Two local residents have assumed leadership positions in a state school board association.

Yakima school board member Martha Rice has been sworn in as president of the Washington State School Directors' Association, and Sunnyside School Board member Miguel Puente has been elected to the board of directors.

The association is made up of the state's 1,477 locally elected school board members.

Rice was elected president-elect by members last year. A member of the Yakima school board for 10 years, Rice has been a longtime participant in PTA activities at the local, regional, state and national levels.

She also served as a gubernatorial appointee to the Washington State Professional Educator Standards Board.

Puente, a 1994 graduate of Sunnyside High School, was elected to the school board in November 2005. Director of admissions and recruitment at Heritage University in Toppenish, Puente also serves as a gubernatorial appointee to the Governor's Juvenile Justice Advisory Committee.