Smack in the middle of a typically dry review of the upcoming year’s budget Oak Park and River Forest High School District 200 Community Finance Committee member Michelle Mangan got into a pointed and contentious back and forth with OPRF Supt. Greg Johnson for about 10 minutes during the June 16 meeting of the OPRF Community Finance Committee (CFC).
Mangan questioned the allocation of $750,000 toward paying for the schematic design of the Act 3 project to demolish and rebuild the southwest portion of the OPRF building to improve classroom and practice areas for the performing arts, a project that is now estimated to cost $84.6 million.
Back on April 30, Mangan and fellow CFC member Bob Spatz presented a report to the OPRF school board on evidence-based funding that reported that, according to the model, OPRF underspends on instructional supports such as tutoring. At the June 16 meeting, Mangan wondered whether that $750,000 would be better spent on academic measures to boost student performance.
When Johnson replied that the spending on the Act 3 schematic design was a function of where the district was at with its facilities planning and that boosting tutoring and implementing a new instructional coaching model was on the administration’s radar Mangan was not satisfied.
“That’s a, you know, unsatisfactory answer,” Mangan bluntly told Johnson. “I’m very disappointed to hear that. I think that, that’s fine that there are some longstanding plans for construction. That’s a priority that you’re stating that that’s the priority and by not addressing the gap that we have with our students this year I’m very confused. You’re just doing the same thing that you did last year so I’ll rephrase my question, what are we doing to help students now.”
Johnson seemed to take offense at the suggestion that OPRF is doing nothing new to help students academically.
“There’s all sorts of work that we’re doing on a regular basis to help our students,” Johnson said seeming to suggest that it was unrealistic to expect major changes next year based on a report the administration received a few months ago. A beefed up tutoring program and an instructional coaching system is expected to be in place for the 2027-28 school year.
“To suggest that and somewhat imply that we aren’t doing things for kids to help to kind of improve the outcomes is odd, I don’t understand that in the slightest, frankly,” Johnson said. “We’re doing all sorts of curriculum work, all sorts of work to help support students and enroll in and find success in honors and the highest level class we possibly can do across the board. We’ve done significant work with our math curriculum over the past few years. We know the work we’ve done with our freshman curriculum and so I appreciate the urgency and I think the urgency is real.”
Mangan was undeterred. She pointed out that the evidence-based funding model has been around since 2017 and noted that OPRF is ready to spend more money on facilities.
“What I’m seeing is no change in budget, again what you spend your money on are your values, except I am seeing change in buildings and capital,” Mangan said. “When I see that student outcomes are not changing and some are going down.”
Mangan said she wasn’t saying that the administration doesn’t care about academics but said more needs to be done to address the achievement gap and to boost academic performance overall noting that just 64% of OPRF juniors met the state’s proficiency standard in math according to the latest Illinois School Report Card.
“I’m not suggesting that we don’t care about kids, that’s not what I’m saying,” Mangan said. “What I’m saying is that what we have been doing has not met their needs.”
Johnson shot back.
“The statement that we are not meeting student needs or we aren’t seeing positive growth in student outcomes isn’t supported by generally what we are seeing in students across the board,” Johnson said.
But Mangan wasn’t done.
“To meet the moment, it’s going to take a different allocation of resources,” Mangan said.
Johnson conceded that there is more to be done on the academic side.
“I understand your point,” Johnson told Mangan. “There is work to be done and if anything that I have said tonight seemed to suggest that we don’t have that work to do as a school district I have absolutely miscommunicated. We have work to do. What I am saying is that we are already investing quite a bit in programs, curriculums, resources, how we function as a school generally.”
Mangan, an expert in the evidence-based funding and someone who helped develop the model in Illinois and elsewhere, got in one more point.
“Professional learning communities have been around for like 25 years,” Mangan said. “So it’s not like we don’t know about instructional coaches, you know, we have to take a year to do that. That doesn’t really make sense to me.”
School board member Graham Brisben, who along with Kathleen Odell, is a school board liaison to the CFC, tried to find common ground.
“These are valid points from both points of view,” said Brisben noting that not starting enhanced tutoring and an instructional coaching program in the upcoming school year is a program design issue not a financial issue. “There are actually some things in motion right now and have been since April. If the full board votes to approve that $750K for design development, it’s not as though that’s $750K that would otherwise be spent on teaching and learning.”
In other CFC news Greg Kolar is stepping down from the CFC due to the new demands of fatherhood and a replacement will have to be appointed, probably before the CFC next meets in August.