In a school district that seemingly does not know who its superintendent will be when schools reopen this fall, it was refreshing to hear a presentation at the June 11 school board meeting from an educator talking about an academic issue. 

Rodney Hull, principal of Proviso East, made the case for adding a fourth year of math to the district’s graduation requirements. Right now the District 209 Proviso Township High Schools mandate just three years of math to graduate. That is problematic, given the stunningly abysmal math test scores that students at both East and West are posting. And those scores are more alarming when you consider the low-level math courses many, many students are taking and failing.

How bad is it? On the 2023 state report card just 1.7% of juniors at East are at the necessary performance level in math to succeed on the SAT test. We’ll note that, statewide, a still discouraging 19.7% of Illinois juniors are math proficient. The problems in math most certainly begin in the district’s feeder schools. That’s reality and the township high schools have to deal with it better than they are now. 

Hull noted that the district was unable to hire two teachers for grant-funded posts, who would have taught pre-Algebra to freshman. What does that say about the district that it could not find teachers to hire? 

Right now the Proviso High Schools require four years of English and four years of social studies to graduate. East and West should match that in math.

David Ocampo, a school board member, offered support for making that change. Rightly, though, he noted that such a substantial change should come through a process, a task force, which includes administrators and teachers. 

That won’t happen because this district still does not have a permanent superintendent. The school board necessarily bounced James Henderson from that post a year ago. He had to go. A series of interim superintendents filled the gap last school year while a search was conducted. Now that search has gone sideways. No one is talking about next steps. And D209 may well enter a second year without a permanent educational leader.

We’d be stunned if this wasn’t all so predictable from this failing and flailing institution.

Yes, on local grocery tax

It is some political sleight of hand. JB Pritzker gets credit for eliminating the state tax on groceries. And his budget deal allows the local towns that lose income through this action to impose their own local tax on groceries.

Fair enough. Forest Park needs to move forward with such a tax. Losing $400,000 in annual revenue from Walmart, Living Fresh — and soon, Aldi — is not an option. Forest Park’s village government operates on very thin margins right now.

No one will object to this new tax. Mostly no one will notice.