10 Vying For 4 Seats On District 86 Board

HINSDALE, IL — Ten candidates are vying for four seats on the Hinsdale High School District 86 board in the April 6 election.

Three incumbents — Kevin Camden, Marty Turek and Tamakia "TJ" Edwards — are among those running. A fourth incumbent, Keith Chval, told Patch last week that he was not seeking a second term.

Monday was the last day of a week-long period to submit paperwork.

The other candidates are Karen Shannon, Peggy James, Terri Walker, Jeff Waters, Debra Levinthal, Justin Baron and Mark Pinnow.

Other than Edwards, Pinnow and Shannon, the candidates filed within a two-hour period Monday afternoon, according to DuPage County Clerk's Office records.

Here is a list of the candidates and information that Patch was able to find online about them:

• Justin Baron — No information available.
• Kevin Camden — He is the owner of Camden Law Office in Willowbrook. He was elected to the board four years ago, becoming its president last summer. According to his LinkedIn page, he has significant public sector union labor experience, particularly law enforcement.
• Tamakia "TJ" Edwards — The Darien resident, who was appointed to her position in the summer, replaced then-board President Nancy Pollak, who resigned and moved to Michigan. Edwards is the chief of staff of the Illinois Capital Development Board. She previously worked for the U.S. General Services Administration.
• Peggy James — The Hinsdale resident is the senior business operations analyst for IAT Insurance Group. According to a Chicago Tribune story, she encouraged the school board to increase the amount of in-person learning in October. She has a freshman and a senior at Central, the story said.
• Debra Levinthal — A resident of Hinsdale for five years, she has four children — a sophomore and a freshman at Hinsdale Central, an eighth-grader and a kindergartner. She is a former high school math teacher, having spent her career at Stevenson and New Trier high schools. She said she supported both referendums during the 2018-19 school year, sits on the cross district Community Speaker Series Committee and was a PTA president and vice president at her former elementary district. She was a critic of the school board's decision last year to change the science curriculum.
• Mark Pinnow — The Willowbrook resident is the director of financial systems and analysis at Titan International, according to his LinkedIn page. According to the Chicago Tribune, Pinnow was the co-chairman of the campaign for the $15 million referendum in November in Willowbrook-based Gower School District 86. Voters passed the referendum, which replaced existing bonds for school improvements.
• Karen Shannon — She works at a medical diagnostics company, Beckman Coulter, as the vice president of intellectual property. She has a doctorate in chemistry from Caltech. She told Patch in a text that she supports STEM (science, technology, engineering and math). She said she wants to relook at new science and math programs and help get students back safely to school.
• Marty Turek — He is the vice president of sales in the Central United States and Canada for SentinelOne. He joined the District 86 board in 2019. He was previously a member of the District 181 board in Hinsdale and Clarendon Hills from 2011 to 2019.
• Terri Walker — The Hinsdale resident has a freshman at Hinsdale Central and a sixth-grader at Hinsdale Middle School. She is the vice president of human resources at McGraw Hill, where she said in an email to Patch that she has much experience in developing strategic plans focused on operational efficiency and results. "I am passionate about education and want to focus on making student-centered decisions based on objective data that points to improved student outcomes and student success," Walker said in the email.
• Jeff Waters — He is a senior trader at Allston Trading in Chicago, according to his LinkedIn page. The page also says he was a primary fundraiser for SOS86. In a 2018 letter to the editor of the Chicago Tribune, Waters endorsed the $140 million referendum that voters later approved in April 2019.

Email david.giuliani@patch.com if you have information about Baron.