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ST. LOUIS — A member of the St. Louis Board of Education who raised questions about the sale of a school property has a new job now.

Emily Hubbard was named the new chair of the school board’s real estate committee.

St. Louis Public Schools Board President Antionette “Toni” Cousins made the appointment after Hubbard questioned whether the board properly approved a contract to sell one of its vacant schools to the city’s economic development arm.

“Moving forward, Board Member Hubbard is being appointed chair of the real estate committee,” Cousins said in an email to board members Monday morning.

“Given that she still gives opinions and statements to the news media, it would seem that she is knowledgeable about real estate. I will withdraw from that committee in order to remove any more distractions.”

Cousins’ statement came the morning the Post-Dispatch published a news story about a three-year option to sell the closed Marshall School in north St. Louis to the St. Louis Development Corp.

Hubbard told the newspaper that the full board never voted on the contract and was unaware that Cousins had signed it on behalf of the district.

Cousins said last week that the board’s real estate committee, made up of district administrators as well as board members, voted on Aug. 12 to approve the transaction.

The full board approved the minutes of that committee on Aug. 27.

Hubbard, who showed up to chair the real estate committee meeting Monday afternoon, said she was “flabbergasted” by the appointment. She handed over much of the meeting’s proceedings to Shameika Henry, who was recently appointed to lead the district’s real estate operations. Henry was previously the board’s aide and worked closely with Cousins, who did not attend the committee meeting Monday.

Hubbard said Monday that Henry told her that it was her understanding that the board’s vote to approve the committee’s minutes amounted to its approval of its actions.

“But that’s not how it’s been in the past,” Hubbard said.

She said she would ask her colleagues for their opinion on how to address the “policy violation” that led to the approval of the Marshall Elementary contract.

Cousins is facing criticism for the district’s credit card spending policies, which contributed to a scandal last summer that led to the firing of former Superintendent Keisha Scarlett.

Cousins changed Hubbard’s committee assignments last spring after Hubbard’s failed challenge for the board president position.

The two have been at odds for months in the wake of the scandal.

Marshall School, vacant for over 20 years and located at 4342 Aldine Avenue near the corner of Martin Luther King Drive and Newstead Avenue, is one of more than a dozen that the district has closed over the years and is trying to sell. Under the option signed by Neal Richardson, the head of the city’s Land Clearance for Redevelopment Authority in October, the LCRA is now responsible for maintenance of the school, securing the building from trespassers and insurance.

The school is listed by the district for $424,000. The LCRA has three years to close on the sale for a price to be determined by an appraisal, minus its costs of up to $500,000 prior to the sale.

LCRA has said it is still negotiating the final ownership structure of the site. Cousins has said the city has informed her it can’t use the funds it planned to use preparing the site for development before it owns it outright, and now she isn’t sure she wants the city to take ownership prior to soliciting developers for the land.