Arbdella “Della” Patterson said she was ready to give up her chair on the Proviso Township High School Board of Education, but only if she could find another Maywood resident to run in her place.
When she asked around, she said the answer was always all the same.
“I got responses like ‘it’s a thankless position, it’ll beat you up, drag you, no matter what you do you can never do enough’” she said. “And it’s an unpaid position, but for me when I get to see students succeed that’s a form of payment.”
Patterson now seeks her third consecutive term on the D209 board. She said it wouldn’t be fair to her neighbors for the board to go through an election cycle without anyone representing Maywood’s interests during board meetings.
“I think it’s important we have some say because Maywood sends the most students, so how are you not going to have Maywood at the table,” Patterson said. “You’d have taxation without representation, and that’s a big problem for me. Maywood has very high taxes.”
Patterson said she will continue to lean on her experience as an educator to try and help run a district that will put its pupils first.
“I know kids, I know when they’re succeeding, I know when they’re somewhat getting by, and I know when they’re not getting by,” she said. “I know what my heart is and I know what it means to me to help young people. It’s still a passion for me.”
Patterson said the biggest challenge for the board members elected this cycle will be to promote stability in the district administration. D209 has had more than a dozen superintendents in the last 20 years, Patterson said.
Some of them have been interim leaders.
“We must have stability and we haven’t had that,” she said. “Without stability our district will not and can not move forward.”
Patterson was publicly critical of the process that put former Illinois State Board of Education interim-director Krish Mohip in the superintendent’s seat, calling for the search to be done over and saying that it had been “unfair.” Patterson said that her issues weren’t with Mohip himself, but a lack of transparency during the search.
She said she’s committed to supporting Mohip and making sure his stay in Proviso Township is lengthy and productive.
“What we must understand is that the Board of Education’s job is to set policy for the superintendent to implement, the superintendent runs the day-to-day operations,” she said. “My job as a board of education member is to work with him collaboratively.
“Proviso can be a difficult district, it takes some grit and know-how. I think he needs to have the right administrative team around him.”
Patterson’s service on the board began after she’d already established herself as a fixture in the Proviso Township schools across her now 19-year career in the district. She’s enjoyed having a direct role in students’ lives, taking pride in being able to understand young people’s problems and making herself part of the solution. Patterson recalls a class of 2024 graduate from Proviso East she had a particularly important relationship with.
“There was a kid who was refusing to come to school, I said just give me one day, let me talk to him,” she said. “To this day, not one other person than the kid and his family and my kids and I know what I did to push this kid through. When I say push him through I mean every morning he was to call me, if he was five minutes late it was ‘get up you’re running late.’ But he graduated last May.”
Patterson said she’s been an advocate for students in all those roles, and that serving on the board is no different.
“If not me then who,” she said.
