There are many important issues the District 203 school board will need to address in the upcoming years including:

Due to the fiscal mismanagement in Springfield the pension funds are woefully underfunded. The most likely solution the General Assembly will enact is a pension shift requiring the local school districts to pay for the employer's share that the state government has been paying. This will be instituted gradually over several years. If this comes to pass District 203 needs to be very conservative in controlling its costs to enable the budget to continue to balanced. My experience balancing budgets at the Lisle-Woodridge Fire District will be beneficial.

The Common Core is increasing the academic rigor for both teachers and students. The Board needs to keep a close eye on implementation and assessments to make sure that the changing curriculum is being handled to the best of our abilities. If teachers are not prepared to teach the new material and if students are not able to master the subjects tougher requirements will not help our student body.

As we saw with the public reaction to the proposed boundary changes and school calendar issues the Board could improve its internal procedures and the communication it has with the public. For instance, in the boundary issues the consultant was to address both crowding at Mill and Beebe and under-utilization (over 1,000 empty desks) at many elementary schools. However, after the outcry over the "Supposal" the experts were let go and the under-utilization problem was ignored.

The Board does a good job at transparency, but it can improve. While the checkbook is available by digging into BoardDocs it could be more user-friendly like the system the DuPage County Auditor has on its website. Also, under the Open Meetings Act the Board meets semi-annually to review closed session Minutes to decide if all or part can be released to the public. The Board has not released any closed session Minutes for years, even though items such as property sales or negotiations have been concluded. Obviously, items such as discipline and other personnel matters should be held closed indefinitely.