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Name:
Howard Solomon
What office are you seeking?’
Illinois District 428 School board member
What is your political party?
School board elections are non-partison. I choose not to be identified with a political party at this time. I have accepted help with signature gathering from the Democratic party.
What is your current age?
76
Occupation and employer:
I am retired.
What offices, if any, have you previously held?
I have previously been a board member of District 428. I served as the board secretary. I have been a board member of Habitat for Humanity. I have been a board member of Preservation of the Egyptian Theater.
City:
Campaign Website:
I do not have a campaign website.
Education:
- Ph.D. in Instructional Systems Design from Florida State University
- Master of Arts in Education from Northern Illinois University
- Master of Arts in Philosophy from Northern Illinois University
- Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from Bradley University
Community Involvement:
I do not belong to any community groups.
Marital status/Immediate family:
I have one spouse and no children.
Questions:
How can the district improve reading and English proficiency and state test scores?
Begin teaching phonics in lowest grade where students can learn this method of reading.
DeKalb County public schools asked voters in November to support an up to 1% sales tax which officials said would have gone to help pay for needed things such as infrastructure work. The referendum was voted down. What ideas do you have to address aging buildings and infrastructure needs for your school district while not overburdening taxpayers?
Possibly fund infrastructure improvements through “Rebuild Illinois Public Infrastructure” funds for buildings not conforming to the current School Construction Law.
Fiscal responsibility is an important part of elected roles, and a priority for voters. Do you believe the school district budget needs trimming? Why or why not? If you were to cut, where would you do it?
The current board is keeping an eye on the school district budget. The new board, once seated, should make a point of physically checking potential savings when opportunities to save money arise. For example, when the board was offered a building by Jim Mason, board members should have visited and formed their opinion of the building offered before being rushed into making a purchase of the former NIU Nursing School building.
Illinois, like many districts across the nation, is facing significant teacher shortages. What is your idea to recruit and retain educators, including special education, dual-language teachers, etc.
Recruiting may be accomplished by contracts with local high school graduates to whom the district provides some support money to college students enrolled in education programs in recognized colleges within the state of Illinois in return for the college student’s promise to work within district 428 for at least 2 years. Retention may be more likely if, for the first two years of service, salary increases for new teachers were calculated with double the increase percentage already presumed in the district’s contract with DCTA.
If you have children, do they or did they attend public school and was that for all of their K-12 school years?
N/A I do not have children.
What do you see as the school district’s role in deciding what materials should be available in the library and in curricula?
The board finalizes the decisions of committees that are responsible for researching available library and classroom instructional materials. Committees that decide on materials should be composed of subject matter experts (from existing teachers), and should include at least one principal, one board member, and one student who completed a similar course. When a committee decides on new materials, the decision to accept them should become the responsibility of the board and be presented publicly in the open portion of a scheduled board meeting. To facilitate discussion, a final decision should not be voted by the board until the second following board meeting. Recommended new materials should be placed on reserve at the DeKalb Public Library so that members of the public have time to consider the appropriateness of the content of the proposed materials.
Most of local residents' property taxes go to their school districts. Are taxes paid to your school district too high? What would you do to protect the interests of taxpayers?
Nobody likes to be taxed. There may be times when opportunities to reduce the tax loads can be taken advantage of. For instance, the new large company facilities being constructed at the south end of the city of DeKalb can be relied on to increase the tax base. This may allow for taxes to be reduced. Taxes are high here, but they are similarly high in other districts.
Most of the COVID relief money from the federal government is coming to an end. What spending adjustments does your school district need to make to address that?
Just maintain a conservative outlook in regard to new spending. Consult with other school districts who have recently bought into proposals that we are considering for ourselves so that we have a better idea of what works before we make costly investments.
Should Title IX cover sexual orientation or gender identity? What are your views on the use of locker rooms and bathrooms by transgender students and their participating in sports?
Title 9 protects students and employees in schools from discrimination based on sex. To satisfy need for privacy in bathrooms, extend the panels between and in front of stalls to near the floor. Students need a place to eliminate body waste. Bathrooms are it. What students consider their sexual orientation is their decision and is not revealed to others in bathrooms with extended privacy panels. Not asking or telling is expected bathroom behavior of all users at all times. On the other hand, contact sports are the one area of activity where bodily structure is on view. To keep the games and competition fair, play-enhancing drugs are already forbidden. Surgical alteration of the body to accomplish athletic advantage should be considered as similarly forbidden.
