CHESAPEAKE — They tried, but they couldn’t do it. For the second time the Chesapeake Board of Education was unable to agree on who should fill the current vacancy on the board.

The four remaining members met Tuesday night in special session with a number of issues on the agenda, including choosing a successor to Bill Pratt, who resigned from the board after he was appointed to the Lawrence County Commission.

Following an executive session, the board reconvened publicly but no motion was made on who would take Pratt’s place.

“Nothing has changed,” Board President Mike Dyer said after the meeting. “When we came out, there was no vote, no action made in the public session.”

In a special session on April 26, the board reviewed questionnaires submitted by eight Chesapeake residents who said they wanted to serve. They were Jerry Frye, Alex Martin, Doug Marcum, Kenneth Wolfe, Charles Oldaker Jr., Douglas Ridenour, Larry Hamlin and Jeffrey Scott Combs.

At that meeting the board deadlocked in a two-to-two vote with Dyer and Dr. Kim Oxley supporting Alex Martin, an audiologist with King’s Daughters Medical Center. Jerry Osborne and David Bennett voted for Jerry Frye, a CSX employee.

Pratt resigned on April 6 and the board has 30 days from that date to come to a decision. If it cannot, Probate Judge David Payne will choose the replacement, according to the Ohio Revised Code. The code places no time constraint on Payne in making that decision.

The board is scheduled to meet next for its regular session on Monday, May 16, at 6 p.m.

Whoever is chosen will have to run in the November general election to fill Pratt’s unexpired term. Then that individual will have to run again in November 2013 since there are only two years left on the original term.

Right now only Marcum has picked up a petition to run in this November’s election. He had not filed yet.

The only public action the board made Tuesday was to adopt recommendations by the district’s administrative team on potential budget cuts. That team is made up of the principals and assistant principals from each building.

The board adopted those recommendations to allow administrators to make decisions on an as-needed basis.

“We are still not sure what budget cuts will be, but we have some ideas,” Dyer said. “They need to have the liberty to plan. They have to make schedules. The kids have to know their schedules. This gave the administrative team the liberty to plan and think about those kinds of cuts.

“We hope to not have any, but can’t foresee there won’t be some. We hope to not have to get into teaching positions. We don’t want to harm kids in any way. We are looking for the students’ best interest. That is the goal of the board. We are unified in that effort. All four are adamant we want to preserve classroom integrity.”