Evanston School Board Candidate Profile: Sergio Hernandez

EVANSTON, IL — Five candidates are running for three open seats on the Evanston/Skokie School District 65 school board in the April 4 municipal elections.

Two incumbents are seeking re-election: Sergio Hernandez and Mya Wilkins. They face three challengers: John Martin, Ndona Mubayayi and Omar Salem.

Evanston Patch sent a questionnaire to all candidates ahead of Tuesday's vote and publishes their responses verbatim.

Sergio Hernandez Jr.

Age (as of Election Day)
50

Does anyone in your family work in politics or government?
No

Education
M. S. Elementary Education, NIU

Occupation
Equity Lead, Illinois State Board of Education, 7 years

Campaign Website
https://sergio4d65.nationbuilder.com/

Previous or Current Elected or Appointed Office
Evanston/Skokie School District 65 Board Member

The most pressing issues facing the district are _______, and this is what I intend to do about them.

Increase in homeless students - build capacity of educators and support students and provide wraparound supports for families in partnership with community orgs

Declining enrollments - work with local prek and early childhood program to help us boost kindergarten enrollment

Academic and socio-emotional outcomes-adoption of new reading curriculum, continue high impact tutoring during school day and algebra for all implementation

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

I am bilingual educator, a father of a student with special needs, an education policy wonk, and early childhood advocate

Describe the other issues that define your campaign platform

Transitions across the educational continuum are confusing for many families and their students. I am interested in exploring how to create smoother transitions from prek to k, 5tb to 6th, and 8tb grade to high school as a strategy to improve academic and socio-emotional outcomes.

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

Expansion of English Learner Services across all schools, adoption of racial equity policy, elimination of academic tracking in math.

Why should voters trust you?

I have the lived experience and qualifications to continue the systems work the board has started to embed and operationalize equity across our school system.

If you win this position, what accomplishment would make your term in office as a success?
[No answer provided.]

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

Independent audits of the budgets have come out consistently clean and the budget team has been awarded statewide recognition by ISBE for best practices. We have delivered a balanced budget to the community for the past few years.

What would you do to improve the district's retention and recruitment of educational professionals?

Continue the implementation of our paraprofessional, teacher and principal pipeline programs to continue growing our own Education professional. To retain them, continue to work through the interest based bargaining process to identify staff needs during contract negotiations.

In what areas, if any, are students in the district exceeding standards? In what ways, if any, are they falling behind?

Our multilingual learners who have exited our multilingual programs are outperforming our monolingual general education students academically. We have virtually eliminated the racial predictability gap in literacy in our prek program. Unfortunately, K-8 reading and math scores have stayed flat.

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

Yes, but there is always more to do. We are currently in the implementation phase of many of our systems strategies to embed and operationalize equity and we need to evaluate the impact of these strategies to ensure they are having a positive impact on student outcomes as well as on educator capacity.

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

No other reason other than health or family would stop me from serving a full term.

The best advice ever shared with me was:

Board work is harder than you think it is.

What else would you like voters to know about yourself and your positions?

I am dedicated to building an equitable educational system in collaboration with all of our community stakeholders, and if elected I will continue to build partnerships that leverage the strength of our diverse community to create sustainable and positive change for all District 65 families and their students.