With the election behind them, the unofficial winners in the New Trier High School Board of Education race are looking to the future and what they envision for the coming term.
The four candidates slated by the New Trier School Board Caucus have commanding leads in their race for the District 203 board, according to unofficial results from the Cook County clerk’s office.
With New Trier district residents asked to vote for four candidates, Kimberly Alcantara led the pack with almost 21%, followed by Sally Tomlinson with just over 20.5%, incumbent Keith Dronen received just over 19.6% in his bid for a second term and Avik Das pulled in almost 18.6%.
Independent candidate Julie Cho received 11.4% and fellow independent Chad Prodromos finished with just over 9%.
Looking ahead, Alcantara, Tomlinson and Das are speaking out on what they would like to accomplish and the overall issues facing the high school board.
Over the course of the last year, factions emerged within the New Trier community on how to operate during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
“To the extent that campaigning for the school board has strained community bonds, the newly installed board should work together to model very open and deliberate efforts to focus the different views and perspectives visible during the campaign on the work of fully reopening our schools and resuming work to advance each of the six frameworks of the New Trier 2030 Strategic Plan,” Das wrote in an email.
Tomlinson also offered her perspective on bringing the community together.
“I believe one thing that already unites our community is our desire to provide our children a world-class education in a fiscally responsible way,” she wrote. “As a board member, I will never be able to please all 55,000 residents all the time. However, I can deliver transparency, a quest for information, strategic thinking, and a willingness to listen to all constituents when making decisions that seek to deliver that mission.”
The candidates also spoke about the biggest issues they see facing the high school in light of the coronavirus pandemic.
“With vaccination numbers growing each day, I expect that full, in-person “re-entry” to school in fall 2021 will be New Trier High School’s most pressing issue,” Alcantara wrote. “Many students may struggle as they return to in-school instruction after a year of learning in a hybrid or remote environment. In setting a course of action on how to transition successfully to full, in-person instruction, I will support the administration’s assessment of our students’ academic growth and deficits, as well as close attention to mental health, social, and emotional effects on students.”
Tomlinson noted that she is concerned about mental health and intellectual readiness for the students.
“Kids have experienced loss in so many different ways and we should be prepared to address even higher levels of need as students return to the school,” she wrote. “Second, this summer, I think both the administration and the teachers are going to have to figure out a way to gauge what kind of learning gap occurred student by student. And then, they are going to have to be prepared to adjust their curriculum to help close those gaps or accelerate learning.”
Another major item for the school board and the greater New Trier community is how the school will operate in a post-COVID-19 environment.
“NTHS will continue being synonymous with educational excellence where the school’s vision ‘to commit minds to inquiry, hearts to compassion, and lives to the service of humanity’ will resonate even stronger in light of all we have endured and overcome as a community throughout the pandemic,” Das wrote. “I hope to support the vitality and credibility of that vision through advancing the New Trier 2030 Strategic Plan despite whatever progress may have been delayed over the past year or so.”
Alcantara added she would like to see a newfound appreciation for being physically present in the school with classmates, teachers and friends, as she believes students are looking to connect or re-connect with one another.
Dronen declined to comment citing his position as a current board member.
The election results are scheduled to be certified later this month and the new board members are slated to be seated on the board in May.
Daniel I. Dorfman is a freelance reporter.
