‘What went wrong here?’: Show examines history behind Arlington High’s closing

Why did Arlington High School close?

The question has perplexed Chip Brooks ever since he moved to Arlington Heights, where many still wax poetic about the school, and remain sad and angry over its 1984 closing.

A lawyer by trade, Brooks — the owner and impresario behind the Hey Nonny music club in downtown Arlington Heights — dusted off old Daily Herald newspaper clippings, court cases and other histories (even going back to the founding of the country) to examine the root causes of the school’s demise.

Many alumni and longtime residents are familiar with the series of events in the early 1980s: a precipitous decline in enrollment across Northwest Suburban High School District 214; development of a set of criteria for deciding which schools to close; the school board rearranging that criteria, after Arlington was initially deemed to be near the bottom of the list; contentious board debates leading to an eventual 5-2 vote; a judge siding with residents who sued to keep the school open, before an appellate court overturned the decision; the June 8, 1984 last day.

But that’s just the post-intermission portion of “Death of the Cardinals — Closing Arlington High,” Brooks’ 90-minute retrospective that’s part spoken word drama and part history lesson, with live music accompaniment from a seven-piece band and audience participation. The show returns to the Hey Nonny stage Tuesday and Wednesday night following its premiere last September.

Brooks and band members play the roles of school board members, citizens, judges — and even Thomas Jefferson — in their encapsulation of some 30 public meetings over the course of 200 years. Varied musical interludes feature works ranging from Irving Berlin to John Lennon.

Brooks’ thesis — that the very establishment of township-based high schools in Illinois in the late 1800s was a major culprit in Arlington’s closure a century later — is a new take on a decades-old local controversy, but one for which wounds in the community are still fresh.

“I’ve noticed 40 years later, people are still really upset about this. So, I said it would be interesting to learn what really happened here. What went wrong here?” said Brooks, a Kalamazoo, Michigan, native who arrived in Arlington Heights three years after the school had folded.

“You didn’t have a local school board. You had a school board that covered two whole townships,” Brooks said. “They have to make decisions. You can see they’re not trying to deal with Arlington Heights, they’re trying to deal with this big area. You can see how Arlington Heights as a town would get lost in that process.”

Brooks said there was “some chicanery” on the board to fudge the numbers, but acknowledges the elected panel had broad legal discretion in deciding which schools to close.

The village board was silent on the issue, even though many residents supported keeping the school open, Brooks said.

“To me it was a combination of things that went wrong … to get to what I think in the end was a bad result. It was a bad result for the town,” he said.

Some current Arlington Heights village board members are expected to be in attendance for the Wednesday show, while the children of John Rowe, the school’s last principal, will be there Tuesday.

Jon Cofield, who was a freshman when Arlington closed in 1984, attended the first performance last fall.

“It conjured up those same emotions of sorrow,” said Cofield, who later graduated from crosstown Hersey High School. “When we were going through it at the time, there was a sense of angst and concern about our beloved school being closed. (The show) almost kind of re-tapped into that energy from back when it was happening.”

It’s a distinctly different presentation than Cofield’s own documentary about the school. With 1984 graduate Brian Sullivan, Cofield filmed interviews with 25 people and interspersed them with archival footage and photographs of the school’s 62-year history. The 75-minute retrospective, “The Lady in Red,” premiered in 2007 to sold-out crowds at the Forest View Educational Center — now District 214’s administration building that had a much shorter history as the other shuttered Arlington Heights high school (circa 1963 to 1986).

While the film is a remembrance, Brooks’ show is more of an investigation.

“Those people who are familiar or directly associated with the school would love it,” Cofield said. “But if you’re interested in history, the fact that it’s talking about the origins of the village of Arlington Heights, the origins of educational systems in general, it’d be fascinating for any audience member to see this piece. It’s a wonderful bit of education and entertainment.”

Doors open at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday for the 7:30 p.m. shows at 10 S. Vail Ave. Tickets, priced between $30 and $45, are still available at heynonny.com.

Hey Nonny also offers free livestreams of the performances at 7:30 p.m. both nights at volume.com.