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Name: William “Bill” Spengler
What office are you seeking? Member, Board of Education, Valley View CUSD 365U
What is your political party?
What is your current age? 54
Occupation and employer: Technology Manager, Bank of America
What offices, if any, have you previously held? No public elected or appointed offices
City: Resident of Bolingbrook for 23 years
Campaign Website: https://bill4vvsdboard.com
Education: AB, Economics, The University of Chicago
MS, Financial Markets and Trading, Stuart School of Business, Illinois Institute of Technology
Community Involvement: Throughout our 23 years in the Valley View community our primary involvement has been with organizations and activities that appealed to our 3 children. I served as President of the BHS Music Boosters organization for several years, and in other roles throughout the years while my kids were students there. I also served in roles with the BHS Theatre Boosters and BHS FANSS (Families and Neighbors Supporting Students). In the community, I helped with the stage crew at Theatre-on-the-Hill and even tried my hand as an assistant coach with the Bolingbrook Youth Baseball League. Currently, I volunteer time with BHS Athletic Boosters and the Valley View Educational Enrichment Foundation.
Marital status/Immediate family: Married to wife Mary for 29 years
Three adult children, all successful graduates of the Valley View School District
Questions:
How can the district improve reading and English proficiency and state test scores?
Reading is a skill that has to be learned and then honed. Proficiency comes from practice as much as instruction, and we need to make sure we’re supporting our learners in ways that encourage that practice. We need to make sure we have grade-level and lexile-level appropriate materials available for students both in the classroom and at home. We need to make sure those materials include diverse perspectives that make the material accessible, engaging, and challenging for all.
Beyond encouraging the practice of consistent reading to hone that skill, if our focus is on scores, we need to identify those populations most at-risk for meeting standards and tailor instruction to help improve their outcomes. This will almost certainly take some focus and effort on the part of our teachers and support professionals. As a district and a community we collectively need to be prepared to make that investment and provide resources where they will be most effective.
What are the top three issues that the school district is facing right now?
- Ensuring a safe and secure learning environment for our students and staff. This issue is broad and ranges from students feeling physically secure on campus to cybersecurity concerns that increasingly face our public institutions.
- Attracting and retaining an excellent, caring, committed workforce. While we cannot control all variables here, we must do our best to support teachers and other educational professionals to encourage their long-term commitment to our students and community .
- Preparing students with foundational skills, particularly in reading and math, as well as future-focused learning to maximize the potential for all students. We must weave established pedagogy together with new modalities and approaches to make sure our students are ready for life after they leave VVSD.
What is your stance on ICE agents accessing school grounds, and what policies would you advocate for regarding their presence on school property?
I align with the prior federal administration’s position that ICE should refrain from seeking to apprehend unauthorized immigrants at or near sensitive, protected locations. That includes restricting ICE presence on school property and the unnecessary, traumatizing activities that such enforcement might precipitate. I would encourage the Board and district administration to work with state and local officials to make sure that while we are following appropriate laws we remain accountable for the broad safety of our students, teachers, and staff members. Supporting all in our community and the protection of their rights is also one of our responsibilities.
What is your position on allowing students to use cell phones during school hours?
The District’s policies provide an appropriate framework for governing cell phone usage by students during school hours (see Policy 7:190 - Student Behavior). Broadly, that framework recommends devices be powered off or otherwise out-of-sight. I agree with that as a baseline. The policies also provide guidance around specific behaviors that are prohibited and align to my position. These include using devices in inappropriate locations that violate the rights of others, possessing or sharing indecent visuals of oneself or others, or violating student conduct rules regarding cheating and other academic behavior. The policy also provides latitude for local administrators and classroom teachers to provide exceptions. Here again, I agree, as that degree of on-site decision making seems to best address the situations (positive and negative) that might need to be managed.
Do you think cell phone policies should allow exceptions for emergencies or specific educational purposes? If so, how would these exceptions be defined?
The District policy provides an exception to usage prohibitions where “it is needed in an emergency that threatens the safety of students, staff, or other individuals.” (see Policy 7: 190 - Student Behavior) As noted in my response to the prior question, the policy also provides latitude for classroom teachers to provide exceptions that would be suitable for specific educational purposes. In my view, this on-site decision making best addresses usage. While we as a Board should be providing some sensible guidance, teachers need to be able to manage their classrooms in collaboration with their local administration.
