Jonathan Silver: Candidate For Deerfield School District 109

DEERFIELD, IL — Ahead of the April 6 consolidated municipal elections, Deerfield Patch provided questionnaires to all candidates on the ballot.

Eight candidates are vying for four seats on the Deerfield School District 109 Board of Education on Election Day. They include two incumbents (Andrew Morrison and Sari Montgomery) and six challengers (Dana Blumberg, James D’Angelo, Valarie Hays, Kelly Jakymiw, Jonathan Silver and Maureen G. Wener). Current trustees Kate Bittner and Scott Kluge are not running for reelection.

Deerfield Patch is publishing all responses submitted by candidates verbatim.

Jonathan Silver

Age (as of election day)

38

Town/city of residence

Deerfield

School district

DPS 109

Family

My wife Ashley is a lifelong educator and a current 4th grade teacher. My daughter Lily is 6 and she is a kindergartener at Walden. My daughter Ava is 2 and a future Walden Wildcat.

Does anyone in your family work in politics or government?

No

Education

BS Psychology, University of Illinois; Master's Social Studies Education, University of Iowa; Master's in School Administration (Type 75), University of Illinois

Occupation

High School Dean of Students (9 years). Previously Psychology teacher for 5 years.

Campaign website

https://www.abcdeerfield.com

Previous or current elected or appointed office

N/A

The single most pressing issue facing our (board, district, etc.) is _______, and this is what I intend to do about it.

Now that families have the option to have their students back in school full-time, I believe the most pressing issue facing our community is not only to address learning loss and to ensure a continued and safe full-in person model; it is also to remedy the division that has been created and how to unite as one with the common goal of doing everything in our collective power to help our kids. The seeds of discord were planted well before the pandemic and I believe that the past year only served to highlight the deficiencies in our district. Teachers have not felt supported by the board and have lacked trust in it. Parents with differing views on the education of their students during the pandemic were not brought together in any meaningful form or fashion. They were allowed to leave two minute voicemails which played and were followed by an abrupt move to the next agenda item.

As a board member, I work for you and not the other way around. I will make sure that all community voices are heard. This does not merely involve offering up a phone number and an email address. I will be active in the community. I want to hear from everyone, not just the loudest voices. I have worked in education for 15 years and I know how to build relationships to help parents and students feel comfortable being a part of the school experience. I will insist upon full transparency by the Board of Education and upper administration to help to regain the trust of teachers and the community. One of the best ways to do this is to plan board meetings at convenient times for parents so that the most participation can be elicited. Communication is a 2-way process and I will work with my fellow board members to elicit responses from all community members, not only parents. We will utilize forums, surveys, and other ideas from the community to make this happen. Conflicts of interest will be weeded out as will unchecked spending practices that have impacted tax payers.

What are the critical differences between you and the other candidates seeking this post?

I believe that my 15 years in education an both a teacher and an administrator separate me from most other candidates. I have had the honor to work with students each and every day I step foot in my building since my first day in the classroom. I was exhausted from the blood, sweat, and tears spilled watching my kindergartener hop on Zoom daily. It broke my heart. I decided I was running for this office early in the fall. I told myself that if students returned to school in timely fashion that I would consider dropping out. It was not merely the fact that this did not happen that pained me. I have seen cracks in the foundation in so many other areas that I cannot walk away from this work.

I know that my running mates on ABC Deerfield share a common vision for the district. What I appreciate the most about running with them, other than our shared love for our children and our teachers, is that we disagree with each other on certain items and we are comfortable engaging in healthy discourse.

If you are a challenger, in what way has the current board or officeholder failed the community or district?

I believe the current board has failed the community by excluding it. More than 80% of parents wanted their children to safely return to school in August. It was possible. It did not happen. The board has routinely been overinvolved in issues that should be handled exclusively by administration, including even simple items such as who runs board meetings. The board should seek clarity and allow the superintendent to navigate the agenda. Board members have given self-aggrandizing speeches prior to making votes and sent out angry and condescending emails to the community. In order to unite as a community, the board needs to set the tone of supportive leadership and not negativity. I also believe the board has failed to adequately address patterns of parent concern around items such as lack of transparency, conflicts of interest, and elimination of programs. I will work tirelessly to combat and to eliminate these items.

Describe the other issues that define your campaign platform

Our platform is centered around accountability, board leadership, and communication. We will take into account the voices of all stakeholders and not merely vocal special interests groups. We will be transparent in our reasoning for our decisions and always engage in dialogue. We will reform the use of board resources to make sure that we are meeting our obligation to taxpayers to make this community as affordable as possible. We want Deerfield to be a destination suburb where anyone who wishes to can afford to live here. Unchecked taxes drive people away and keep them away. This all-too-commonly ensures that we will not be an inclusive community and we will not be able to meet the needs of our student and families in need.

What accomplishments in your past would you cite as evidence you can handle this job?

When I say I have been in education for 15 years that does not mean that I have accomplished anything. I know a lot of folks who have been in education for a lot longer than that who probably should have never gone down that path. I have handled budgets by running clubs and being a coordinator of summer school. I taught three different subjects across my five years of teaching ranging from the AP level to the transition level. I ran a program for at-risk students over summers during my days teaching. As an administrator, I have presented reports to the board, I have evaluated teachers, I have done interventions across the spectrum from home visits to mediations to hospital reentries, and I have led a group called SAFE (Students Advocating for Equity) where students raised racial awareness across the building. I can juggle tasks and there is hardly a situation in schools that I have not come across.

