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Endorsements: Crusius, Glasgow, Page, Oiejniczak for Arlington Heights Dist. 25

Voters in Arlington Heights Elementary District 25 have five solid candidates from whom to choose in the April 9 election. All are thoughtful and well-versed on the district’s challenges. Three incumbents are running for four 4-year seats. They are Philip N. Crusius, 56, a software engineer; Denise Glasgow, 47, who has experience as a school administrator; and David Page, 45, a financial adviser. The incumbents, whom we endorsed four years ago, are active and experienced, an advantage as the district moves to hire a new superintendent, conclude a new contract with teachers and deal with parent distrust as the district works on a plan to revamp the special education program. They deserve to be re-elected. The challengers — Richard Oiejniczak, 43, an insurance company executive, and Herb Ruterschmidt, 53, a small-business owner — both have been active in the schools and the community are knowledgeable on the issues and are thoughtful in their approach. They do however, have quite different views of the current program. Oiejniczak wants, for example, to see more emphasis on language programs (he was against the recent vote to drop Chinese), and structured before- and after-school programs, while Ruterschmidt is in general more critical of the current leadership, favoring more emphasis on the basics, with cuts if needed coming in language and administration. We give a slight edge to Oiejniczak. District 25 is one that can and should offer useful extras.

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