WEB EXTRA!
Oak Park and River Forest High School won’t officially hire its new superintendent until next week at the earliest, putting off a vote that was expected at Thursday night’s regular school board meeting.
The school announced on April 14 it intended to hire Attila Weninger, the director of human resources at Lyons Township High School in LaGrange, as its new superintendent.
The contract delay is caused by the lack of goals required by state law to be written into a superintendent’s contract, said John Rigas, one of two board liaisons in contract negotiations.
“We knew that [the goals needed to be in the contract], we just couldn’t get time together to get that accomplished,” Rigas said.
Board President Barry Greenwald said he did not know whether the goals were required by law, but if Rigas said so, it must be true. Greenwald said if the goals were not required by law, they would be required “by wisdom.”
Greenwald and Rigas said all other details about Weninger’s three-year contract were finalized. However, Greenwald said he was “not about to talk about the other terms of the contract until we finish this whole thing.”
Concerned parents planned to “pack the boardroom” at Thursday night’s meeting to express disappointment about feeling “strongly [that] they were not consulted by outgoing school board members” on the superintendent selection, according to a statement issued Wednesday by three members of the OPRF parent community. Greenwald and Yasmin Ranney, board vice president, lost re-election bids in the April 17 election.
Rigas said board members are trying to coordinate their schedules to be able to meet some time next week to discuss the goals portion of the contract. Greenwald said the contract would be voted on at the board’s May 15 meeting, if not sooner. New board members will take their seats at the May 15 meeting, but business could be conducted before the change is made, Greenwald said.