When school board candidate Dede Wamberg sliced a finger badly in the kitchen last week, she could not help wondering whether it was an omen.
There has been nothing but angst, bickering and mudslinging for the candidates for the Barrington District 220 board, and Wamberg is more than ready for that to end Tuesday, when voters go to the polls.
“Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought volunteering for the good of the community would be this painful and cost this kind of money,” said Wamberg, who has spent at least $5,000 campaigning for a job that pays nothing. “I can’t wait until it’s over.”
Her sentiments have been echoed by board candidates across the suburbs as sleepy, mom-and-pop school board races turn into intense, and even mean-spirited, battles.
Gone are the days when it was simply enough to be a respected community resident to win a seat. Now candidates face rising campaign costs, negative attacks and allegations of forgery and lying on nominating petitions.
Candidates also are grappling with growing involvement by special-interest groups eager to finance those who share their agendas. Political undertones can be found in what are supposed to be non-partisan elections.
“There is a trend nationally for people to become interested in school boards for a fairly narrow interest as opposed to community interest,” said John Lewis, associate director of the Center for Governmental Studies at Northern Illinois University.
In the northwest suburbs, candidates for the Barrington District 220 board are embroiled in one of the most contentious and divisive melees. But other battles are playing out in Palatine-based District 211, Des Plaines District 62 and Arlington Heights-based District 214.
In addition, in communities such as Wheaton, Hinsdale and Palos Heights, candidates have been aggressive in trying to bump competitors off the ballot, challenging the validity of signatures on their nominating petitions–a standard tactic in partisan races.
In the race for the Wheaton Community School District 200 board, four of the nine candidates’ petitions were questioned, and three were bounced off the ballot. In Palatine, incumbent Anne Koller and Ray Ivancic were forced to defend the validity of their petitions, and candidate forums have become more explosive.
“It has never before been so highly contested, with people challenging petitions and signatures,” said Koller, 78, a District 211 School Board member for 19 years. “I don’t like making it political and partisan. I see people spending lots and lots of money, but it’s usually people with an ax to grind or representing a point of view.”
To some extent, school board races have always been emotional because they address two of the most treasured things in life: children and money. Nothing hits a resident’s checkbook more directly than the property tax. And school board members have significant influence over children’s futures.
But as schools are asked to provide more services and, in turn, are requesting more money, the races are getting more volatile. Also fueling the fire is the controversial reliance on the property tax as the primary source of school funding in Illinois.
“We’re not seeing really reform-minded candidates but ones extremely critical of schools because of a decade-long portrayal of schools being incompetent,” said Tom Glass, a professor of education administration at Northern Illinois University. “A lot of politicians found school-bashing could be extremely lucrative at the polls.”
Nowhere is the discord as great as in Barrington District 220, which covers 11 northwest suburban communities and 72 square miles. Twelve men and women are running for five seats. The protagonists include candidates with Libertarian ties who have advocated alternatives to public schools, a well-organized tax-watchdog group and a nonpartisan school caucus that has made endorsements.
Full- and half-page ads have appeared in local papers, with one paid for by a group called In Support of Public Education that attacked the two candidates with Libertarian connections.
The intensity of the race has turned off some of those running.
“I probably wouldn’t have run if I’d known it would be as time-consuming, expensive and emotionally arduous as it has been,” said Jane Hansen, whose nominating petition was challenged, causing an expensive legal battle.
Hansen, who planned to spend $2,000 on her race, estimates that she has doled out $8,000.
The turmoil in Des Plaines District 62 centers on Supt. Bob Willis, who has made controversial decisions, including turning Iroquois Junior High into a year-round school.
Half of the eight candidates for four open seats are rallying around a platform that calls for his removal.
“When a superintendent is a focal point of discontent on the board and in the community, people do take sides, becoming more liberal or more conservative,” said Jerry Floyd, associate executive director of the National School Board Association.
“The public environment in which elections are held in this decade is a lot more volatile than 15 to 20 years ago. It’s a reflection of politics in general.”
