2025 Election Questionnaire: Erin Grych, DeKalb School District 428 Board of Education

Name: Erin Grych

What office are you seeking? D428 Member of the Board of Education

What is your political party? Not applicable

What is your current age? 48

Occupation and employer: Music Teacher, preschool/daycare music and private piano and voice lessons - self employed

What offices, if any, have you previously held? No previous political office

City: DeKalb

Campaign Website: N/A

Education: Bachelor of Music, Vocal Performance Northern Illinois University Master of Music Vocal Performance University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Community Involvement: As an active member of my church over the many years I have served on dozens of committees and missions. Chairing the Vision Team, serving on Church Council, and serving as an adult leader for 18 years for our churches amazing Vacation Bible School and co-leading Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University are a few of my favorites. While a part of the PTA at Jefferson when my kids were there, I was an advocate for children and families, from food, to homework, to curriculum and fun. A couple things that came to fruition through this advocacy was breakfast for everyone in the classrooms and curriculum specifically for dyslexia in our school district.

Marital status/Immediate family: My husband Tim and I have 4 children, 3 of them are current students in DeKalb Public Schools and the oldest graduated from DHS.

Questions:

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.

I would hire based on merit. When you know you are working with the best teachers you can be encouraged and inspired by each other. Making sure teachers are there to teach, and not just coasting. When you have a coasting teacher, they hurt the students and their peer teachers. For example, if you decide as a teacher to not properly teach 8th grade math. Your students feel inadequate and that they must be dumb - you have now negatively affected 150 students. Then, their 9th grade math teacher has to reteach what was missed in 8th grade plus what they are supposed to cover in 9th grade. I’d also like to reward great teachers. As a board we’d need to meet with DCTA to see how we can accomplish this. In the corporate world if you go above and beyond and make a significant difference in your company, you are rewarded with a bonus or a higher than standard pay increase, even small rewards for innovative ideas and cost savings to the company. Teaching is hard work and those that excel impact our students in positive ways, they should be rewarded for their efforts.

If you have children, do they or did they attend public school and was that for all of their K-12 school years?

We have 4 children ages 12-20, yes, they currently all attend, except for the 20 yr old who graduated from DeKalb. During COVID I homeschooled the youngest 2 for the year as I felt there would be major holes in education with part-time virtual school. Otherwise, they have grown up in the DeKalb Schools K-current year of school.

What do you see as the school district’s role in deciding what materials should be available in the library and in curricula?

Significant. We represent our families and communities and bring that with to the Board of Education meetings. That being said, we should have times for community viewing of new curriculum and be open to hearing about curriculum and library books from the community and families.

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?

Please see my responses to previous, similar questions.

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?

Budget with the money we can count on from the local, state and federal. In 2024 51% of funding was from local sources, 35% from state and 14% from federal. Again, I think it would be wise for the board to take a detailed look at how the money is being spent and make changes and cuts where we can.

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?

According to the executive order Title IX is to protect biological women. Women are physically built differently and therefore women’s sports were created to provide a safe space for girls and women to compete and push themselves to achieve. For example, both my high school boys run. If they were to run in women’s sports, they would both qualify for nationals, but as males they currently don’t qualify for state. As we see from Deerfield Illinois, those girls were sexually harassed, by being forced to change in front of a biological male. In corporate life you can report sexual harassment, which this would qualify as. I have a middle school daughter, and I have told her she doesn’t need to change with biological males. Middle and High School years are tough enough without adding this mental stress. Schools could offer a single stall all gender bathroom/locker room to accommodate others.

What is your stance on ICE agents accessing school grounds, and what policies would you advocate for regarding their presence on school property?

The Board already has a policy in place. They will allow only that which is legal. I would comply with the laws.

What are the top three issues that the school district is facing right now?

Potential loss of federal funding and lawsuits if not compliant in getting rid of DEI, Supporting Title IX, and ending radical sexualization of our children. Diversity Inclusion and Equity: Lack of high standards from and for our students, 2 tiered standards for consequences, low standards in homework and exams from no letter grades in elementary schools, to multiple retakes in middle school and high school, late work accepted most of the time for full credit, middle school and high school scoring in weighted separate formative and summative scales that encourages kids not to bother doing the homework and participate in class, as both have little effect on their grade. We need to have high standards from and for our students, hire on merit, not meeting a quota number for race, which is racist, equality in opportunity for success and failure, not outcomes, bring back the focus to the basics: Reading, Writing and Math. Supporting Title IX executive order. Our girls need a safe place to go to the bathroom, change in the locker rooms and have competitive sport opportunities with other biological females to challenge them and push them to be their best. We also need to protect our school district from a lawsuit of sexual harassment. Ending radical sexualization of our children. Currently the board approved in 2022 the radical Comprehensive Sexual Education. Gender identity is taught beginning in kindergarten, masturbation by 3rd grade, visuals and details in anal sex in middles school…. There are ways to opt-out but are not easily accessible on the school site. If you currently have a student enrolled and would like an opt-out form, please google Illinois Family.org opt-out form or Awake Illinois also has an opt-out form.Our students are far behind in their reading and math scores for standard tests. We need to bring our families back into their children’s education and schools by choosing curriculum and communication that connects families together with their children. When families know what their children are learning in school, they can help support it by having conversations, read together, be aware of what the schools are teaching their children. By choosing math curriculum that families relate with they can help at home with homework in elementary school. We need to continue and support the science of reading and phonics in schools and support at home.

