Meet the Candidates for Minooka CCSD201 School Board

All six candidates who are running for the three open seats on the Minooka CCSD 201 school board were in attendance last night for a Meet and Greet sponsored by the Minooka Elementary Education Association (MEEA) at Minooka Intermediate School. While the cafeteria was set up for a large number of people to attend, many of the seats stayed empty.

An MEEA representative started the evening by having the candidates introduce themselves; afterwards the candidates were asked five pre-determined questions. What was surprisingly shocking is that she referred to the six candidates as “kids.” As she stated, “we thought we would get the kids together since we have so many and so many positions are open.” This caught me off guard as the positions on the school board seemed irrelevant. Additionally, she stated that there would be no public questions. She added that those who wanted to ask a candidate a question could do so individually at the end. After speaking with a few parents, they were deeply upset that questions could not come from the parents or stakeholders in a public forum for all to hear.

Despite the fact that it was an informal meet and greet, the expectation that academics would be mentioned and discussed weighed heavily on the minds of the parents. With not only the state level being so low in reading and math, the district was under a 50% proficient rate in both of those areas. While the expectations of those who attended were not to find a solution, a discussion of the topic was expected.

Each candidate was given up to three minutes to introduce themselves and then two minutes to respond to the questions. Thomas J. McGowan is from Channahon who has two children in the Minooka School District. He grew up on the Southside of Chicago. He was a firefighter and an EMT, but now works for the railroad. As a school board member, he wants to bring a new perspective to the board and wants what’s best for the children.

Brian Pohlman is from Channahon who has three children in the Minooka School District. He works as an IT Security Engineer and is looking forward to serving on the school board as he will look out for the best interest and wellbeing of the children.

Jennifer Monson is from Shorewood who not only has two children in the Minooka School District and one in the high school district, but she also went through Minooka schools and graduated from Minooka Community High School. She works at a special education aid who is concerned how education is failing and would like to be on the board as a voice for everyone.

Emily Conquest is the current Minooka board president who has served the last four years, 2 of which was as president, and is looking for another term. She has two children in the Minooka school district and one who is a freshman at Minooka Community High School. She is thrilled to be a part of public education while celebrating the achievements of the students at monthly board meetings.

Vinita Voss was appointed two years ago from a seat that was left vacant on the board by a previous elected person. She has two children in the Minooka school district. She believes that every child deserves the opportunity to thrive and have a safe space in education.

Katherine Tonelli is from Shorewood and states she has a unique insight into education as a public school teacher for 20 years where she is currently teaching in Channahon. She has younger children entering the Minooka school district where she indicates she wants to be a voice on how the district should move forward.

After the brief introductions, the candidates were asked the following questions: what is your vision for education in this community, what differentiates you from other candidates, why do you want to be a member of the school board, and what do you feel are the strengths and weaknesses of the school district? Many, who were in attendance, were ready to hear the responses from the candidates but were unhappy with the variety of questions presented.

Each candidate was given two minutes to respond to each of the questions. The first question focused on the candidate’s vision for education in the community. Like many residents and parents, Minooka CCSD’s education was considered one of the reasons why families moved to the area as there was no doubt that Minooka had a great reputation with its schools. McGowan agreed and said, “I was pretty impressed with the education.” His experience and his kids’ experience with the teachers and staff at Aux Sable have been amazing. Yet, as we all know, the kids being stuck at home is costly to their well-being as well as their education. “We can’t blame Covid all the time as kids were glued to their screen,” stated McGowan. McGowan’s honesty with how technology has changed children is obvious as they are constantly on some type of device.

Conquest, if re-elected, wants to continue the vision for the district is to increase extracurricular activities as a large number of students were cut due to overcrowding of the schools. According to her statement last night, she would like to see more activities so that more students can be involved.

This is commendable as students tend to make friends, become more social, and learn from others through sports, clubs, and activities. Additionally, Conquest stated, “there should be a continued increase of social emotional support for our kids as a lot of people have mentioned the issues coming out of Covid years that is something we are hearing loud and clear from our families and our staff is that we need to be supporting our kids in that social, emotional aspect as well.”

