In a tight race, Ron Swirczek was elected by 182 votes Tuesday to the District 1 seat of the Carson City School Board.
"I'm looking forward to working with other board members, teachers and especially members of the community to see if we can't find a way to continually serve our students," he said. "We need some good, healthy, constructive debate in the best interest of the students."
Swirczek received 8,661 votes to the 8,479 votes garnered by his opponent Julie Bushner.
"I expected it would be a close race," he said. "Julie is a good person who really cares. Either way, we were going to come out of this a winner."
Swirczek ran on the platform that the district needed to establish a vision. He advocated that the district needed to restructure the educational environment, placing an emphasis on community partnerships.
He said he wants to get started on implementing his vision as soon as he takes office in January.
"We'll try to open it up to take what is good and hopefully make it better," he said.
Swirczek will replace Norm Scoggin, who will reach his term limit at the end of this year.
Barbara Myers, who was unavailable for comment, received 9,007 votes to incumbent Randy Carlson's 7,513.
Carlson was appointed to the board in December to replace Barbara Howe, who left to take a job in California.
"I have had a lot of good supporters on my race, and I appreciate that," Carlson said. "If there are other things I can do for the school district in another capacity I certainly will. I want to see our schools succeed."