In this file photo from April 2, 2013, Kristie Adair talks with people gathered at a watch party on election night in the Alton Ballroom at Pachamama's.

Kristie Adair has resigned from the Lawrence school board, effective immediately.

Adair, who joined the school board in 2013, told the Journal-World less than a month ago that she remained committed to finishing the remaining year of her term despite missing half of the board’s last 10 meetings. On Friday afternoon, however, she submitted a resignation letter to Superintendent Kyle Hayden that cited her “growing responsibilities” in her family’s tech startup business as one of several reasons behind her departure.

Most recently, she said, those responsibilities entailed business meetings in San Francisco (where her husband and business partner, Josh Montgomery, now works full-time) that conflicted with her school board schedule.

“During our first week in San Francisco I asked to join the school board via teleconference, but my request was denied by the (board) president,” Adair said in her resignation letter. “Without the ability to participate remotely I’m unable to serve our constituents and participate fully in board activities.”

School board president Marcel Harmon, however, called that statement a “misunderstanding” of their actual exchange.

“That’s not the conversation we had. I was just concerned with her being gone,” Harmon told the Journal-World. “If that was the only way for her to participate, I would rather she participate using technology remotely than not participate at all… I was just concerned that she was starting to do that too frequently.”

In her letter, Adair also pointed to her frustrations with the board’s “inability,” as she put it, to adopt “appropriate technologies” for Lawrence students. She said her advice on technological matters had been largely ignored by the school board, “usually to the detriment of the students,” an assessment that Harmon also characterized as inaccurate.

Adair also highlighted “ethical challenges” faced by the board, among them a ruling from the Universal Service Administrative Company in December that found district officials had violated federal conflict-of-interest rules. In its findings, the USAC accused administrators of improperly accepting more than a dozen free internet accounts, putting the district at risk of losing out on approximately $840,000 in funding.

“It bothers me that employees and school board members were getting free internet service while low income families were trekking back and forth to the public library so their children could do homework,” Adair said in her letter. “It is unconscionable. It stinks of bribery and official corruption.”

Harmon, once again, described Adair’s allegations as an “extreme mischaracterization of what happened.” Both the school district and its then-internet provider Knology have since appealed the USAC findings to the Federal Communications Commission, arguing that the free accounts were offered “as part of Knology’s regular commercial offerings made over the course of many years” and did not influence decision-makers in the district.

On Friday, Harmon flatly denied that any bribery had taken place. “Basically, once it came to light that there was a potential issue, board members stopped using it,” Harmon said of the internet accounts. “And we immediately tried to make things right with the appropriate entities involved.”

There has been talk of Adair’s potential resignation for quite some time. Last year, fellow board member Vanessa Sanburn criticized Adair for a string of absences that fell amid the selection process for the school district’s new superintendent. In addition to board meetings, Adair didn’t participate in interviewing and selecting semifinalists and finalists for the position. Adair said at the time that those absences were related to her startup company, which had been accepted into a 90-day business accelerator program.

Sanburn, who was then president of the school board, suggested that Adair should resign if she wasn’t going to attend meetings. Immediately following Adair’s resignation Friday, Sanburn told the Journal-World that she had reached out to Adair that day via email. She again relayed her recommendation that “if she doesn’t have the time that is necessary in order to commit her service to the board, that resignation is the best option,” Sanburn said.

“So I’m pleased to hear that given her business and lack of time to commit to the responsibility, that she did choose to resign,” Sanburn said.

School board member Shannon Kimball expressed similar sentiments to the Journal-World on Friday. She called Adair’s letter a “widely inaccurate” mischaracterization of both Adair’s intentions and the actions of the board. She’s also looking forward to finding Adair’s replacement, details of which will be discussed at Monday’s school board meeting, Kimball said.

Kimball did say that the school board will soon start its search for a new board member to serve the remainder of Adair’s term, which she said will run through late December or early January at the latest. Kimball hopes to have the position filled by the end of March.

“I look forward to the process of finding someone in the community who wants to step up and do the hard work it takes to be an effective school board member,” Kimball said.