Please join me in voting for Fred Arkin, Audrey-Williams Lee, and Kathleen O’Dell — and writing in Dave Schaafsma for the District 200 high school board. These candidates share a common vision on educational, behavioral, and financial issues.
As a former educator, I am delighted that they support the freshman honors initiative which, based on research and best practices, has extended honors-level study and expectations to more than 80% of our freshmen. While these are early days and improvements are needed, it has been encouraging to see rising PSAT scores and AP and honors enrollment at OPRF since the program was instituted following years of work by staff (1).
They also support positive student behavior with a comprehensive approach that combines restorative justice with necessary consequences. According to official school records, OPRF has experienced a decline in physical incidents and threats over the past few years (2).
In this election, voters should have serious questions about the Mellman and Gertz D200 candidates. If they are elected, they will have a conflict of interest with their pending complaint against D200 with the Illinois Attorney General and Illinois State Board of Education. Curiously, their campaign literature does not discuss this complaint.
They have demanded firing two teacher advisors to a student after-school club and Mr. Mellman tried to get the administration to cancel a world-class historian who was invited to speak to the club (3).
They cherry-pick school data (1) (2) to support their views about academics and student behavior. This approach is antithetical to what we need on the D200 board.
Fortunately, Oak Park and River Forest residents do have four outstanding candidates with the qualities that D200 needs to target inequality and to provide a strong educational environment for all students.
(1) https://www.oakpark.com/2025/03/04/setting-the-record-straight-3
(2) https://www.oakpark.com/2025/01/30/d200-school-board-elections-mellman-gertz
(3) https://www.oakpark.com/2025/03/04/the-need-to-listen-to-all-perspectives
Caren Van Slyke
Oak Park