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Southeast District School Board Member Lynn Bradley announced during the Southampton County School Board’s Monday, June 12, meeting that her time on the board will conclude at the end of the calendar year.

“I would like to take this opportunity to let everybody know that as of Dec. 31, I am retiring from the Southampton County School Board,” she said.

Bradley’s current term concludes at the end of 2023 and will bring her total years of service on the board to 12.

In November, 80.2% of Southampton County voters chose to transition the school board from an appointed body to an elected body, but Bradley noted that this had nothing to do with her decision to retire.

“I had thought about this long before the elected school board ever passed,” she said. “I’m retired, and I want to be completely retired.”

Four years ago, Bradley retired from her job at the public defender’s office and continued serving her community as a school board representative for the now-former Franklin District.

“I’m just ready to go off into the sunset,” she said.

Asked what she enjoyed most about serving on the school board, she said, “The difference that the schools have made, working with the kids, being there, going in and out of the schools and seeing the kids — that’s the whole, main focus is them.”

She said that her key objectives she wanted to accomplish during her time on the board were “to broaden the education, make sure everybody was able to get an education and to make sure that the schools offer everything that the kids need to further (themselves) after they graduate.

“And we have added so many wonderful (Career Technical Education) classes and stuff that those that don’t want to go to college don’t have to,” she added. “They can go through a CTE class and do well.”

Bradley had been expecting to finish her term at the end of June, but the school board election ordinance recently adopted by the Southampton County Board of Supervisors extended her term through the end of the calendar year.