What is your position on allowing students to use cell phones during school hours?

D428 implemented this this year, a stop to cell phone use during school hours, outside of lunch. When I spoke with teachers, when this first happened, they saw a decrease in student stress and an increase in student engagement and learning. Sounds like a win. That being said, students resorted to bringing in other devices like tablets to access the same distraction and lack of strong follow through by all teachers and staff have caused it not to be as successful as time progressed through the year. I am for the ban, students with medical needs can use other devices from the school ie. to monitor blood sugar and parents of highschoolers can email their student, not the case for middle school or elementary. There are always school phones, and the offices are quick to relay messages and even call to the classroom where your student is at. Sycamore middle school even has police alarms to pull in case of emergency. A ban on all non-school district assigned devices would allow for an environment of less stress and more focused engagement and learning.

Do you think cell phone policies should allow exceptions for emergencies or specific educational purposes? If so, how would these exceptions be defined?

The schools have lots of resources and if the teachers see a need for a class set or a few for videoing, etc. we the district should provide what is needed for education. Currently the High School has invested in video and camera equipment that is high quality that would fulfill the need for phones to video/photo for class. Marching band you can access the drill on your Chromebook, not just your phone.

What steps would you take to address concerns about cyberbullying and inappropriate content access through student cell phones?

Phones would not be used at schools. There are plenty of choices for families to purchase protection and block sites or be able to see what your student is going on.

Should students be able to use AI in schoolwork?

I think it is important to embrace the positives of AI. That being said, students still need to learn materials for themselves. So, classwork, tests and papers may need to be administered by paper and pencil to assess a student’s own knowledge and points of view about a topic.

What is your plan for making district financial reports, including budgets and expenditures, publicly available and easy to understand?

Currently you can access the expenditures in the agenda for each meeting, to whom and for what the bills and reimbursements are for. I think it would be great to post the budget on the school district website for all to access. You can go on now and see how much each teacher and administrator make per year in pay and benefits too. I would continue to update that yearly.

How would you involve parents and community members in the decision-making process for curriculum or policy changes?

I think holding curriculum nights/days where the new potential curriculums would be out to peruse and have teachers/administrators there to guide parents and community members through the differences, positives, and negatives of them. I also think having curriculum displayed at the literacy nights that are already held at elementary schools and combine them with nights that there are already events at middle school and high school, i.e. orientation or parent teacher conferences. Having samples up on our school district websites with links to the curriculum would allow all to view on their own.

What is your position on banning books in school libraries or classrooms, and how do you define the criteria for such decisions?

I am for banning sexually explicit books. Just as we don’t allow our elementary and middle school students to use fire or knifes. We should so protect them from sexually explicit books. If their families so choose, they can borrow them from the public library or purchase them on their own. I feel that they are minors, and it is our job as adults to protect them. They do not need to be sexually harassed by having to read sexually explicit books for class and they don’t need them in the school or classroom libraries. Currently D428 has both sexually explicit books in their curriculum and in their libraries. I would also listen to parents and community members about additional book concerns for library and classroom.

How would you balance maintaining appropriate class sizes with the current teacher staffing levels?

With Mitchel elementary school being built there should be a lower level of teacher/student ratio in the elementary schools district wide. Decrease the administrative spending and use that money to put towards general assistance in classrooms where they are there for all the children. A small teacher/staff to student ratio means more individualize attention for students and teacher/staff are better able to track students learning.

Do you believe the district is allocating enough resources toward hiring and supporting teachers, and if not, what changes would you make?

Belvidere and West Aurora have similar percentage numbers of low-income student population. They spend less $ per student $15K and $18K then D428 $19 K per student. Belvidere and West Aurora have better test scores, Belvidere has lower teacher/student ratio and both Belvidere and West Aurora pay their teachers more than we do by $6000+ according to the Illinois Report Card. I would like to work with DCTA to find a way to give bonuses or higher increase in pay to those teachers who are excelling, going above and beyond to educate our students. As I stated before I’d like to temporarily hire additional reading resource teachers in the elementary schools as the current teachers are stretched too far and cannot support all the students the way they need to be supported.

How will you make sure you are accessible to your constituents?

The school district provides an email address for each board member. After contacting me that way if people wish to talk on the phone, I’d be happy to set up a time to talk.