When Terri Bresnahan, the incoming Oak Park Elementary School District 97 superintendent, applied last fall to be the next superintendent at the Oak Park district she knew that she wouldn’t be at her current job as superintendent in northwest suburban District 59 next year no matter what happened in Oak Park. That’s because Bresnahan’s contract at District 59 was expiring July 1 and it was not going to be renewed.
“It was sort of come to mutually,” said TR Johnson, president of District 59 school board, of the decision of the district and Bresnahan to part ways when her contract expired. “Everybody thought it would be best just kind of for the board’s vision for the future that we don’t renew her contract.”
Bresnahan told District 59 families on Aug. 1, 2025 that this was going to be her last school year.
“Earlier this summer, the Board of Education and I agreed on this transition to make way for the board’s vision for the district’s future,” Bresnahan wrote in her letter to District 59 families.
On Jan. 28, one day before the District 97 townhall for Bresnahan and the other District 97 finalist Angela Dolezal, the District 59 school board voted to appoint Brett Gallini, who was working in Houston, to succeed Bresnahan and held a reception for him. Bresnahan did not attend that brief school board meeting or reception. She also wasn’t at the Feb. 11 District 59 school board meeting because she was at a conference.
Soon after the District 97 school board voted 5-0 on Feb. 24 to hire Bresnahan, who will not begin working full time for District 97 until July 1, District 59’s school board and Bresnahan wasted little time in parting ways. At its March 11 school board meeting, which Bresnahan did not attend because of illness, that school board unanimously approved a mutual separation agreement in which the school board agreed to pay Bresnahan in a lump sum all the salary and other payments Bresnahan was due through June 30 even though the employment relationship between Bresnahan and District 59 would end at the close of business March 20.
Instead of starting on July 1 as originally planned Gallini agreed to start work in District 59 in late March working four days a week while his family remained in Houston. Both Bresnahan and Johnson said they thought it would be beneficial for Gallini to get started in District 59 right away rather than wait until summer as is customary.
“I approached her only because we were paying attention to the (District 97) meetings and knew that she was up for that position,” Johnson said explaining how the mutual separation agreement came about. “It was a quick conversation and she agreed wholeheartedly. If I didn’t connect with her, she would have connected with me on it.”
What made Bresnahan a controversial superintendent in District 59, which is a sprawling district that covers Elk Grove Village, and portions of Arlington Heights, Mount Prospect, Des Plaines and unincorporated Cook County, was her plan to turn the district’s 10 elementary schools into grade level centers. Elementary schools would be paired with five schools which served kindergarten through second graders and five schools serving third through fifth graders. That plan was a key element in what Bresnahan called the district’s equity journey that she embarked on in 2022, little more than a year after being hired in 2021. Bresnahan said she was hired to focus on equity but the school board president who led the board that hired her was defeated when she ran for reelection in 2021 before Bresnahan took over in District 59 on July 1, 2021. Grade level centers are not unusual, they are used, for instance, in Forest Park, but they are not the norm.
Bresnahan’s grade level center proposal was designed in part to achieve more similar demographic and academic achievement profiles across schools in a district that is 42.9 percent Hispanic, 36.1% white, 12.6% Asian and 4.1% Black. Bresnahan also created grade level centers when she was the superintendent of Berkeley District 87 which covers portions of Berkeley, Bellwood, Hillside, Melrose Park, Northlake and Stone Park.
The proposal for grade level centers generated vociferous opposition from many in the District 59 community and was voted down by a 5 to 2 vote by the District 59 school board, which included five members who had voted to hire Bresnahan in 2021, on December 12, 2022. Before the vote 10 people made public comments. All spoke against the grade level center plan. Some of those public comments included harsh criticisms of Bresnahan. Two parents accused Bresnahan of bullying and trying to intimidate those opposed to her plan.
“A person in a position of power who reprimands staff and peers for voicing a differing view, one that intimidates and condescends, one that no longer has the trust and faith of this community and staff is no leader and has no interest in what is right for our district, I move to initiate a vote of no confidence to suspend the superintendent,” said parent Deb Behnke.
Behnke’s remarks drew applause from some in the audience but no such vote of no confidence was considered.
Debbie Diatte also voiced pointed criticism of Bresnahan.
“Since the start of this equity journey it has felt deceitful and you have also been condescending to parents, staff and teachers, not to mention how you’ve talked to members of your own board,” Diatte said.
In a nearly hour long telephone interview with Wednesday Journal Bresnahan said hearing such attacks on her was hurtful and said they were not accurate.
