How to reunite a divided District 57 community? Board candidates weigh in

How can the Mount Prospect Elementary School District 57 community come back together in the wake of divisive debates over students' return to the classroom during the pandemic?

Candidates for district's board of education discussed that question during a recent forum hosted by the League of Women Voters.

Six candidates are running for four seats on the school board in the April 6 election. The field includes incumbent board members Vicki Chung, Jennifer Ciok and Eileen Kowalczyk, and newcomers Robert Hattenhauer, Kevin Bull and Corrin Bennet-Kill.

Kowalczyk, the current board president seeking her third term, said the panel considers community engagement crucial.

"With other school districts making different decisions than our school district, it has been causing that divisiveness," she said. "We just have to continue community engagement and bring the community back and to know that we do hear their voices."

Bennet-Kill, a stay-at-home parent in the district, said there will be academic and social-emotional fallout from the past year of mostly remote learning.

"I believe that the solution to that is a concerted and focused effort on building social-emotional skills for our children," she said.

The district also needs to make an effort to ask families about their experiences, "so that we can, instead of seeking only to hear the voices that are the loudest, seek to hear all voices and all stakeholders."

Bull, a patent attorney, said the current school board has done an awful job managing the reopening of schools and needs "a healthy dose of the directness, urgency and decisiveness that I believe I could provide."

He criticized the board for sending out surveys with questions that are not actionable, and suggested monthly or quarterly coffees with the board to spark community dialogue.

"That dialogue with the board is critical," he said.

Ciok, middle grades network coach for the To&Through Project at University of Chicago, cited the need for focus groups with parents, students and community members.

"We need to do surveying and we need to do some empathy interviews with voices that we don't always hear," she said. "To heal the divisiveness, we need to really make sure that we're hearing all voices.

"The community itself needs to feel welcome both in board meetings and in the schools, and we know that some do and some certainly don't," she added.

Hattenhauer, director of buildings and grounds at Franklin Park School District 84, said he will listen to all opinions.

"I know that a lot of people during the pandemic on both sides felt that they weren't heard, and going forward I would just make sure that everybody feels heard and that no email goes unanswered," he said.

Chung, the school board's vice president, agreed there is a divide within the community.

"All of that is a big issue in our community that we need to address right away," she said.

She suggested the district begin hosting office hours "between a member of administration and the school board members." It could, she said, be virtual or in-person, allowing community members to drop in and engage in conversation.