What is your stance on ICE agents accessing school grounds, and what policies would you advocate for regarding their presence on school property?
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) actions should occur at national boundaries and at ports of entry. Once a student is registered to reside within the district, the district undertakes the obligation to provide education to that student. That’s what schools are for. The presence of ICE makes it more difficult for the schools to fulfill their mission of educating students because this presence is a distraction. Schoolwork is hard work and the presence of interrupting stimuli increases student cognitive load. The school’s door should be locked when anybody representing themselves as ICE attempts to get in.
What are the top three issues that the school district is facing right now?
- Student behavior issues
- Hiring and retention of qualified teachers
- Excess social activity facilitated through technology gets in the way of student learning
What is your position on allowing students to use cell phones during school hours?
While classes are in session, ringtone and notification volume should be set at 0. In an environment like ours, where each student is equipped with a portable chromebook computer, students can be doing research or learning activities without need to involve cell phones.
Do you think cell phone policies should allow exceptions for emergencies or specific educational purposes? If so, how would these exceptions be defined?
Yes! Emergencies must be allowed to be addressed. Emergency calls from outside the school building should come into the school’s main office which should locate the student and escort the student to the office to be made aware of the emergency.
What steps would you take to address concerns about cyberbullying and inappropriate content access through student cell phones?
Cyberbullying is a form of harassment that should not be taking place. When it happens between students, the parents of concerned students should meet and work out a solution that makes the bullying stop. I don’t want to introduce censorship but believe that the district should work with guardians to make sure that guardians are able to block access to what they deem to be inappropriate content.
Should students be able to use AI in schoolwork?
Just like Turnitin has settings for plagiarism detection, teachers should set a limit for the amount of generated work that a student can claim as his/her own. Go beyond the limit and appropriate credit to the real creator should be given.
What is your plan for making district financial reports, including budgets and expenditures, publicly available and easy to understand?
The reports are presented in publicly attended board meetings. They include powerpoint slides. The meetings are recorded so the content of the presentation is available to the public. The recordings of meetings may sometimes default to a visual of the person speaking. When a power point slide is being shown, the visual image recorded should be the slide and not the image of the person doing the presentation.
How would you involve parents and community members in the decision-making process for curriculum or policy changes?
Such changes are the responsibility of the Board. If they are approved, that approval must take place during the public portion of a board meeting with the approval of the board voted on by the board members and recorded. Educational resources for curriculum should only arise from committees composed of subject matter experts (from faculty), at least one board member, at least one member of the public, and at least one school principal. From the time that a committee makes a recommendation to the board, at least two board meetings must take place to allow time for public comment to be taken into consideration.
What is your position on banning books in school libraries or classrooms, and how do you define the criteria for such decisions?
I reject the idea of banning books. In the event that a book is banned in other places, it should remain in the library until such time as at least one student’s parent or guardian has requested that the contents of it not be made available to the student with whom they are associated. On receipt of such request, the materials should be sequestered and allowed as in-house reference only to students whose guardians have made no such request.
How would you balance maintaining appropriate class sizes with the current teacher staffing levels?
Current teacher staffing for the district is 15 students per teacher which is slightly higher than the state average. The NEA recommendation for elementary class size is 14. The Illinois state average is 21. We’re doing better than the average in the state although we have some way to go to meet NEA standards. The addition of Mitchell Elementary will create the opportunity to reduce class size across the district to meet NEA standards. Boundaries have recently been redrawn. This redrawing should have included demographic information that could be used to bring the class size to the NEA’s optimal level.
Do you believe the district is allocating enough resources toward hiring and supporting teachers, and if not, what changes would you make?
This answer repeats ideas discussed in slide 16: Recruiting may be accomplished by contracts with local high school graduates to whom the district provides some support money to college students enrolled in education programs in recognized colleges within the state of Illinois in return for the college student’s promise to work within district 428 for at least 2 years. Retention may be more likely if, for the first two years of service, salary increases for new teachers were calculated with double the increase percentage already presumed in the district’s contract with DCTA.
How will you make sure you are accessible to your constituents?
The district’s website makes all board member email addresses available. I answer received emails every day.