Beth Hosler: Elmhurst D-205 School Board Candidate – No Response

Editor's note: The following is a reader's commentary. This is unrelated to Patch's reporting on the race.

Mrs. Beth Hosler, Elmhurst school board candidate, declined to answer voter questions to provide an overview of her positions and perspectives regarding school board issues. Each of the nine candidates listed on the April 2023 ballot for District 205 School Board positions were asked to answer the same set of questions. As Hosler is an incumbent, current member of the board, four additional questions about board performance were posed, and also went unanswered.

We reached out to Hosler via both her published hoslerfor205@gmail.com campaign email and her public school board address, ehosler@elmhurst205.org, and didn’t hear a peep back. We found this behavior to be quite in contrast with her campaign mail pieces that state, “Beth is passionate about open communication,” is a “Leader Who Listens,” and claims that she has “worked with administrators to come up with comprehensive ways to engage our stakeholders and include them in the conversation as decisions are being made.”

Hosler has stated in recent campaign mail pieces that she believes in “constructive collaboration with all stakeholders.” Many parents who have raised issues before the board have found Hosler is not communicative, or engaged in constructive collaboration; and have described her as “disengaged” in trying to resolve issues. Hosler has also stated she is committed to making “sound decisions that align with our community’s values and priorities,” but when parents have come before the board concerned that the district is misaligned with community values and priorities, she has been dismissive and non-responsive. She is “inclusive” of only one way of thinking, not diverse perspectives.

Digging into her online candidate profiles and her record as a current member of the school board, we learned a few things.

Hosler is a perennial volunteer, and that seems to be her primary qualification as a board candidate. That, and being a product of District 205 herself.

A matter of concern for many parents has been the district’s dismal academic performance. Hosler was on the PTA Council and present at an October 3, 2017, meeting where she and other PTA leaders were warned that only 53 percent of District 205's 4th grade students were reading at grade level.

This did not seem to be important in Hosler’s 2019 campaign for school board. When asked by the Daily Herald what the most important issues facing the district were, Hosler’s answer solely addressed the $168 million referendum, along with the collaboration and communication around the “new buildings and programs.”

Running now in 2023 as an incumbent school board member, Hosler’s “Student Success” achievements as listed on her campaign website mention implementing full day kindergarten in the district and adding two new Special Olympics athletic teams. Those are laudable things, but she has failed to identify any work on elevating student academic proficiency. Even her campaign mail pieces have talked about preparing a strategic plan, not actually implementing any action items to increase performance. Indeed, during Hosler’s tenure on the board, student performance has continued to fall.

This time around, when asked by Patch, Hosler identified the single most pressing challenge for the school board is “to ensure that we are addressing the needs of each of our students to ensure growth for all of our students” and says that she is “running for re-election to continue this work.” She listed the needed actions as “Hiring a Superintendent who is skilled at improving student outcomes, creating a strategic plan that establishes goals and measures progress for students and the district, having tools and systems in place that provide real-time responses to students who need help academically or socially, adopting additional curriculum resources to address gaps, auditing our math program K-12 to identify weaknesses, providing students with increased access for AP/ACP classes and SAT prep, and supporting additional professional development for staff.” If there is evidence that Hosler was instrumental in proposing or seeking to implement any of those actions over her four year term on District 205 school board, this reporter has not found it.

One thing Hosler has identified in her campaign mail as an “achievement” is that she is a member of the D205 Policy Committee. Given that parents have complained directly to the board that there are critical board policies not being followed, and who have asked the board to enforce their policies, Hosler would seem to have been in an ideal position to respond to those concerns. They have gone unaddressed, and the bad behavior continues. Thus, her promises for accountability have been empty ones. We specifically asked the nine candidates about Board policy enforcement, and it is disappointing that Hosler has been unwilling to defend her record or even answer questions about it.

