Activist Toolkit

1) What motivates you to seek this office? What makes you qualified to serve? What  metrics of success do you plan on holding yourself accountable to?  

I am running for D200 school board as a way to give back to a community that has given so much to me  and my family. I served as a school board member with Oak Park District 97 from 2013-2017. This real world experience in all that school board service entails - from budgets to policy to collective bargaining  agreement negotiations to holding administrations accountable - will enable me to be an effective board  member and help to confront the significant challenges facing Oak Park and River Forest High School  District 200. I have three guiding principles learned from my past experience that would be metrics for  success for effective school board service: 

1. Put students first: The “true north” of school board service must be to always ask the question,  “what’s in the best interests of students?”  

2. Seek to understand and listen carefully: The issues in public education are complex, and no  single person or group has all the answers.  

3. Build consensus: A board member is just one of seven people. Being effective requires  consensus-building and finding common ground among all stakeholders to actually get things  done for the benefit of students. 

2) How do you make decisions?  

In this context, decision-making always has to ask the question what is in the best interests of students.  Secondly, I have always sought to gain outside data and perspectives on questions, which is especially  important in school board service because the questions faced by board members are rarely simple or  have easy answers. 

3) How will you work to ensure that D200 provides an excellent educational experience  for all its students? What metrics of success do you plan on holding yourself accountable  to?  

Here the topic of equity becomes central. Equity is about working to eliminate the predictability of  outcomes based on race, gender, and socioeconomic status through intentionality in resource allocation  and access to opportunities for all kids. It remains the defining issue of our time in public education, especially given the lost ground caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. If elected I will work to support  several key pillars for addressing the opportunity gap, including 

• Closely monitoring for data and results the current equity initiatives undertaken by the  administration, particularly the freshman curriculum honors-for-all strategy 

• Recruitment and retention of a diverse teaching staff that reflects the OPRF student  body, an important objective that the board can help support 

• Strengthening social/emotional and mental health resources, including equitable access  to social workers and psychologists, for a generation of students experiencing unprecedented levels of stress and depression following the pandemic. 

The metrics for success will reside in culture and climate surveys from within the building (including use of  the 5E tools), and of course academic outcomes. 

4) How would you approach the budgeting process?  

Budgets for school districts are generally driven by labor costs. I would focus on ensuring that the  administration has a credible staffing plan to support not just teaching and learning, but also sufficient  support resources (i.e. psychologists, social workers) to address social and emotional development as  well. From there, we need to make sure that the staffing plan can appropriately deploy resources to  those programs that benefit kids who most need help, and that our per-pupil costs are both competitive  for attracting the best teachers while also being sustainable for the long-term. 

5) Please discuss your thinking about D200’s Imagine project. Should the next phase go  through the referendum process?  

OPRF occupies a 116-year old campus comprised of expansions and additions that in some cases were  last improved in the 1920s. Prior boards have struggled at times to address the inevitable ongoing  investment planning needs of these century-old buildings and grounds. If elected I will work  collaboratively toward a practical and sustainable long-term facilities capital investment plan that can  enable modern, student-centered, and environmentally efficient learning facilities for the next 100 years. 

The Imagine facilities plan came from an 18 month process that invested thousands of person hours from  more than 30 community members after the 2015 pool referendum was defeated. This was the right  approach, hitting the ‘reset button’ and tapping community members to study OPRF’s comprehensive facility needs and developing a long-term plan. 

It makes no sense to ‘re-do’ all that work. The current board recently approved the scope for Phase 2,  and now the only question is how to fund it. It’s a question that will be decided by the current board, not  by any of us who will are presently running for a seat. Philosophically, I support the use of capital  referendum bonds as the best mechanism for funding long term infrastructure needs of schools.

6) Special education is mandated by federal law. How can D200 better work to provide  an excellent education for students in need of special education?  

As with most areas, it starts by recruiting strong teachers with the unique skills of working with special education students. With a solid fiscal foundation, D200 should be able to do that. Secondly, students  with IEPs and 504 plans benefit from a team approach of specialists, so we need to make sure that D200  is sufficiently staffed with broad ranging disciplines. Finally, the district must be receptive to families with  special education student needs that cannot be met through on-campus programming, and be prepared  to smoothly facilitate access to those outside programs appropriate for each child. 

7) What is D200 doing well with respect to providing all students with an equitable  education and what could it do better?  

I am supportive of the honors-for-all strategy, albeit we are in the early innings of that effort so it must be  monitored and modulated as needed – especially as teachers adapt to it. I also believe that the  administration has a credible plan for multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS). Areas for improvement  include the need to hire a more diverse teaching staff, as there is a gap of about 20 basis points between  percentage of teachers of color and students of color within the building. 

8) What is your impression of D200’s Access for All detracking curriculum redesign  program and of detracking efforts generally?  

I am generally supportive of this approach, partly due to how I observed my own kids as they entered the  9th grade from middle school. The default path for incoming kids tends to be based on a mix of data,  which is not always predictive of how a student will fare with more challenging curriculum. My concern  (and reason for supporting honors-for-all) is about those kids who might get routed prematurely to lower  level coursework, and aren’t in a position to self-advocate or rely on parents who can be vocal and  present at the freshman registration nights when such decisions are made. Seen in this context, the honors-for-all approach embodies the concept of equitable access to opportunity. 

