Six candidates, including one who has made allegations of antisemitism against Oak Park and River Forest High School, have filed to run for four open seats on the District 200 Board of Education. It remains to be seen who will stay in the race, since objections have been filed attempting to remove three of the candidates from the ballot.
Of the six candidates, two are incumbents and four are challengers. The incumbents are Frederick D. Arkin, who is running for his third four-year term on the board, and Audrey Williams-Lee, the board vice president. Williams-Lee was appointed to the board in 2023 to fill a vacancy left after another board member, Kebreab Henry, resigned.
The challengers are Tania Mattera Haigh, Kathleen Odell, Joshua Gertz and Nathan Mellman. The latter two are teaming up as a slate for this election, according to a Nov. 22 Chicago Tribune story.
On June 30, Mellman and Gertz were among 100 people who signed a formal letter of complaint to the Illinois State Board of Education and the Civil Rights Bureau of the Illinois Attorney General’s Office, accusing three OPRF teachers of unprofessional conduct and antisemitic statements and acts, according to an article written by Trapeze in October of this year.
The complaint also accused the school of permitting a culture of antisemitism. School officials have stated that the accused teachers were appropriately expressing their political beliefs.
Three Oak Park residents, Caren Van Slyke, Dean Christ and James Poznak, filed identical objector’s petitions to Mellman’s candidacy. First, they claim he did not file a required document, the receipt of statement of economic interest form. Second, they said his still unresolved case against the school represents a conflict of interest.
Mellman has filed an objection of his own against Williams-Lee, alleging that the signatures on her nominating petition should not count because they come from the “7th District,” and “there are no voters residing in a ‘7th District’ that can vote for the office of Board Member in the Oak Park and River Forest High School District 200 Board of Education.”
In addition, Gertz filed an objection against Haigh, claiming that Haigh’s nomination papers do not contain a statement of candidacy, in violation of the Illinois Election Code. At press time, the Illinois Board of Elections, which will rule on the objections, marked all five as “under advisement,” which means they are being deliberated.
