School District 428 will see the end of an era after the 2005 school board elections.

Suzanne Lambrecht, DeKalb School Board vice president and 11-and-a-half-year board member, is voluntarily stepping aside.

Lambrecht said she is looking forward to spending more time with her family and having more leisure time.

A lot of leisure activities were put on hold because of responsibilities to the board, Lambrecht said.

“Of course my family is always a priority,” she said, “but I think it’s important that I do my best [on the board].”

District 428has seen changes since Lambrecht first took office.

Growth is probably the biggest problem the board needed to address, Lambrecht said.

“We opened four schools [during my tenure],” Lambrecht said. “And we’re still looking at overcrowding.”

This year the district changed the grade configuration at area schools.

Grades K-5 are housed at elementary schools, Lambrecht said. Middle schools house grades 6-8 and the high school has grades 9-12.

Grade reconfiguration is something the board tried to do nine or 10 years ago but it failed, she said.

Meeting attendance is a basic requirement of being a school board member.

“I won’t miss [going to] the meetings; there were a lot of meetings,” Lambrecht said.

She said that she never got tired of the meetings to the point she arrived unprepared.

In fact, Lambrecht attended all but two school board meetings between July 24, 2003 and Feb. 1, 2005.

Some voters said they would miss Lambrecht’s service while on the board.

Lambrecht was good for the community and the school district, DeKalb resident Charles Johnson said.

DeKalb resident Don Scott said Lambrecht’s three consecutive elections were proof she had done something right.

School board elections will be held April 5. Three candidates will be seated from a slate of seven.

Lambrecht’s last board meeting will likely be April 4. Newly elected school board members take their positions on April 19.