CARE Endorses 4 Candidates for District 112 School Board

HIGHLAND PARK, IL - The Citizens Actively Rethinking Education group has endorsed four candidates in the race for the North Shore School District 112 school board in 2017.

After posing questions to the ten candidates who sought CARE's endorsement, the group chose to select Brent Ross, Julie Campbell, Lisa Hirsh and Alex Brunk for its slate.

According to a news release on the endorsements, the CARE group believes that “cooperation is better than conflict, … empowerment is better than resentment, and bridges are better than walls.”

And that the current school board has "not only failed to represent these values, but has seemingly rejected them in response to expressions of community concerns regarding its recently dropped BDR3-school- closure-plan.

Prior to the board's decision to postpone the plan for one year, the group called BDR3 "excessive, premature, and in increasing opposition to the actual financial, educational, and practical realities."

Jeff Hamburg, a CARE leader, said many in the group "collectively exhaled in relief" after the decision to postpone the plan was made at a meeting last week.

"We also feel encouraged that the Reconfiguration 2.0 Committee in step with a new School Board can now present a solution or solutions to those challenges," Hamburg said. "Voters will decide what we'll make of the opportunity."

The choice to endorse Ross, Campbell, Hirsh and Brunk for the school board seats came from a 17-person CARE panel that included Steve Wilneff, Eric Rosenberg, Loren Schechter, Marc Lawrence, Hillel Singer, Pat Boilini, Jeremiah Diamond, Gizella Meneses, Rich Long, Karen Ideno-Chiou, Linda Illes, Vicki Frazier, Joan Bergman, Carla Arnell, Mike Starkman, Nina Vanderpoel and Jeff Hamburg.