There is a lot of controversy about what and how SEL (Social Emotional Learning) is used in the schools. Even though this is not a new term to educators, as this has been around for decades, the idea behind SEL has recently changed. SEL is a concept to help children gain, or increase, skills needed in common subjects, such as math, reading, science, and writing. However, districts have changed the perspective of this idea to where children identify with their feelings, build relationships with others, and make good choices. While this does not seem intentionally bad, this term is now used for students to express how they feel on the inside, even if they don’t.

Voss believes that the academic excellence has been achieved but still has room to grow. As with any curriculum, changes are constantly being made to meet the needs of the students. She indicated that the curriculum needs to be monitored so that it has a positive impact and contributes to academic excellence. Voss agrees with Conquest in how the pandemic, “has impacted the children so the need to continue the social, emotional support that we can support our students and our staff.” Voss continues to state that the pandemic was “traumatizing to all of us” as parents had to step into the role at home during remote teaching. She commends the teachers, while kids were being schooled at home, in being able to keep their attention and teach them amongst the “chaos” in the world.

Whether there is an agreement or disagreement with personal values, it is invaluable to hear how each of the candidates vision education and where it needs to be within the district. But what was really impressive was Monson’s response to the question, “what differentiates you from other board members?” Monson chose to rephrase the question. Instead of what separates her from the others, she stated that she wanted to answer how we all can work together. This, by far, was an amazing answer as she admits there is a divide within the community. “We are here to be a voice for the community,” Monson stated. “We need to be more united and less divided standing behind the children,” she added. This was a turning point as she, in fact, did separate herself from the others.

What many of us tend to forget is to push our own differences aside to do what’s best for the children. Monson brought that idea back as we have easily forgotten it. As a parent, we would do anything to protect our children. They are the most important aspect in our lives. With this being said, they should not be in this division. It is obvious that we are fighting each other when, instead, we should be working together. McGowan added to Monson’s statement by saying, “there needs to be a difference of opinion as many are pre-programmed with the same goal. But that goal needs to represent all the kids.”

Pohlman spoke from the heart as he continued McGowan’s thought to keep the focus on academics rather than on electronics. “I’ve seen lately as Thomas had said that there is a dependency on electronics rather than playing outside,” said Pohlman as he wants to see the children continue to be challenged, both in and out of school, and to push forward.

Without a doubt, and listening to all the responses, there was an overwhelming agreement from the candidates that they were impressed with the education in Minooka CCSD 201; however, there were a few concerns with the current rating of academics and how grades were issued.

Conquest, Tonelli, and Voss all stated that academics are a strength in the district. However, their statements contradict the Illinois State Report Card. Tonelli stated that academics was a “fine oiled machine.”

As this year marks the second consecutive year since children were allowed to attend schools again in person, the blame game of the pandemic causing scores to decrease is getting pretty old. In fact, the pandemic isn’t the reason as to why the scores are low. According to information found on the Public School Review, test scores were at its highest between 2010-2012 at just under 100% in mathematics and about 90% in Reading/Language Arts. It was around 2013 that there was a steady decrease in both subjects that stayed relatively the same through 2021. Additionally, the Illinois State Report Card for the 2021-2022 school year shows that the academic progress for Minooka CCSD201 in Reading/Language Arts the district is at 28% proficient rate and 24% for mathematics.

These percentages do not correlate to the statement from former Illinois Board of Education Superintendent Carmen Ayala, stated in November 2022 when she said that Illinois schools were “on track” with test data. With this contradicting, yet important, piece of information, parents came to hear the candidates’ vision on how to get the students “on track” in reading and mathematics.