Why should voters trust you?

Voters should trust me because I speak. I put myself out there. I have never shied away from voicing my beliefs on difficult and controversial topics. I am not a politician, I do not aspire to be one. I think campaigning can be kind of "icky" as my grandmother would use to say. Still, when faced with the decision to speak in empty catch phrases or to take my message directly to the public, I have chosen the latter. I have taken this approach through our virtual town halls, spotlight issues, and social media presence. Trust is earned and I absolutely understand that, but my willingness to answer the difficult questions and to put myself out there will never waver.

If you win this position, what accomplishment would make your term in office a success

The most important accomplishment would be to survey the community throughout my term. Whatever I think, if the community does not believe I have done right by their children, then I am an abject failure. Of course there will be times that I disappoint some parents with a decision, but I would hope that by transparency, communication, and leadership that I demonstrate that I am a support and not a hindrance to what is in the best interest of their children.

More specifically, if we can find a way to make sure that our new superintendent breaks this pattern of turnover, if we continue a safe return to normalcy in our schools, if we continue to retain teachers at a rate of more than 90% while regaining their trust in the board, if we make sure that we scrutinize numbers before levying taxes at generally the same rate annually, if we move board meetings to more convenient times for families while posting agendas well in advance, if we support the racial equity work being done, and if we help to unite the community by allowing administration to manage while helping to heal the wounds of the past couple of years...I would consider that a success.

What are your views on fiscal policy, government spending and the handling of taxpayer dollars in the office you are seeking?

The number one priority here is to make sure that our students have everything they need to be successful. This requires funding. Schools are expensive to operate. We must pay our teachers competitively to retain them as well as our administrators. There need to be checks and balances, however, and the role of the board is to consistently monitor spending to see where we can improve. As mentioned in the campaign platform question, if taxes are a runaway engine, we will lose residents and put up a wall to those who would love to be a part of our community. I will never be too proud to defer to my fellow board members who have more expertise in this area, nor will I hesitate to research other districts to find more effective ways to save money. We have to keep in mind that many well-established residents here do not have children in the district. While they may not be as invested daily in programming and operation of the schools, we have an obligation to every resident to make Deerfield as affordable as possible.

Do you support Black Lives Matter and what are your thoughts on the demonstrations held since the death of George Floyd and the shooting of Jacob Blake?

I inherently believe that every Black life matters and I have been a steward and a champion of racial equity work for 15 years. I fully support peaceful protests and value the role that they play not only today, but have played for generations. I believe that with consideration to age appropriateness, our schools should spend time focusing on these incidents and scaffolding students to enable them to be informed and to exercise their power as young people. Their voices are integral to our society.

Do you think the current board has done enough to support racial equality, and if not, what specifically should be done to do so?

Our board and administration has developed the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee. Credit where it is due and this is a great start. Unfortunately, as this committee was devised in July of 2020, it has the appearance of largely being in response to the George Floyd killing. As I have consistently stated, one in six students in our schools is nonwhite. We are a community growing in diversity. Past is prologue, but it should not have taken events like those that occurred over the summer to spearhead this work. The key now is to ensure that this work is not merely a checklist activity or superficial. I think it is wonderful that so many stakeholders have been placed on this committee, including students. I have participated in many of the proposed programs the DEI is implementing over the past 15 years. I work in a high school. In a K-8 district, we need to be aware of the intensity of the trainings and keep that in mind.

What are your thoughts on the district’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic? Are you in favor of remote learning, in-person learning or a hybrid of the two? Do you support a mask mandate for students and school staff, or mandatory coronavirus testing for both students and staff?

I think the district handled the pandemic quite poorly. I will say that they ensured the physical safety of our children, but the damage that was caused both social-emotionally and academically by the decision to overwhelmingly utilize remote learning far outweighed that. The fact that surrounding districts have safely spent the majority of the school year in-person, whether full-time or hybrid, reflects the failure here. Research has shown that schools are not super spreaders. As a matter of fact, schools tend to have lower transmission than community spread. It would have been more than possible to keep our students and staff physically, intellectually, and emotionally safe. The district and the board failed tremendously on the latter two.

I commend the district leadership on the swift work to get staff vaccinated and to follow that up with the March 8th return to full-time in person learning, which I absolutely favor. I also unequivocally support families' choice to stay remote for the remainder of the year. At this point in time I support a mask mandate. The governor has instituted a mask mandate so there is no reason to not follow it. The testing is perhaps a little more nuanced, but if SHIELD testing is what it takes to get our schools up and running, I will not stand in the way. What I will say is that mitigations need to be consistently reviewed. I do not want to raise a generation of masked children. As the vaccine availability spreads and numbers continue to go down, I want to see a return to normalcy. If herd immunity is approached or it would appear that come fall, students are not transmitting the virus to each other, I do not want the masks or the testing to remain in place for one day longer than they have to if our schools can operate safely without them.

When the vaccine is available to them, do you support mandatory COVID-19 vaccinations for students and staff?

I do not support mandatory vaccines.

Is there any reason you would not serve your full term of office, other than those of health or family?

None at all.

The best advice ever shared with me was ____________

To be a good family man. It is really more the definition of my life than a cliche. It is with this in mind that I have decided to run for the Board of Education. I will be sacrificing valuable time with my wife and with my children, but my family has deemed that it is well worth it. My wife has been the best partner imaginable throughout this process. Even my six-year-old understands that I have meetings a couple of nights a week and she is right there waiting for me when they are over.