Endorsement Of Brunk, Jenks, Kessler, Lasko, Mordini: Letter

Written and submitted by Taryn Kessel and Ben Sher.

For too long District 112 has spent too much on buildings and invested too little in education. Brunk, Jenks, Kessler, Lasko, and Mordini will be the most responsible stewards of our tax dollars, making investments in our schools to promote the world-class learning environment that attracted many of us to move to our community. Selecting our next school board candidates from this set of five is in the best interest of our community, our property values, our District and, most importantly, our kids.

Understanding why District 112’s current financial predicament hamstrings our schools’ ability to deliver the high caliber education our community demands is critical to selecting the next school board members. Relative to districts that serve a comparable number of students, District 112 has more buildings (12 buildings as compared to 7 or 8 for other, comparably sized districts). Consequently, many of our schools have class sizes that make it difficult to be efficient with our most precious resource, our teachers. Moreover, the unbalanced grade sizes across our schools translates into sub-optimal learning environments (e.g., singleton subject teachers, too few kids in a foreign language class for productive discussions, insignificant critical mass of students, limiting social and extracurricular opportunities). Moreover most of our buildings are old and require additional maintenance just to meet current safety and other government requirements to ensure our kids are safe, notwithstanding any potential upgrades for 21st century learning opportunities like STEM programming. As the costs required to operate and maintain our schools outpace the income our property taxes generate – the primary source of income to pay for local schools – our District is close to the point where our rainy-day fund will dry up in just a few more years, absent any changes.

We must align our building footprint with the number of students our district serves in a way that puts our District on sound financial footing and also makes sense educationally. This decision should not be taken lightly and may be unpopular with some. Some school board candidates have made promises to maintain our buildings or provide new offerings without a viable plan of how that upkeep or new programming could be paid for (one candidate went so far to suggest that the best means of paying for all day Kindergarten would be to charge families tuition of close to $8,000 / student!). School board candidates unwilling to accept the financial realities our district faces, who are dogged in their commitment to “neighborhood schools” at the expense of the District at large and the education our kids deserve, are wedded to an unsustainable status quo and are not looking out for the broader community. Fortunately, there are several candidates who not only understand our District’s financial predicament but are also committed to getting beyond the re-configuration issue so we can turn our attention back to our kids’ education. When casting your ballot, we encourage members of the community to support those candidates.

Taryn Kessel and Ben Sher