Unfortunately, parents and stakeholders left with questions still unanswered not necessarily by fault of the candidates but by the questions that were asked by the moderator. When the question of the strengths and weaknesses of the district was asked, Monson, with a slight pause, indicated that a weakness she sees within the district is that board members need to be willing to question the narrative. This is all too true as parents and stakeholders from across the state have a similar thought. The narrative that has been taught is to listen to those in control as they know what is best for everyone. This is an easily misinterpreted idea. Challenging the narrative, not for chaos or anarchy, but for explanation is what is needed. Failure in being able to exercise the First Amendment Right, to even question, is the first sign of compliance.

What Monson is referring to as the narrative is how there are politicians who are dictating what should be taught, how it should be taught, and the way it should be taught. They are using the “cookie cutter” approach that all districts, schools, and children are the same. As Monson said, “one size does not fit all.” And anyone in education should understand this phrase. Pohlman, with a slight hesitation in his voice, agreed with Monson as to leaving out the narrative stating, “we need to focus on the academics for our children” and leave out the politics. Pohlman brings up an interesting point as to why politics are even occurring in an elementary school district.

In fact, the Minooka school system is different from its neighboring districts, such as Channahon, Plainfield, Oswego, and even Joliet. There is no reason that the school boards should be governed by one entity with a certain set of rules for all to follow. “They don’t know what our community needs. We do,” states Monson. This is the vision that needs to be elected to the school board.

Many were appalled when the Sex Education bill (SB818) was not only passed but signed by the Governor where children as young as kindergarten would be taught certain aspects of sex education. Administrators should be appalled at what this bill would require their staff to teach children as young as five years old. Not to mention that this information could leave a scar on them or go against what the parents believe in.

But the weakness not only lies within academics. According to Tonelli, she believes that a weakness is the overcrowding in the schools. Recently, the district tried to pass the same three referendums of 90 million dollars, which failed each time.

If overcrowding is so crucial to the students wellbeing, there is not a reason why the school district can not use part of the 2.5 million dollars in ESSER funds they received during the pandemic to solve some of the overcrowding issues. As it is understandable for the schools to be less crowded, overcrowding in the schools does not seem like a realistic weakness as this would be put back on the taxpayers by increasing the taxes, yet again. The number of students in the district is constantly changing as they are being pulled from the district to attend private schools, being homeschooled, or parents are moving out of the state. If this is truly a weakness within the district, the board can muster up a way to solve the problem without putting it back on the stakeholders.

But Tonelli is not the only one who views overcrowding as a “weakness.” Conquest agrees with Tonelli that there are too many students in the schools. But once again, overcrowding is not a recent issue as Conquest served on the board when the initial referendum was placed on the ballot the first time and then twice after that.

With the questions so similar, it was difficult to really separate the candidates on how Minooka CCSD201 can survive another four years. I do not deny that each candidate has his/her reason for wanting to be on the school board. What matters is that the choice is in the voters come April 4. It’s time to think if we want to continue down this road of free grades, no transparency, and unrealistic goals, or do we want to save education and encourage parents to re-enroll their child back into the school system and prove that Minooka truly has an exceptional education.

Speaking with a few parents and stakeholders after the meeting, there was an agreement that the questions were not focused on current issues that have been brought up at previous school board meetings. Most importantly, a parent was upset about how grades are “being handed out” without her child understanding the skills in that class. She didn’t understand how her daughter received an A in a class when she would sit at the kitchen table on the verge of tears because she didn’t understand the concepts. This is not the only parent that has come out with this information. In fact, quite a few parents in this school district, as well as others, have mentioned that grades were not earned in other districts.

The concern is that out of the five candidates only three of them were consistently attending board meetings or were a voice for their children in the last three years.

As a person of integrity, I have always encouraged others to do the research on any and all candidates before making a decision, especially when it comes to the children. Despite unintentional bias when speaking to others, sometimes it happens. Before casting your vote on or before April 4, 2023, please research the candidates on what they stand for, who they are, what their views are, and if they are on the current board, what did they do during their time. It’s been said that the school board elections are non-partisan; however, that is untrue as we have seen how politics interrupted education in the last three years. To say the least, I was surprised while researching the candidates that at least one of them from Minooka 201 uses pronouns on social media if this election is true non-partisan.