District 112 Board Members Only Represent Themselves: Letter

The following letter was written and submitted by Paul Lucas.

Last week was a sad week for democracy in America. It was a sad week not because of the presidential election, though much could be said about that, but because of what happened in the District 112 board room.

On November 7th, countless community members publicly spoke to the board, asking for a delay of BDR3 and a reconsideration of Elm Place’s and Ravinia’s closures in light of new financial information and because of the community-wide problems created by those rushed closures.

Weeks before, an overflowing house of community members spoke for over an hour and a half to make the same request: delay of BDR3. For days and weeks and months, hundreds of district residents have tried to communicate with the Board through public comments, private meetings, emails, and letters – through all the means of persuasion available to citizens in a democracy.

Sadly, a majority of board members simply will not listen. In totally ignoring the views of their constituents, this board is undermining the processes of representative democracy. We elected these board members to represent us; instead, they are representing only themselves and their own vision for the community. They now know they have the financial freedom to accommodate district resident requests for a delayed BDR3, but instead they are willfully refusing compromise and misdirecting public funds to further their own plans. The board majority is even ignoring the counsel of two board members—Karla Livney and Eric Ephraim-- who have vigorously tried to delay implementation of BDR3, only to find their words similarly ignored by the rest of the board.

In rejecting widespread resident views about delaying BDR3, school board president Michael Cohn has tried to frame the proponents of keeping Elm Place and Ravinia open in 2017 as selfishly preoccupied with their own interest at the expense of the broader community. This framing falsifies their views. Elm Place’s closure in 2017 will create significant traffic and safety problems around Edgewood, affecting all families who attend that school (not just Elm Place families) and affecting nearby residents in ways those residents don’t even know about yet. (Do Edgewood area residents know that a new road may be coming to their neighborhood soon? Do their views matter?) Further, rushing to close Elm Place in 2017 crams 800-plus kids “overnight” into a building that is not yet prepared to serve so many students and in a year when Edgewood enrollment will be at a peak.

Likewise, closing Ravinia does not affect only Ravinia families and residents. It reduces elementary-school space across the district so that full-day kindergarten -- a major community priority -- will be impossible next year, except at dual-language schools. That’s a district-wide inequity. Closing Ravinia also deprives the city of Highland Park of a school that has served as a magnet to newcomers in the city because of the Ravinia neighborhood’s unique mixture of affordable housing within walking distance of a great-performing school. Why would new families want to come to Highland Park to bus their kids across town to schools of 500 plus? As so many families speaking out last week attested, if they had known how BDR3 would affect the educational landscape of Highland Park, they would have chosen a different suburb. When Highland Park loses that healthy influx of young, new families, as it surely will when it loses schools like Ravinia, the health of the whole community will suffer. For these and so many other reasons, BDR3 closures don’t just affect Elm Place and Ravinia parents and children.

They will negatively affect the whole community.

Furthermore, the BDR3 closure of 4 schools is based on a claim to the community that is no longer true. Last spring, the District insisted that they had no choice but to close 4 schools in order to maintain financial viability. Now, in light of new financial information, we and they know that 4 schools do not have to close for long-term financial sustainability.

But instead of compromising with the community and scaling back BDR3 in light of the financial flexibility we have, board president Cohn and Superintendent Bregy, supported by a majority of the board, are simply inventing new and different reasons for going forward with BDR3. They don’t have to do BDR3; they are choosing to do it, against the will of a majority of the community.

Many years ago, Senator Dick Durbin spoke to a group of young people, telling them that if even so few as six letters came across his desk about a certain issue, he would read those letters and try to represent the views of those constituents. He assured those young people that their voices mattered, and their civic participation counted.

Think of the message this Board’s behavior sends to the young people in our community, some of whom have spoken at board meetings, created petitions on behalf of their schools, and attempted to persuade the Board with reasonable, compelling arguments for preserving Elm Place and Ravinia in 2017. It sends the message that elected officials do not care about the citizens who invest their time and effort in the civic process. It says that civic participation doesn’t matter because elected officials will do whatever they want to do. And it suggests to the community that it is better just to sit passively at the sidelines and watch while decisions—be they good or bad—are made on our behalf.

It’s a sad time for our kids. And it’s a sad time for democracy in District 112.

Sincerely,

Paul Lucas

Highland Park Resident