Safeguard tax dollars.

Josh and Nate’s Priorities

Josh and Nate will scrutinize spending on highly paid administrators, get to the bottom of why teachers are absent more than the state average, hold the line on property tax increases, and pay close attention to spending on the over $100 million-plus Project 2.

One of our priorities will be to ensure D200 wisely spends taxpayer money.

D200 spends over $25,000 per student, and spent $113 million in 2024 alone.¹

There are some areas of concern. First, OPRFHS has been slowly losing students but spending more on administrators. In 2024, the high school had 3,226 students, a 4% drop from 2021 and a 5.5% drop (about 200 students) from 2018.² But the number of full-time equivalent administrators increased by more than 50% in the last four years.³ We will be dedicated to effective tax spending. We will critically analyze which administrative positions are necessary for an outstanding education and if money can be redirected to directly improving student education.

This graph displays the total number of Administrators (measured in Full-Time Equivalent).

Second, while the high school is blessed with wonderful, experienced teachers, OPRF has had lower teacher attendance than the statewide average.⁴ In 2024, 4 out of 10 teachers missed 10 or more days of school. In 2022, over 70% of teachers had 10 or more absences. In 2023, it was over 50%. So, while the trend is getting better, it is still worse than the state average. This is while the district pays its teachers more than the state average. There are obviously some valid reasons for absences — maternity/paternity leave and teacher or family illness. But, teacher absences resulting in the need for substitute teachers costs the district money. Further, the absence of a student’s regular teacher affects student performance.⁵ We want to attract and retain excellent teachers. We want to give them great benefits. But we can do that while also paying more attention to the bottom line.

This graph displays the percentage of teachers with fewer than 10 absences in a school year.

Third, our property taxes have increased far more than inflation or the Cook County average. In Cook County, the average increase was 4% in 2023. Inflation for that year was 4.1%. Yet, Oak Park and River Forest property taxes went up more than 5-15% on average. Some of us experienced increases approaching 30%! Of the amount we pay in property taxes, approximately 29% go to D200.⁶ While we can’t affect what other taxing districts do, we can and will sharply scrutinize the taxes D200 imposes.

Fourth, we have a huge construction project going on at the high school in the form of Project 2. Part of the cost will be paid for by issuing debt certificates that will be paid back out of the regular tax levy.⁷ Regardless of what your opinion was on the pool or how Project 2 should have been financed, we now have these financial burdens that have to be scrutinized. We need to ensure we have constant, detailed oversight for this project.

We also need increased transparency of what we are spending. We need to benchmark our expenses to a peer set and provide trend analysis of administrative numbers, administrative salaries, consultancy costs, and other major expenditures. Revenues and expenses need to be clearly visible to the community on a Board webpage dashboard. Any significant changes should be explained.

Nate and Josh have the background, aptitude, and inclination to keep a tight rein on costs and expenses and to ensure D200 spends each dollar wisely.

Josh and Nate’s Other Priorities

Click each priority below to read more:

Keep our kids safe.

Keeping our kids safe will always be our top priority. Having a safe learning environment is critical to enabling our kids to learn.

Josh and Nate will improve the school’s Behavior Education Plan to reflect state law and ensure it is enforced, they will ensure the school is as prepared and is as safe as possible for active shooter situations, and they will be transparent on disciplinary action taken and the discipline imposed.

Challenge all students.

We need to ensure all students are academically challenged.

While a one-room schoolhouse with 30 students may require a single classroom with one teacher for all students, we are blessed to have a well-resourced high school of over 3,200 students. Forcing students into a single classroom for basic freshman classes does not challenge those students who are more academically advanced and it overly stresses and fails to adequately teach students who need more assistance.