Traverse City Area Public Schools (TCAPS) trustees chose Scott Hardy to fill an empty seat on the TCAPS board Monday. Hardy will serve through the end of 2026, filling the seat recently vacated by Andrew Raymond.

Hardy was one of four finalists invited to interview for the vacancy. Candidates were asked to give an opening statement and answer any questions from the board before trustees voted to select an appointee. A Traverse City realtor, Hardy is a past TCAPS board member – who chaired the finance and communications committees during his tenure – and is a member of the TCAPS Hall of Fame. He has served as chair of the TC Downtown Development Authority, is a past member of the Women’s Resource Center board, and was previously mayor pro tem on the city commission.

With additional service on a previous Illinois school board, Hardy said he has over 15 total years of educational board experience. “I have come to appreciate just how complex public education has become and the myriad of issues we/you deal with daily,” he wrote in his application. “At its core, however, public education is about the students and preparing them for an increasingly complex world they need to be ready for upon graduation. If we can’t succeed at that level, the money and time we spend getting there is simply overhead without our expected ROI.”

Trustees Monday also voted to have Hardy serve as board treasurer. He will sit on the board’s finance committee. “Andrew left very large shoes to fill, and we were fortunate to have very strong candidates apply,” Board President Scott Newman-Bale said in a statement. “Scott Hardy’s knowledge on school finance along with his firsthand board of education experience will allow for an efficient transition entering our strategic planning process.”