A week after former Orland High School District 230 board member Mohammed Jaber resigned, 18 candidates applied for his seat, with school board set to appoint someone by April 30.
Four candidates were called for interviews, which the board will conduct this week, said Jennifer Waterman, district communications director.
Despite resigning in frustration over resistance to adding Arabic as a world language in the district’s curriculum, Jaber said he hopes the person who fills the vacancy continues to support this proposal.
Four of the 18 applicants said they support the curriculum and speak Arabic, although they said there needs to be more positive collaboration and understanding between the board and the community supporting the proposal.
Those Arabic supporters are Duha Hamed, Moe Hammad, Mousa Joudeh and Sophia Yasin.
Two candidates, Jennifer Durkin-Fekete and Vince Oluwaleke, ran unsuccessfully for the Orland Elementary District 135 board in April 2025.
Overall, applicants who spoke with the Daily Southtown expressed a need for unity on the board to address alleged tension. Not all candidates could be reached.
Lucas Hawley, one of the applicants and a district alum, said he has witnessed tension and even infighting on the board since COVID-19, which he partially attributed to the pandemic, the Arabic world language proposal and other issues affecting schools.
“I just want to bring a sense of unity and be someone who’s going to be a real team player and do what’s best for the kids, quite frankly,” he said.
Mousa Joudeh, another applicant and a district graduate, said he would like to see more diversity because the district is diverse and includes a lot of Arabic-speaking families.
About 14% percent of families in the district listed Arabic as their home language, and 10.4% of district parents requested to receive school communications in Arabic, according to district records.
Joudeh said he supports the Arabic world language proposal, which he said is especially important because Arabic-speaking families in the district commonly can not afford consistent private lessons.
As a father of young children on track to attend district high schools, he said the curriculum would help his family tremendously.
“It would help me give them more education of our background and it would help me, instead of sending them to private school or private lessons on weekends, where it costs a lot of money,” he said. “It would keep the kids close to the culture.”
Moe Hammad, another applicant, said as an advisory member of the district’s Buildings and Finance Committee, he noticed a high number of involved, Arabic-speaking families, along with people who would like to learn more about the language.
He said he wants to help the community and district administration work together on the initiative.
Yasin and Hamed, Arabic-speaking district parents and applicants for the board position, both said they support the curriculum and that it needs to continue moving forward, but they want to see it go through a careful, correct process.
Yasin and Hamed also both said they would like to see more parent representation on the board.
Durkin-Fekete, one applicant who ran for District 135, said she would like to see more teacher representation.
A few District 230 board members have emphasized the Arabic world language proposal needs to go through a process, and said it’s not the board’s job to propose curriculum, only approve it.
The district has a course proposal form and a written procedure for adding curriculum that usually takes about one to two years, Waterman said.
Waterman said the district has not added any new courses since the 2024 and 2025 school year, when they added international cuisine.
The board has 45 days since Jaber resigned March 30 to appoint a someone to fill the vacancy.
The district gave board members a copy of all 18 applications and asked members to vote for their top candidates, Waterman said. Four applicants who received multiple votes and were called for interviews.
Waterman also said the number of applicants was slightly lower than previous years.
awright@chicagotribune.com
