Nathan “Ned” Wagner, Theresa Kelly and Claudia Medina are coming under fire from, presumably, allies of the Children First Party, who represent a political machine. They can’t defend their record of failure running the schools, so they’ve resorted to anonymous hit pieces and trying to confuse Forest Park voters to manipulate our local election for their gain. I’ve received six of these now — last election cycle they spent over $8K per mailing. Plus signs, paying people to poll watch and to put them up because they don’t have any people to help — why so much money on a non-paid board member position, I wonder?
The real question is, what are you, the community, the people going to do about it?
Enough is enough. Let’s vote in real candidates who want to effect real change for our children and for our communities.
Theresa Kelly is the longest-serving board member on the Proviso District 209 Board of Education, standing alone against those elected with the help of the political machine. As part of a board member’s role and to retain her master school board member status, she is required to attend professional development seminars to bring back ideas and programs to better the school district.
Over 16 years on the school board, she has attended approximately 16 conferences, often with other D209 members. During these conferences, Theresa Kelly brought back $7.5M in grants to D209 and national programs such as the Algebra Project.
According to the Illinois Association of School Boards, “Many district mission statements include language about helping students become ‘lifelong learners.’ That means looking for opportunities to increase knowledge and skills to do their job more effectively. The same lifelong learning mission should apply to board members as well.”
“No one is born knowing how to be a good school board member. It is learned and refined over years by: 1) board room experience; and 2) professional development.”
Connie Brown
Campaign manager of the D209 Together slate
