Elmhurst Parents Group Defends School District

ELMHURST, IL – A parents group took exception to a Republican state lawmaker's statements at an Elmhurst School District 205 board meeting last week.

At the meeting, Rep. Deanne Mazzochi of Elmhurst called for Superintendent Keisha Campbell to "clean house" because of what the lawmaker sees as problems in York High School's lessons, particularly in American history and junior English.

In response, Respect Our Students and Educators D205, or ROSE, released a statement to Patch. It was labeled as coming from the group's administrators, with one of them, Ioana Fernandez, sending it.

"In the current economic climate, where there is a huge shortage of talent in all industries but especially in education, (cleaning house) does not seem to be in the best interest of the students," the group said. "D205 employs highly-qualified professionals with lots of experience in education."

Mazzochi and another parents group, Elmhurst Parents for Curriculum Integrity, or EPIC, contend the district is not open with its curriculum.

But ROSE said such a contention is unfounded. It said parents receive numerous emails from the school board, the superintendent, principals and teachers. And it said a lot of information is posted on schools' and teachers' webpages.

Parents also can log into their children's Google accounts and see their emails and Google Classroom assignments.

"Many presentations throughout the school year address various aspects of the curriculum, including what is being taught in D205 schools and how," the group said. "From our experience, these presentations are poorly attended by parents, but they exist, and provide transparency."

The other parents group, EPIC, contends that dropping test scores are a justification to go "back to the basics." But ROSE said the school already focuses heavily on the basics, as demonstrated by materials made available to parents.

"In our view, which is informed by the materials transparently made available to parents, D205 does, in fact, focus heavily on those basics," ROSE said. "In addition, after two years of Covid, all administrators in the district (and a lot of parents) report what students need right now is more support when it comes to mental health, social skills and behavior in a school setting.

"We cannot expect high academic achievement without supporting the students as a whole, but also without supporting our teachers and school employees," the group said. "The accusations and statements made against our teachers and their day-to-day work with our children create a highly stressful environment that threatens their learning."