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taxpayer's avatar

Of course it is a conflict of interest, but I presume it's not unlawful. Aren't the majority of District 65 Board members employed as "educators" or "educational consultants" in other districts? (Inconveniently, the District web site doesn't seem to have this information.)

As somebody said some years ago, school board members aren't paid, and everybody's mad at you, so few would be willing to do it unless they have some other interest;.

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Tom Hayden's avatar

Regarding D65 Board, here's what I know:

- Biz definitely consults with other Districts, that's her full-time job. She's consulted with ETHS, Lake County, District 73

- Joey has a consulting firm, outside of his day job, "Many Consulting LLC" but I don't know who his clients are.

As far as I know, the other board members don't have side gigs in the educational business but have full time jobs:

- Sergio Hernandez works for the ISBE as an "Equity Lead"

- Soo La Kim is a Grad School Dean @ Northwestern

- Mya Wilkins works in marketing for a bank

- Omar Salem is a teacher @ Niles North

- Donna Wang Su is an admissions dean @ Medill

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Frustrated's avatar

Would Sergio's job at the ISBE be a conflict of interest? Isn't that the government organization that is supposed to oversee public school districts? Isn't the ISBE the organization that gave D65 the award for financial excellence right before the board election? And Sergio submitted an entry form for it and lied and said our bus savings for the new school would be $5 million? Seems a little off.

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Tom Hayden's avatar

That is correct. I don't think there is a statute which says ISBE employees can't tip the scale on stupid awards ... but it was RIGHT before the April 2024 election:

https://evanstonroundtable.com/2023/03/28/district-65-celebrates-8-teams-and-individuals-who-earned-those-who-excel-award-from-illinois-state-board-of-education/

Like a week before. Stay tuned for part 2 of this series.

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taxpayer's avatar

Thanks for that. I see that they're all in "education" (Daily Northwestern says Joey Hailpern " is a school principal in Lake County") except Mya Wilkins. She works at JP Morgan Chase, reasonably described as a criminal enterprise (https://wallstreetonparade.com/?s=chase) that is also the sole bank handling Cook County real estate tax payments.

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