Meet Your Candidates: Bob Spatz, District 97 Board Member

Bob Spatz, 47, hasn't moved more than 1.5  miles from his current Oak Park house his entire life.

He's worked for the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business's Center for Research in Security Prices (CRSP) for more than 25 years. At CRSP, he's served as a programmer/analyst before moving up to his current role as director of technology — subscriber products.

His son attended Longfellow, Julian, OPRF High School, and is now a freshman at Indiana University-Bloomington.

Spatz was first elected to the Board of Education in 2007, and has continued to serve on other organizations such as the Oak Park Education Foundation Board, and the Oak Park-based Collaboration for Early Childhood Care and Education.

Four candidates — Spatz, , Denise Sacks and incumbent Peter Traczyk — are running for the four vacant seats in this uncontested race. (Editor's note: Sacks and Traczyk were sent candidate questionnaires but have not returned them yet.)

Additionally he has served on the executive boards of ED-RED, an advocacy organization for suburban schools in Illinois, and the executive board of the West Cook Division of the Illinois Association of School Boards. He's also a member of the Illinois Early Learning Council’s Data Work Group.

How did you decide to serve on the school board?

As is clear from my background, I’ve been a volunteer in various areas of education for years, and serving on the school board seemed like a natural next step.  I ran, unsuccessfully, for the District 97 Board in 1999 and in 2001, and then due to varied family issues didn’t run again until 2007.  In September, 2010, I decided that I still had enough passion for the Oak Park schools to run for another term.

Is there equity in the education offered between all District 97 elementary schools?

In nearly 20 years of watching District 97, there haven't been and aren’t any significant differences in the education offered among the District 97 elementary schools.  There are minor differences, including Spanish Immersion at Lincoln and multi-age primary at Whittier.  However, the staffing levels and quality among all eight elementary schools are very equitable.  From the 20 years of watching, I’ve seen strengths and weaknesses at each school that ebb and flow over time, but no sustained or systemic inequity.

What are your personal thoughts on the upcoming referendum for District 97?

I believe that with the new administration and the incoming board, that if the
referendum passes, District 97 will have the fiscal stability to enable it to focus considerable energies on strategic initiatives around technology, early childhood, and potentially an International Baccalaureate program that would help make Oak Park a national leader in education.  If the referendum fails, District 97 will continue to be a good district, but will lose an opportunity to achieve its potential for another decade or more.

Has the pressure of the No Child Left Behind Act to meet minimum standards made a positive impact on District 97 schools?

On a whole it has not been positive.  Unlike many communities, Oak Park has been talking about the achieve gap for almost 20 years.  So while NCLB did add a spotlight to the problem, the focus on fairly narrow standardized tests (ISAT) as measures of adequate yearly progress (AYP) distracted from some opportunities both locally and nationally to develop far more robust and meaningful measures. There is no doubt that since NCLB was adopted that District 97 has been able to reduce the achievement gap.   However, I think both District 97 and the country might have been able to make more progress toward that goal without NCLB or with a better implementation of NCLB.

Name one or two major challenges facing District 97 in the next few years.

The biggest challenge is to establish fiscal stability.  If the referendum passes, the challenge will be to maintain the fiscal discipline necessary to have the relatively modest increase carry us all the way to 2018.  If the referendum fails, the challenge will be to decide when next to go for referendum.  The second challenge, and really the one of primary importance, is continuing to transform district 97 into a truly 21^st Century district, in particular the use of technology and the more effective teaching of a foreign language at an early age.

What is the latest book you have read?

“The Best of Mike Royko – One More Time”   I was given the book for
Christmas by my sister, because Mike Royko was a favorite our father.