D-300 hopefuls debate
By JENN WIANT - jwiant@nwherald.com
ALGONQUIN – Exactly a week before the April 7 school board election, voters in District 300 had another opportunity Tuesday to get to know the six candidates running for three seats on the board.
Candidates David Alessio, Dorota Jordan, Robert Lee, and Tracey Perez spoke to about 25 district voters for more than an hour Tuesday at Jacobs High School in Algonquin.
Incumbents Anne Miller and Karen Roeckner did not attend because a district policy prohibits board members from engaging in campaign activities on school property. Organizers of the forum did not know about the policy until it was too late to change the venue, they said.
Instead, Miller and Roeckner submitted written statements describing their background and explaining the election process.
Questions to the candidates came from the community, students in a Hampshire High School economics class, and members of the district’s three unions: the Local Education Association District 300, District 300 Education Support Association, and District 300 Educational Support Association.
One attendee asked the candidates whether they had financial support from Jack Roeser, chairman of Otto Engineering Inc. in Carpentersville and founder of the Family Taxpayers Foundation, an organization advocating school choice and school reform.
Lee said he had received a $500 contribution from Roeser. No other candidates had support from Roeser or the Family Taxpayers Foundation, they said.
The candidates also debated aligning all three high schools with the same programs, how to deal with the economy and lack of state funding, and the benefits of block scheduling versus an eight-period school day.
Jordan proposed the idea of having each high school known for a particular program and allowing students to choose which high school to attend based on which school had the strongest program for their talents.
Perez suggested looking at cutting administrative costs before cutting programs or laying off teachers in order to address tight finances.
Alessio said he would like to see scheduling changes made at high schools to give students more options for shorter class periods.
Lee brought many of his answers back to the four main goals of his campaign: to require the school board to look at the five-year cost of each program, to use objective evidence to evaluate each program, to create a certified diploma program, and to institute a policy prohibiting companies that do business with the school board from contributing to school board or referendum campaigns.
Lee criticized candidates who did not present specific ideas in their campaigns.
“Every candidate should demonstrate how we will improve upon the status quo,” he said in his opening statement, adding in his closing statement, “Platitudes are rhetoric, and rhetoric is in no way a solution. Ideas are solutions.”
Perez said having a set agenda for making changes in the district was not the best way to approach a position on the school board.
“It’s not going to work because you don’t know what you’re going to face until you get there,” Perez said. “We have to keep an open mind.”
