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Los Altos resident Joan C. Barram, who served for 12 years on the board of the Cupertino Union School District, was appointed Monday to the Foothill-De Anza Community College District board of trustees.

Barram was unanimously chosen by Foothill-De Anza trustees to complete the remaining two years in the term of Hal Plotkin, who moved to Washington, D.C. in July to become a policy adviser to U.S. Undersecretary of Education Martha Kanter. Kanter was chancellor of the Foothill-De Anza district from 2003 until joining the Obama administration this summer.

Barram, a board member of the fundraising Foothill-De Anza Foundation and a member of the search committee to replace Kanter, called the hiring of a new chancellor "perhaps the most important task a board of trustees faces."

The three other finalists for the trustee position were Cupertino lawyer and businessman Richard Bernhardt, Los Altos resident and former political director Jeannie Conner and business executive and entrepreneur Anita Manwani-Bhagat of Los Altos.

Barram served three terms on the Cupertino Union School District board, from 1981 to 1993, with jobs as president, vice-president and legislative chairman. She was a board member of the California School Boards Association from 1989 to 1993. She has been active in fundraising for women's causes in Silicon Valley and Washington, D.C.

Her involvement with the Foothill-De Anza district goes back to 2002, when she first joined the board of the Foothill-De Anza Foundation. She is a 1965 biology graduate of Wheaton College in Wheaton, Ill.

Barram's appointment marks the second time in nine months trustees have had to fill a vacant seat. Last Dec. 8, Pearl Cheng of Cupertino was named to fill the seat vacated by Paul Fong's election to the California State Assembly.

The Foothill-De Anza Community College District serves some 45,000 students a year at two campuses, Foothill in Los Altos Hills and De Anza in Cupertino. Foothill also runs a large satellite campus at Palo Alto's Cubberley Community Center. The district's annual budget is $335 million.