Hosler recently complained at a PTA-sponsored candidate forum that parents who are concerned about the falling D205 test score performance are entitled to "their own facts," but not "their own opinions." But of course, the D205 falling test scores are reported on the Illinois State Board of Education website, and the board has a legal duty to provide honest information. We doubt that Hosler would admit that the board failed to provide accurate information to the ISBE. Hosler is apparently content with the fact that Elmhurst is still better than other schools in the state. We do not take comfort in the fact that D205 is near the top of a heap of failures; what Hosler cannot ignore is that where 70 percent or more students were meeting proficiency minimums several years ago, now under 50 percent of students district-wide are meeting minimum standards, and dropping; the numbers are even more abysmal for students of color. That Elmhurst has not fallen as far as other schools should not be the marker for success; actual student proficiency is the critical metric. Hosler has vaguely asserted in her campaign mail pieces that the district has somewhere seen an “11% increase in student outcomes.” Her assertion is not supported by any citation, and is inconsistent with what the district has reported to the Illinois State Board of Education. We note that if Hosler is attempting to suggest, for example, that a student metric went from X to X+11 percent, that student still may not even be close to meeting state minimum proficiency standards. The D205 administration has been criticized for discussing the rate of student “growth” as a way to deflect from failing to meet performance metrics (a 10 percent increase in a low performing student means that the student will be a failure all through high school; this is why meeting minimum proficiency standards is the first metric that must be emphasized). Has Hosler not understood the way in which she is being “spun” by the administration?

A recent campaign mail piece sent by Hosler states as evidence that D205 is prioritizing academic achievement was hiring a superintendent who she calls “expert” in raising academic achievement and improving student outcomes. There is no “evidence” for that assertion; the current superintendent, and many other administrative hires that occurred under Hosler’s watch, have come from the Chicago Public School system, where student achievement has likewise been disastrous. While Hosler states that math and reading programs are now being reviewed, she has had four years to get the work done, and this work seemingly began after parents began raising the issue during her campaign.

Moreover, a taunting Facebook post by Jim Colbert, one of her backers who was asked to participate in one of the D205 strategic plan/curriculum review focus groups (and who recently was photographed standing outside the Knights of Columbus in Elmhurst holding a “Baby Hitler” sign), stated that at the D205 event, “more than half the time was spent trashing EPIC and [Tom] Chavez. A good time was had by all.” EPIC is a several-hundred strong parent group titled, Elmhurst Parents for Integrity in Curriculum, which is described as a bipartisan organization committed to educational excellence. Chavez is a current candidate for school board. Hosler was apparently unconcerned that D205-sponsored focus groups are “trashing” D205 parents who have been advocating for educational excellence and she has not explained how this will create a genuinely inclusive environment within D205.

The questions, posed to all nine candidates, which Hosler did not respond to, are as follows:

Question 1. As a school board member, how will you work with parents to further their children's education?

Question 2. Describe what you consider appropriate oversight of curriculum and role you envision parents having in that oversight?

Incumbent Only Question 2a. As a board member, how have you been responsive to parental requests or needs in regard to furthering their children’s education?

Question 3. Do you believe the current board has adequately enforced its controversial issues policy? What would you do differently?

Question 4. What is your understanding of transformative SEL and do you think that it has a place in District 205?

Question 5. In November 2022, District 205 admitted to falling SAT scores. A year previously, in October 2021, the district laid the blame for drooping academic performance at the feet of the Covid-19 pandemic. Yet the district's test scores have been plummeting steadily downward since 2014. What would you do to improve this chronically unsatisfactory situation?

Incumbent Only Question 5a. As a board member, what action have you taken - or proposed - to combat the consistent downward path of academic performance and test scores in the district?

Incumbent Only Question 5b. You were on the PTA Council when it was reported in October 2017 that only 53 percent of District 205's 4th grade students were reading at grade level. What action have you taken - or proposed - (either on the school board or at the PTA Council) to try and improve that dismal statistic in a district that, being economically advantaged to many across the state, should be performing much higher?

Question 6. In November 2018 Elmhurst voters approved a $168.5 million bond issue for District 205. In May 2021, drastic overages were reported, to the tune of$400,000. As of March 2022, the overspending had risen to $18.1 million, and in May 2022, the total over budget had dropped slightly to $17.7 million. That is still more than 10 percent of the referendum budget. What remedies do you propose for this enormous project that is obviously over budget and reportedly behind schedule?

Incumbent Only Question 6a. You worked to pass the referendum, and reported to Patch.com on the progress made on the designated projects, saying, "All this has been done while being good stewards of our taxpayers’ money." Please explain how you reconcile being almost $18 million over budget with good stewardship.

Question 7. If reelected to serve on the school board, what is the number one objective that you will pursue and seek doggedly to accomplish during your term?