A letter to the editor submitted by Karen Horwitz to the Wilmette Life in Wilmette, Illinois

School board elections are the only voice citizens have. If they are controlled by administrations, that means an administrator has the freedom to do just about anything during his reign. And based on what is happening to teachers, they will do just about anything.

It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.-----Josef Stalin

Five years ago, I lived through a school board election when unbalanced reporting in the local paper helped to manipulate the outcome in favor of my former superintendent. Recently, I noticed that our high school district, or the New Trier caucus, was experiencing a parallel situation.

I read the letters for several weeks and similar patterns emerged. Incumbents were unhappy that they were not slated. A caucus member walked off the board in protest just as four had done in 1997. She accused the caucus members of political maneuvering to keep incumbents off. Caucus members wrote into the paper, dismayed that they were being falsely accused and slandered. I responded to keep history from repeating itself, hoping that I could alert my neighborhood to what appeared to be a political agenda in motion. Unlike five years ago when I was an insider and knew just what was going on, this time I had no inside knowledge of the politics of our high school district. In fact, I had hoped they were above this, but realized how unlikely that was based on my knowledge of districts all over the country.

Without knowledge of the covert agenda, I responded, knowing there apparently was one, a sign someone was up to something. I wanted to avoid discouraged, honest citizens from being duped into avoiding participation in the future - precisely the results that administrations cherish. SCHOOL BOARD ELECTIONS NEED TO BE THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE SINCE THAT IS THE ONLY WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY FOR PEOPLE TO BE HEARD; IF THE ADMINSTRATION IS A POWER BROKER RATHER THAN A BELIEVER OF DEMOCRACY, THE CHECK AND BALANCE THAT GUARANTEES DEMOCRACY IN OUR SCHOOLS IS ELIMINATED. AND THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE WILL PLAY NO PART IN HIS REGIME.

Don't Let It Happen Again

The New Trier Caucus seems compromised by politics, in my opinion; the public needs more information to arrive at any meaningful decision about the caucus system. In the fall of 1997, tactics appeared to be utilized to sabotage the efforts of the Avoca Caucus, which resulted in four members walking off in protest. Two incumbent candidates, Janice Feinberg and Marilyn Horwitch, were not slated for the upcoming election and despite the 5/4 majority vote for new blood, four members decided to support those two incumbents. The Wilmette Life published an opinion that the then caucus president, Earon Davis, might have had "an agenda," since everything was fine at Avoca. It was not fine in my opinion.

I was a tenured teacher in 1997, at Avoca West School. I believed that schools should be accountable to parents. From my experience, I found that they were not.

In May of 1997, the aforementioned candidates, who according to an article in the Wilmette Life, were allegedly "dumped" by the Caucus, had received my attorney's letter stating that unless they ordered the administrators to stop making decisions that hurt children, there would be a lawsuit. They ignored this plea. In July of 1997, I filed an EEOC charge of age discrimination, concerned both about my rights and the quality of the education for the children. In my EEOC charge, I claimed that in spite of my excellent evaluations, I experienced discrimination from the Avoca administration such as being denied opportunities as well as being assigned to teach fifth grade laboratory science. ( I was a certified reading specialist and hadn't taken a science course in about thirty years.) These two non-slated candidates had ignored this letter and allowed decisions such as this, yet they won the election because, in my opinion, the public was not informed.

Their rubber-stamp voting continued.

I approached the board with details of wrongdoing. A sixty-parent petition asking the board to listen to me was disregarded also. Their response was "they would not investigate." The Board ordered me to be examined by their law firm's psychiatrist who conveniently determined I was delusional and paranoid since I "imagined there were problems in the district and imagined that I was being harassed."

I filed a lawsuit in October of 1998 against Avoca School District for age discrimination, retaliation, and defamation amongst other charges. In it I mentioned the District's alleged violations of Special Education laws as well as numerous retaliatory actions taken against me. They voted to terminate me in April of 1999.

As of June 2000, Avoca has spent over $430,000 on legal fees as reported by this paper. (Keep in mind there are around 700 students in this district.) At my dismissal hearing, the district submitted a letter sent by one of my parents who protested the actions against me. The following sentence was missing: "Throughout the years, past experience has shown that what the parents want and what the children need is not important. It is what Dr. Sloan wants is goes." This missing sentence was followed with "as a parent with two younger children coming up through the system, I beg of you to please stop hurting our children." This parent supported my alleged "delusion" that there were problems in the district and contrary to the decisions of the Board, Dr. Sloan was not doing the fine job they had alleged. However, the sentence referring to him was missing.

The two non-slated candidates were two of the five board members who voted to support Superintendent Sloan's agenda to dispose of me in spite of this parent's plea. You be the judge. Was the caucus wrong to want new independent Board members?

Recently, Linda Huntley accused the New Trier Caucus of using Soviet Union tactics. What is more Soviet Union than using psychiatric exams on dissenters? As citizens we need to probe beneath the surface to see who is using these tactics and how they are able to do so? With the published suggestion that the 1997 Avoca Caucus had an agenda, and no information about problems in the district, it may have assisted Superintendent Sloan with keeping his incumbents and thus the votes he needed.

In 2000, Avoca had another election. My situation, then public, provided parents with insider information. The two board members who voted independent of Superintendent Sloan and did not vote to remediate and terminate me are now the president and vice president of the Avoca School Board. . I believe that had the Caucus continued to support the independent citizens that they had slated, I would still be teaching at Avoca and monies spent on legal fees could have provided something meaningful for the students of this district. Citizens need balanced information to assess what is going on. Do we have it now?

Authentic elections cannot happen when people are uninformed and administrators have the opportunity to play politics. I do not believe the issue is caucus or no caucus. I believe the issue is citizens need more information about the real politics of our public schools to protect their children and themselves.

Particulars of my experience will be revealed in a book, which I expect to publish in 2003. Also, details of other teachers' experiences as well as mine are available at www.EndTeacherAbuse.org, the first web site revealing truths about education in America. I urge you to visit this site and discover that malfeasance is a national phenomenon.

Our group believes that silencing teachers who advocate for children/parents is merely a tactic that allows administrators to further their covert agendas without interference - an agenda of eliminating parents from the loop. By stacking the boards, they maintain absolute power. The election of the school board, the only vehicle parents possess to assure that their voice is heard, is easily sabotaged.

The current situation may or may not be similar to that of 1997, but the public needs to have more facts to know why we are hearing such opposing "facts" from caucus members who participated in the same process. Who would want to participate in a process that results in being smeared in the local paper? If good citizens refuse to participate in our education process, the path is cleared for agendas without parental input.

Political maneuvering appears to have occurred in what might be the most educated zip code in the U.S. With reports of outrageous greed as well as of priests molesting children, it is hard to believe that people still see our administrations above corruption. This current caucus fiasco is taking place with all eyes only on the caucus members and their alleged agendas.

During the last caucus farce, I submitted an article to the Wilmette Life to help people understand what was going on. The former editor said it had nothing to do with the election. I wish they would have let the voters decide. Our children's futures are at stake.

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PARENTS NEED TO KNOW