Rick Boultinghouse III, one of 10 people running for four open seats on the District 97 Oak Park elementary school board, wants to be known as the arts candidate.
A general manager for Center Stage Productions, which produces corporate messaging and branding campaigns, Boultinghouse said that the district, already a rather prominent champion of the arts, could stand to scale even greater heights.
“The arts are very, very well supported in the district,” Boultinghouse said. “But if I were placed on the board, I would be a tireless champion of the arts. I’m already working on some suggestions to forward to the school,” he said.
One such suggestion is for the district to implement photography lessons by way of the free iPads students have received.
“They issued all the kids iPads and it would be neat to use the cameras on the iPads to incorporate photography to teach kids about composition, about lines, about math—the serious things about art,” he said
He also suggested that CAST and Bravo!, the middle school theatre programs, put on new play competitions in alternate years, seeking to host a new play and a world premier every other year.
“I would also like to see the district engage the local arts community in a juried art public exhibition,” he said.
But Boultinghouse, who is running aligned with fellow D97 candidate John Abbott, is more than an arts advocate. As a member of the district’s committee for legislative action, intervention and monitoring (CLAIM), he is also something an education policy wonk.
CLAIM, which is responsible for looking at active and potential legislation that could affect the district, has most recently focused on SB16.
“Its official name was the School Funding Reform Act of 2014,” Boultinghouse said. “Fortunately, it died; but had it passed the legislature, it would have cut $5.5 million of the district’s state aid, which is about half. The initial version would’ve cut state funding by $9 million.”
Boultinghouse said that, although the bill didn’t pass, this was not due to public outcry—a lack of which he said is unfortunate.
He said that a piece of legislation similar to SB16, which would make state appropriations based almost solely upon property values, was reintroduced in Springfield this year. Boultinghouse noted that one of his priorities, if elected, would be to marshal community action around pending legislation that might adversely affect the district.
But like his campaign ally John Abbott, Boultinghouse believes that, in the meantime, the district should be responsible with the resources it has at its control—a quality he questions when it comes to talk of a new administration building
“If you look at the trajectory of income versus expenses, going back to the citizens of Oak Park for a referendum is inevitable unless they make significant programmatic changes in the district,” he said.
“Within four months of the last referendum passing, they started a march to replace the administration building, which was a very poor choice,” he said.
“They should’ve included it in the referendum process. As a taxpayer it was very shortsighted to start that march.”
CONTACT: michael@oakpark.com