It’s also critical to emphasize that the honors-for-all approach does not subtract opportunities from more  academically advanced students. Such students, often from well-resourced families, still have all the  same access to college-credit earning programs and classes regardless of the freshman honors-for-all  initiative. This is especially true since college credit is earned from AP rather than honors courses, which  are generally taken during junior and senior years.

9) What lessons learned from the pandemic’s early years do you believe will continue to be applicable to the ways that schools operate?  

First, credit goes to anyone who served on a school board or in an administration during the pandemic.  In the early part of 2020, there were so many unknowns and so much fear that districts were facing no  good options – only bad ones from which to choose. 

With the benefit of hindsight, I think that kids suffered most from the pandemic and in a multitude of ways that included learning loss, depression, social disconnection. And as is often the case, the worst impacts  were felt by lower income / less resourced households who could not provide tutoring, study groups, and  other alternative engagements while the schools were closed. 

Given this, I think should something like the Covid-19 pandemic occur again, priority should be placed on  ways to keep kids physically present in school. The goal can’t be to eliminate 100% of risk, but rather a  manageable level of risk so that on balance the net harms of what is going on are minimized for the  students. 

10) District 200 has taken some steps to move away from policing and surveillance in schools toward restorative justice, mental health supports, and other services in schools.  Do you feel these moves have been successful? Why or why not? What work do you  believe remains to be done in this area?  

I am supportive of restorative justice practices and certainly the provision of mental health resources in  schools. I would not want to see a return to traditional punitive approaches to discipline, which historically  have consisted of out-of-school suspensions that do not constructively address the needs and issues of  at-risk youth. Remaining work includes the ability to address root causes of fights, which have  unfortunately been high profile events within the school recently. 

11) What approach should D200 take towards intergovernmental cooperation initiatives  such as the Collaboration for Early Childhood Development? Are there other specific  initiatives that you would like to implement or expand upon?  

First, I am a longtime supporter of the Collaboration. I believe in its mission and approach, and view it  similarly to how Oak Park as a community came together and pioneered an intentional approach to  counter racially discriminatory housing practices in the 1970s. Furthermore, the equity aspect of the  Collaboration cannot be overstated, because the resources and supports provided by the Collaboration  are targeted to expectant and young mothers and families who need it most. The role of the D200 board  in supporting this effort starts with continued participation in funding, and I would plan to uphold that  support if elected – as I did each year while on the D97 board from 2013-2017.

Data sharing remains a challenge for non-unified districts. From a policy and legal standpoint, as a board  member I would look for ways to knock down those barriers to improve flow of information and even  shared planning time to ease the transition for incoming 9th graders from both of the feeder districts (D90  and D97). Beyond that, I have good relationships with board members from other taxing bodies and  would hope to leverage that for continued collaboration and resource sharing through IGAs and other  mechanisms.  

12) What approach should D200 take towards intermunicipal cooperation with neighboring communities? Are there specific initiatives that you would like to implement  or expand upon?  

In general, D200 should welcome engagement with of course the communities it already serves but also  neighboring towns and communities. I don’t have a specific concept for that at the moment, but I think  that taking a regional view benefits OPRF students so that they can have a broader understanding of the  disparate racial, ethic, and socioeconomic strengths of where we all live. 

13) Public schools have been faced with deciding whether or not to remove books from their shelves if a parent or group of parents deem the content to be inappropriate, too controversial or objectionable. How would you handle this issue and how should District  200 handle this question?  

If any individual parent has a concern about what their own particular child is reading at school, teachers  and administrators should be receptive to hearing those concerns. Beyond that, I think that decisions about curriculum and materials are best left to professional educators. I would resist efforts by any group or individual to try to dictate those decisions for the school at large. 

14) Do you see a role for the D200 Board in ensuring that the climate at OPRFHS is  welcoming to students in minority populations, whether racial, religious identity, LGBTQ, etc.? What specific actions or policies would you propose?  

In short, yes: This is an “all hands” effort and the board can support this work through policies and  investments that respect and support the needs of all minority populations. One example is supporting  the modernization of the south athletic facilities, which still reflect gender norms of the 1920s as well as  totally disregarding the accessibility needs of differently-abled students. 

15) A new report issued by the Centers of Disease and Control found that in 2021, very large numbers of students experienced poor mental health. Twenty-two percent of  students seriously considered attempting suicide and ten percent attempted suicide. These feelings were found to be more common among LGBQ+ students, female students, and students across racial and ethnic groups. What can D200 do to address this trend?  

As stated earlier, I think that particularly in this post-pandemic area mental health is one of the biggest  need areas for young people, and especially students from less-resourced families. I would like to ensure  that our staffing levels can provide social worker and psychologist resources at a level sufficient to meet  this need. Having robust programming and engagement options, such as clubs, sports teams, and even  expanded hours for the fantastic tutoring center, can create multiple touch points for students where  adults and peers can be available for students. The board’s role in this area is mainly about sufficiency of  resources to provide this broad ranging support. 

16) The School Board’s primary responsibility is oversight of the Superintendent. District 200 recently hired a new superintendent, Greg Johnson, who was promoted to the position of superintendent in 2021. What criteria will you use to evaluate the success of Mr. Johnson’s tenure?  

I slightly disagree with this question, because Illinois school boards actually have three main responsibilities of equal importance: Boards set a budget, establish policy, and employ the  superintendent. If elected, I would work with other board members to ensure that there is a clear  evaluation framework in place for the Superintendent, and that the evaluation criteria is tied to clearly  defined and attainable goals. Those goals should in turn be linked to the district’s current Strategic Plan, and the superintendent should receive a formal review from the board each year.