“I don’t think it was fair that I was called a bully or that I was using any type of intimidation,” Bresnahan said. “I think we went through a very fair process. I had parents on the equity task force.”
Joseph Sagerer, a physics professor at Dominican University who was a member of the District 59 school board at the time who voted in favor of the grade level center plan, was a strong supporter of Bresnahan. He said the attacks on Bresnahan were “hyperbolic.”
“District 59 was a complex situation and usually you get people who really like someone and people who really dislike someone in a situation of a superintendent,” Sagerer said. “Any time you ask major changes to a school district people are going to be passionate about it.”
Sagerer, who now serves on the High School District 214 school board after one term as a District 59 school board member, said he thought Bresnahan was a great superintendent.
“Dr. Bresnahan is really focused on a student-centered approach to education,” Sagerer said. “She works with a diverse group of students and makes sure that each student gets the resources that they need.”
The president of the District 59 teachers’ union did not reply to a telephone call or a text message from Wednesday Journal.
Bresnahan said she thought the timing was bad for her grade level center plan because coming off of the COVID pandemic people were looking for stability and normalcy.
“I think that timing for major changes coming off of COVID was a significant factor,” Bresnahan said.
A couple of District 97 school board members told Wednesday Journal Bresnahan had been up front with them during the interview process and let them know she was leaving District 59 because of a misalignment of values.
“I knew that she was planning to leave that district and that was why she was looking for a new position,” Gavin Kearney, a board member, said. “They agreed that they had different visions for where they wanted to go so they agreed to part ways. She was pretty forthcoming about that during the process and she mentioned that in the townhall as well.”
Bresnahan’s focus on equity was a major plus for the District 97 school board.
“We viewed her commitment to equity as a real positive and she talked about a number of different things that she did to try to advance equity in the two districts where she had been a superintendent,” Kearney said.
District 97 school board member Holly Spurlock also liked Bresnahan’s commitment to equity and her values.
“She said that there were some changes in her district that led to some misalignment of values and she was looking for a place that more aligned with her current values,” Spurlock said. “We took that as, like a good thing.”
District 97 school board members also liked Bresnahan’s experience. In addition to her nearly five years as a superintendent in District 59 she served for six years as the superintendent in Berkeley District 87.
“The other thing that’s a real positive about her is that she has 11 years of superintendent experience and that’s something that’s going to be a big benefit to us,” Kearney said.
Even some of her critics in District 59, said Bresnahan did a good job with curriculum. In her five years leading District 59 the district put in new curricula in math and English Language Arts and reviewed all its content areas.
“There’s no denying she did a good job with that,” Johnson said.
Almost exactly three months after rejecting her grade level centers proposal the very same school board voted unanimously to extend Bresnahan’s initial three year contract for two more years and give her a substantial raise even though she still had more than a year left on her original three year contract.
The contract extension also caused controversy because it came less than a month before school board elections and was initially placed on the school’s consent agenda. Items on the consent agenda are usually uncontroversial and voted upon in a group. But before the school board could vote eight people made public comments at that March 13, 2023 meeting. They all called for the school board to remove the contract extension from the consent agenda and vote on it separately which the board did do. The public commenters also asked the board to delay a vote on the contract extension until after the upcoming school board elections which took place only 22 days after the board meeting. One of those making a public comment was Johnson, who was then running for the school board allied with two other opponents of the grade level center plan under the Save Our Schools (SOS) banner.
Behnke also spoke against a contract extension for Bresnahan.
“The only thing that’s been accomplished is discord and mistrust in the district,” Behnke said.
Another person, Steve Tucker, said residents “deserve better than back room deals and secret handshakes over superintendent contract extensions.”
Before the vote school board members said the timing was not nefarious but typical in that school boards generally don’t like to allow a superintendent to go into the last year of her contract without an extension in place.
The SOS slate swept the 2023 school board elections defeating one incumbent who had voted against the grade level center plan but for the contract extension. In an uncontested 2025 school board election more critics of Bresnahan were elected. Two school board members had resigned in 2024 leaving Bresnahan without any strong supporters on the school board. No one on the current District 59 school board was on the school board when Bresnahan’s contract extension was approved. Both Bresnahan and Johnson said despite their disagreement on the grade center level plan they developed a solid working relationship.
“I got along with Terri pretty well in our time that we worked together as people can with different viewpoints on certain issues,” said Johnson adding he didn’t think Bresnahan was a bully.
