District 90 Caucus endorses candidates for River Forest school board

The District 90 Community Caucus has endorsed two current board members and two who would be new to the board to run for seats in the April 9 election, according to a statement from the caucus.

The incumbent candidates are current board Vice President Patrick Meyer and Secretary David Latham, who will be running for their second four-year terms in April. The caucus also endorsed Teresa Peavy, who has volunteer experience in D90, and Anne Gottlieb, an assistant principal at a Chicago charter high school. All four candidates have children in D90 schools.

Peavy is an Advocacy Coordinator for the Academy of General Dentistry and has two children, age 12 and 10. She's held several positions in the Lincoln Elementary School PTO, including yearbook editor, Heartworks chair and PTO president.

In addition to her assistant principal job, Gottlieb is a doctoral candidate at National Louis University. She is a board member with West Suburban Temple, coaches River Forest Youth Soccer and has volunteered with the Willard Elementary School PTO. She has three children, age 11, 9 and 7.

Caucus co-chair Marcia Preston confirmed the other current board member who was interviewed, Roman Ebert, was not selected. Ebert said he was "kind of shocked" and "a little disappointed" because he was looking forward to following through on some issues he had a hand in. Ebert said he is still deciding whether to run for another term and will likely make a decision this week.

Preston said the other candidate who was interviewed but not selected could still decide to run without the caucus' endorsement by filing petitions with the Illinois Board of Elections. She did not want to identify him publicly and he did not return a call seeking comment.

Preston said anyone not interviewed by the caucus is also welcome to run.

Peavy and Gottlieb will run for the seats currently held by Ebert and JuliAnn Geldner, whose term is expiring after eight years of service. Preston said both were extremely strong candidates who answered every interview question in detail and were well-informed about community issues.

The endorsements came after the two-day interview process and a vote by 19 of the 24 caucus members.