Joshua Gertz and Nathan Mellman worked quickly at Tuesday’s Oak Park and River Forest High School District 200 school board candidate forum to establish their joint three-point campaign platform and to distinguish themselves from the four other candidates.
“We want all of our children to be safe,” said Gertz, an employee benefits attorney and married father of three, in his opening statement. “We’d like to make sure all students are academically challenged. We’d like to safeguard taxpayer dollars.”
Mellman, a judge and former defense attorney and prosecutor, echoed those sentiments in his opener.
“Our kids deserve a school system that works for everyone,” he said. “Together, we can create schools that are safe, strong and supportive for every child and every family.”
The forum at the Oak Park Public Library was hosted by Growing Community Media, publisher of Wednesday Journal, and was moderated by Dan Haley, a Journal staff member.
In addition to Gertz and Mellman, forum participants included board incumbents Frederick Arkin and Audrey Williams-Lee, and newcomers Kathleen Odell and write-in candidate David Schaafsma.
Gertz and Mellman wasted no time establishing their platform in the forum’s first discussion topic, the district’s restorative justice model that has been emphasized in recent years, and discipline.
Arkin, who works in the insurance field, noted that the district is currently in a two-year behavior education plan, installing restorative practices, and that the result has been a decrease in disciplinary incidents, from about 700 to about 500. Out-of-school suspensions have decreased by 56 percent.
Mellman questioned those numbers. In the 2022-23 school year, he said, there were about 84 incidents of threat or actual violence.
“Last year, it was less, about 41,” he went on. “Through Jan. 13, they’ve hit that number – 41 incidents of threat or serious violence. Looking at doubling that this year.”
Restorative justice for lower-level incidents works, he added, but with more serious incidents, like fights or attacks on teachers and staff, more punitive measures are appropriate.
“The role of a public school is to educate every student,” Odell said. “The move toward restorative practices is very important in terms of the school doing everything it can to keep students in school.”
The discussion evolved into the question of do students feel safe? Gertz said he didn’t think so, but Odell and Williams-Lee countered that.
“Both my sons went to the high school,” Williams-Lee said. “I don’t buy that we have a school that’s unsafe. While restorative practices can definitely reduce the need for punitive actions, that doesn’t mean we eliminate them.”
Another key question is the matter of race.
“As a mom of Black boys, I will tell you they get treated differently,” said
Williams-Lee who works in human resources. “Sometimes kids can only be kids when they are white kids. That’s just a reality of where we are.”
Another hot-button issue was the fairness of the freshman detracking program, an all-honors curriculum also known as Honors for All, according to Odell, in the subjects of science, English and history. Odell said 88 percent of students entering ninth grade are in Honors for All.
“I think the Honors for All approach has been an important and great transition for our school,” she said.
Haley asked for a show of hands about whether the district should continue the program for multiple additional years.
The yeas were Arkin, Odell, Schaafsma and Williams-Lee. The nays were Gertz and Mellman.
“What we should be doing is identifying students that are just at or below grade level in core subject matters coming into ninth grade,” Gertz said. “What Nate and I are proposing is intensive summer school programs, to bring up to level and give them the best footing to succeed in high school.”
Williams-Lee said that while ninth graders who are not on track to graduate is low for its district peer group, OPRF graduates 90 percent of students.
“This honors curriculum weds this notion of excellence to equity and those things must be linked,” said Schaafsma, a UIC professor. “This notion of DEI, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, the inclusion of more students, giving them more opportunities within this honors curriculum is better for all students.
“If you go back to tracking, it’s a step back.”
Odell, who has a senior and freshman at OPRF, is a professor of economics at Dominican University and has served two years on the district’s community finance committee. Thus, fiscal responsibility is important to her.
Mellman said he and Gertz want to spend money on students and teachers, along with school safety, but not administrators.
From her time on the community finance committee, Odell said there is an emphasis on evidence-based funding.
“How much do you need to be spending in certain categories in order to be considered adequate by the state?” she said, adding that OPRF stands at 140 percent in adequacy, in the exact middle of its peer districts.
“The highest level of spending is on people – teachers,” she said.