Johnson, who said that he was not interviewed by District 97’s search firm or anyone from District 97 about Bresnahan, said that he believes Bresnahan is a good fit for Oak Park.
“I think she is a good superintendent especially if your major concern is equity and achievement and curriculum and that sort of thing and so that’s why I think she is going to be great at Oak Park,” Johnson said. “I think it is a perfect fit for her.”
Bresnahan agrees. She was excited when she found out that District 97 was looking to hire a new superintendent.
“I knew that it was a district that much more aligned with my values,” Bresnahan said.
Bresnahan declined to say how many superintendent jobs she applied for this year.
Bresnahan said she is not looking to advocate for grade level centers in District 97.
“It is not the right thing for every community,” Bresnahan said. “We have to look at what the community needs, we have to look at what the data is telling us.”
She said her decisions and recommendations would be driven by data and analysis.
Spurlock said she doesn’t believe grade level centers would be a good fit for Oak Park.
“They’re obviously not quite as appropriate for a 3 ½ square mile district,” Spurlock said.
Although Bresnahan won’t begin work in District 97 as the full time superintendent until July 1 she has started occasional visits to the district to learn more about it and prepare. She said she will probably spend approximately one day a week in the district in April and then a bit more in May and June. According to her contract with District 97 Bresnahan will be paid an hourly rate commensurate with her $270,000 annual salary for any time spent in the district before July 1.
Bresnahan grew up in Palatine. Her parents divorced when she was young and she lived in a two bedroom apartment with her mother, who sometimes held down three jobs to make ends meet. Bresnahan qualified for free lunches at school and that is partly how she developed her passion for equity.
“I think equity for me began at a very young age,” Bresnahan said. “I come from a diverse multicultural family, my father immigrated to the United States along with the rest of his family.”
She said she is proud of her accomplishments at District 59 and before that at District 87. She said her record at District 59 involved much more than just the grade level centers battle.
“From the time I was hired to the time I left I had 16 different board members,” Bresnahan said. “That’s a significant turnover for a school district and so I think that while that one portion, I think, gets highlighted that was not the summary of my five years in 59.”
She pointed to her work on curriculum.
“We did major, major work in shifting the trajectory for teaching and learning, particularly around our curriculum, getting solid curriculum in place so that we could lay a foundation for all students to access the materials and resources that they needed,” Bresnahan said.
D97’s other superintendent finalist
The other finalist for the District 97 superintendent job, former Longfellow School principal, Angela Dolezal, also will not be working at her current district next year. Dolezal resigned her current position as the Director of Teaching and Learning at Riverside Elementary District 96 under pressure in March, a month after Bresnahan was hired in District 97. Her resignation was accepted at a brief special meeting on March 26. District 96 Superintendent Martha Ryan Toye, a resident of Oak Park, declined to comment about that reasons for Dolezal’s resignation saying that it was a personnel matter. Ryan-Toye also declined to say whether Dolezal’s contract would have been renewed had she not resigned. Dolezal is working remotely for the rest of the school year and has not been hired elsewhere.
Wednesday Journal has learned that some teachers in District 96 had concerns about Dolezal’s work performance and curricula choices and were worried that she might replace Ryan-Toye as superintendent when Ryan-Toye retires on June 30, 2027. Last June District 96 school board members received an anonymous letter from someone who apparently was a District 96 employee outlining complaints about Dolezal. The Riverside Brookfield Landmark, a sister paper of Wednesday Journal, obtained a copy of the letter by filing a public records request.
“The teachers have no confidence in her ability to lead the district,” the anonymous letter writer wrote.
After the letter was received the District 96 teachers union co-presidents met with Ryan-Toye to discuss their members concerns about Dolezal and the letter.
“We told Martha that members are worried that Angela may be replacing her when she retires,” said an email from the union co-presidents to District 96 teachers sent on June 25, 2025 that was obtained by the Landmark and Wednesday Journal. states. “Angela is interested in becoming a superintendent, but Martha feels the board will do a full search for the best candidate.”
The email goes on to state that the anonymous letter did catch the school board’s attention.
Ryan-Toye declined to comment about the circumstances of Dolezal’s resignation but did say that she doesn’t put credence in anonymous letters and that the anonymous letter was not the reason for Dolezal’s resignation.
The email from the union presidents also stated that Ryan-Toye would work with Dolezal about the complaints outlined in the letter.
Spurlock was asked whether she had concerns that both District 97 superintendent finalists were not wanted back at the districts they worked in this year.
“It doesn’t concern me at all,” Spurlock said.