been in Iowa since 1991 and has been in Humboldt since about 2001. He is married and has two grown daughters and a son in eighth grade. He is an independent business person. Heier has a consulting design company for mostly agricultural based processing plants.

He said he has no agenda for joining the school board.

“Just common sense decision making and try to do the best that I can for the people who elected me,” he said.

In other business, the board discussed a $3 an hour increase for teacher associates who speak or translate Spanish in their position. Darling said the district could pay more if the board wished. He will bring more statistics to the board. The district is looking to hire a translator who would translate for the parents. Teacher associates who speak Spanish are paid about $14 an hour. The district would pay a translator about $15 an hour.

The number of Spanish-speaking students has increased from 28 nine years ago to 78 today, Darling said.