What steps would you take to address concerns about cyberbullying and inappropriate content access through student cell phones?
Bullying, including cyberbullying is contrary to Illinois state law and District policies. This is well documented in Policy 7.180 - Prevention of and Response to Bullying, Intimidation and Harassment. The Board’s responsibilities should focus on providing a strong set of standards and operational supports through this and other policies that help our educators, learners, parents and other community members learn about the harms of cyberbullying, become familiar with how to report it, and understand the consequences of bullying activities. Those frameworks and guidelines should be regularly reviewed and updated as needed to account for changes in governing laws and evolving technologies.
What is your plan for making district financial reports, including budgets and expenditures, publicly available and easy to understand?
District financial information is presented regularly at Board meetings, and is available for public review via download from the Board website. This includes past, active and proposed budgets, current expenditures and annual financial audits. See as example the January 2025 Treasurer’s Report at [https://go.boarddocs.com/il/d365u/Board.nsf/files/DDLRYA703DDB/$file/Treasurer’s%20Report%20January%202025.pdf](https://go.boarddocs.com/il/d365u/Board.nsf/files/DDLRYA703DDB/$file/Treasurer’s%20Report%20January%202025.pdf). The information can be rather dense, and school finance is inherently complex with federal, state and local revenue streams and multiple siloed expenditure accounts. To support better community understanding, as a Board member I would encourage the administration to continue to provide accessible narrative to improve everyone’s understanding.
How would you involve parents and community members in the decision-making process for curriculum or policy changes?
Board Policy 8:10 - Connections with the Community provides a governing framework for how the Board, working with and through the administration (namely the Superintendent) can and should engage parents and other stakeholders. Further, Board Policy 6:40 - Curriculum Development provides for the Superintendent as part of curriculum review routines to seek “input from a cross-section of teachers, administrators, parents/guardians, and students, representing all schools, grade levels, disciplines, and specialized and alternative programs.” I would encourage all parties to avail themselves of these opportunities to the maximum extent possible.
What is your position on banning books in school libraries or classrooms, and how do you define the criteria for such decisions?
Banning books is wrong. Further, it’s been consistently ruled as unconstitutional. We should be working to include more books with diverse perspectives in our libraries and classrooms.
Further, existing Board policy outlines guidance for the Library Media Program (see Policy 6:230) which discusses important aspects of the District’s library program. Key amongst these is reliance on qualified professional and paraprofessional resources for the selection and organization of materials, technology and other suitable resources. Seeking guidance from subject area experts and other professionals stands as a basic tenant for most of my positions on topics of education and curriculum.
How would you balance maintaining appropriate class sizes with the current teacher staffing levels?
Based on Illinois School Report Card numbers, at a macro level Valley View has two different situations with respect to class size. Our high school student-teacher ratios are very competitive against state averages. Meanwhile, our elementary numbers reflect larger class sizes relative to state norms. I would encourage the administration to focus on opportunities to improve the elementary numbers through targeted hiring and rebalancing over time. It would also be good to review school-level details to look for opportunities to reshape attendance and teacher alignment. Some programs (e.g. special education) require special considerations, and “appropriate class size” might not be obvious from top-level reporting. Finally, I would look at the balance between administrators and teachers to make sure that we have appropriate, competitive balance there.
Do you believe the district is allocating enough resources toward hiring and supporting teachers, and if not, what changes would you make?
The recent report on the efforts of the District’s Human Resources team to attract and hire teachers showed they are employing a thoughtful, multi-pronged approach, and I would encourage them to continue to look at ways to expand on those efforts.
One of the best ways the Board can support teachers is to listen to what they have to say. I can promise to be an attentive, active listener.
How will you make sure you are accessible to your constituents?
One of the most important ways the Board can engage with constituents is to be present and participatory at Board meetings. While this may seem trite, in my experience some Board members miss as many meetings as they attend. For my part, I will commit to missing as few as possible, and to be attentive and engaged throughout the process.