The Madison Street development and the District 90 teacher standoff may look like separate issues, but they are symptoms of the same failure to plan responsibly.
As River Forest considers the proposed Madison Street development, it is time to stop pretending these decisions exist in isolation. They don’t. This development, our school-funding choices, and our teacher contract crisis are deeply connected — and the consequences are already unfolding.
D90 teachers are currently working without a contract. Mediation has failed. Final offers are being prepared for public posting. All 145 teachers in the union are participating at 100%, not because they want conflict but because they are being asked to accept less in a community that depends on their excellence. These are the educators who make families move here, who sustain our reputation, and who hold our schools together every day.
That excellence is measurable. U.S. News & World Report named all three D90 schools among the “Best Elementary and Middle Schools” in Illinois for 2025, ranking them within the top 64 schools out of more than 2,800 statewide — a distinction made possible by the very teachers now being asked to accept less.
The numbers make the problem impossible to ignore. According to the 2024-2025 Illinois Report Card, the average River Forest teacher earns $77,700, slightly below the state average of $78,500. At the same time, River Forest administrators earn an average of $158,605, roughly 28% above the statewide administrative average of $123,642. When leadership is rewarded far above average while teachers fall below it, that is not fiscal restraint. It is a double standard.
And now the most telling fact of all: D90’s FY2025 Annual Comprehensive Financial Report shows the district holding $34.3 million in unrestricted, unassigned reserves — money fully available for teacher compensation and classroom needs. That reserve alone equals more than three full years of base salary for all 145 union teachers combined. Using conservative, fully loaded cost estimates that include benefits and pensions, it could fund a raise equal to half of the administrators’ above-average pay premium for more than 10 years, or match the full 28% administrative premium for over five years, without raising taxes or cutting programs. The district is not facing a financial emergency — it is manufacturing one by choice, and asking teachers to pay the price.
This is the moment residents decide whether they stand with the educators who built D90’s excellence — or with policies that quietly dismantle it.
Now layer on the Madison Street development. The village is advancing a large residential project that could bring new students into our schools, yet the proposal includes no enrollment projections, no capacity analysis, and no funding plan for districts 90 or 200. This is growth without accountability.
Worse, the project sits in a Tax Increment Financing (TIF) district, meaning new property tax revenue will not flow to schools during the life of the TIF. Students arrive immediately. Funding does not. The strain lands on classrooms.
So the choice before us is clear. River Forest can continue rewarding administration far above average, approve development that shifts costs onto schools, and tell teachers to wait — or it can act like a community that actually values the excellence it advertises. There is no shortage of money. There is only a shortage of will.
Telling teachers there is no money while sitting on years of unrestricted reserves is not leadership — it is a deliberate decision with real consequences.
A community that can afford excellence but refuses to fund it will eventually lose both.
Sources:
District 90 2025 financial budget: https://www.district90.org/about/finances?
Data for salaries: https://www.illinoisreportcard.com/District.aspx?source=teachers&source2=teachersalary&Districtid=06016090002
Kelly Abcarian is a proud River Forest resident and District 90 parent.
