Candidates for Lockport District 205 board’s 2-year seats talk budgets, teacher contracts and retention

Lockport — Residents of Lockport Township High School District 205 got an opportunity to meet some of the 15 candidates running for a spot on the board in the April 1 election.

The LTHS 205 Foundation hosted the candidates forum in the East Campus auditorium, with current board members Ann Lopez-Caneva and Candace Gerritsen, as well as board hopefuls Ron Farina, Paul Lencioni, Eric Nush, Michaelene O’Halloran, James “Jay” Roti, James Shake, Wendy Streit and Michael Deane.

Incumbent candidates Lou Ann Johnson and Lance Thies, along with challengers Theresa “Tammy” Hayes, Thomas “Tommy” Hill and Scott Nyssen were unable to attend.

The candidates running for a pair of two-year seats on the board are Farina, O’Halloran, Lopez-Caneva, Shake and Thies, who was not in attendance.

Ron Farina

Farina is a former teacher and currently works as the math and business division chair at Sandburg High School in Orland Park.

Farina said his goal in running for the board is “to ensure all students have the same positive experience at Lockport High School as my kids had” and to “promote commonsense solutions to help bridge the gap of political divides in the community.”

While some candidates pointed to weak test scores in English language arts and math as a district weakness, Farina noted that although academic improvement is a priority, “we aren’t comparing apples and oranges” when looking at Lockport and neighboring districts, including Lincoln-Way and Lemont.

“We have 29% low-income students coming from seven or eight feeder districts,” Farina said. “That’s not easy to manage. We need to look at how we are supporting kids who need the most help, and to realize that college is not the only path.”

Farina praised the district’s commitment to providing career and technical education classes; advanced academic options such as Advanced Placement and dual-credit classes to help students better prepare for their futures; and the school coffee shop, which is designed to give special needs students work experience.

“Sometimes success isn’t measured by test scores,” Farina said. “Sometimes what’s important is how much the students have grown.”

On the issues of budgeting and union negotiations, Farina said, “I would like to align the budget with district goals,” and emphasized the need to reach beneficial contracts with teachers and other union staff members.

“We need to actively listen to teachers and administrative concerns and explore creative solutions,” Farina said, adding that the market for teachers is competitive, especially from wealthier districts offering higher pay.

He also suggested more deans could be hired to help teachers deal with disciplinary and behavior problems.

Michaelene O’Halloran

O’Halloran is an elementary school teacher in Milne-Kelvin Grove District 91 in Lockport, where she has been an active member of the teachers union as well the district’s strategic planning, math curriculum and leadership committees.

O’Halloran said academic performance should be a district priority and that the board must “find ways to close the gaps” in student test scores. One of the ways she suggested this should be done is putting teachers' and students' needs first when considering the budget.

“First and foremost, we need to make sure students have what they need and that we have what we need to retain our staff,” O’Halloran said when asked about her approach to budgeting. “We need to look at the historical data and decide from there where we need to make changes.”

She said that “the culture and climate of the schools should be an important focus for everyone” when approaching collective bargaining. “No matter how you might disagree, when you are negotiating, we should be looking to find common ground and work toward those same goals,” she said.

O’Halloran also praised the district’s focus on offering advanced classes and career-focused curriculum, noting that her stepdaughter benefited from the Wilco Area Career Center’s collaboration with the high school.

Further, she praised the board’s decision to create the student board member positions, which she said “give students a chance to have their voices heard.”

Aside from test scores, O’Halloran cited Central Campus as the largest issue facing the board, as choices will need to be made in the coming years about the future of the facility, and funding construction could be difficult after the defeat of a referendum meant to address the issue last year.

Ann Lopez-Caneva

Lopez-Caneva has been a board member in District 205 since 2013 and currently serves as board president. She also has worked as an accountant for Fairmont School District 89 for 21 years.

“I want LTHS’s great programs and academics to remain strong while remaining fiscally responsible and continuing to adapt to the changing needs of our students,” Lopez-Caneva said, noting that she tries to lean toward “a conservative budget” each year when looking at district spending.

On the issue of collective bargaining, Lopez-Caneva said the majority of negotiations in the district are handled by Superintendent Robert McBride and Director of Business Services Stephanie Croix, although they receive direction “directly from the board.”

She said her priority when it comes to negotiating with the teachers union is “getting the best contract for the teachers while being fiscally responsible.”

“Hiring the best teachers brings the most student success,” she said.

When asked what she feels the district has done well in recent years, Lopez-Caneva praised the increased enrollment in dual-credit and Advanced Placement classes as well as the school’s internship partnerships and participation in WILCO programs.

“We want to ensure all our students have equal opportunities to succeed academically and can become productive members of society,” she said.

Financially, Lopez-Caneva also noted that, despite complaints about taxes increasing, District 205 has lowered its tax rate each year for the past five years.

James Shake

Shake, who referenced his past as a small-business owner and a union member throughout his answers, came into the discussions more aggressively than most candidates. He opened his comments with criticism of incumbent board members who supported e-learning and mask mandates for students during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“What happened in 2020 was an absolute disgrace,” he said. “Anyone who voted to mask our kids should be ashamed of themselves. We are an independent school district, and we need to make our own decisions.”

He continued, noting, “there was no indication it would do anything but destroy our kids' educations for two years,” despite numerous studies by the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicating that the measures did reduce the spread of COVID-19.

Shake called the district’s test scores “unacceptable” and said that “what matters most is the education of students.”

Although Shake suggested he wanted to take a closer look at curriculum to improve student test scores, he also noted that “we have to start cutting wasteful spending,” although he did not indicate where said waste was in the budget.

“Budgets aren’t complicated,” he said. “I’ve run a small business and a household, just like a lot of residents, and it’s not complicated. This one just has a lot of moving parts.”

While saying “I’m not talking about cutting programs,” Shake said the current $79 million budget is too high and that spending initiatives need to be called into question.

One of the places Shake seemed keen to cut is in teacher contracts.

“The magic word you need to learn when negotiating is ‘no,’” he said. “We can’t let unions run all over us.”

Later, he said he would not cut salaries.

Shake also was hesitant to list a single good thing the district has done in the past five years, arguing that “every year the taxes go up and the quality of education goes down.”

He also drew negative comparisons between District 205 and Lincoln-Way, despite the economic disparities that Farina pointed out between the two districts and the fact that LTHS retains a 93% graduation rate.