Former District 91 school board member Rafael Rosa said he will run for school board again in April 2013.
“I was appointed to the board in 2010-2011 and was on for about a year,” Rosa said. He had previously served on the Citizens Advisory Council. “Then there was the first contested school board race since I’ve been here in 13 years, and I didn’t win.”
John Tricoci won the election with the third-highest vote total in April 2011, Rosa said. “It was a very congenial race. I was not upset that John won. We had three positions and four good candidates.”
Rosa graduated from Cornell University with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. He works as vice president of Education at the Chicago Academy of Sciences and the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum.
“There will be new science standards for the state of Illinois released in January,” he said. “I’m extremely interested in science – that’s my background – and I work at a science museum.”
Rosa said the museum already does a lot of work with schools that will complement the upcoming science standards. “I can offer my help so that the right questions are asked at District 91 so we are meeting students’ needs,” he said. “Even if I’m not on the board, I’ll be asking those questions.”
Rosa has an eighth-grade child at Forest Park Middle School and a child at Proviso Math and Science Academy.