Challengers fail to make case at SHS
After attending a forum at Stevenson High School recently and listening to all the candidates for District 125 speak and respond to questions, I will be voting for the candidates in the United4Stevenson slate — Moons, Lubin, Roberts and Weisberg.
While I was initially impressed with each of the candidates and their desire to serve on the Stevenson school board, by the end of the forum, I was left with few answers about the issues of the three challengers and even less information on what they proposed to do about them. Powell, Brady and Cardella asserted that the incumbents have not been financially responsible and promised, if elected, to bring our taxes down and cut spending in “noncritical” areas, but did not provide any examples of what they considered “noncritical” or how they would reduce spending while also keeping their promise to “improve academic ranking”.
The March 13 Daily Herald front page article on school district finances listed Stevenson as one of the “fortunate few” to stay in the black despite a weak economy and unreliable state funding.
The challengers also asserted that SHS’s academic excellence and rankings were declining. Again, we heard no specifics on what they believe is causing any decline or how they propose to fix it. Year after year, Stevenson has seen improvement in student SAT scores and the number of students successfully completing AP courses and exams continue to rise, so clearly the incumbents and administration are doing something right.
The third topic repeatedly raised by the three challengers was parental involvement, advocating parental input in selecting curriculum and book choices. There are already choices for students and parents who object to or may be uncomfortable with certain reading material, so I am left to wonder: what are the real issues in promoting parental involvement in curriculum?
SHS is currently financially stable and academically excellent. It is visited regularly by teachers and administrators from across the country hoping to take home some of it successful practices.
Why, oh why, would we want to mess with that success? Please join me in voting for United 4 Stevenson’s Moon, Lubin, Robert sand Weisberg.
Camy Gould
Long Grove