After a late entry in the race for school board, the candidates have aligned into two distinct groups, presenting voters with a choice between two very different visions for the district.

David Schaafsma, the director of English teacher education at the University of Illinois Chicago, is now running as a write-in candidate for the Oak Park and River Forest High School District 200 Board of Education. That means his name will not be on the ballot, but voters can write it in.

Schaafsma’s late entry in the race means that six candidates are running for four open seats. Tania Haigh, a candidate who earlier stated her intention to run, was disqualified because she incorrectly filed her campaign paperwork.

Schaafsma is one of four candidates running together. “I’m part of an informal ‘coalition’ of candidates running for this office that includes…Fred Arkin, Kathleen O’Dell and Audrey Williams-Lee,” Schaafsma wrote in a letter that he sent to the Wednesday Journal and posted on social media. “We have been meeting with each other and vigorously support each other’s campaigns.”

The group stands for “high standards and expectations for all students, fiscal discipline, equity and a holistic approach to safety,” according to Schaafsma.

Arkin and Williams-Lee are currently members of the school board. O’Dell, a professor of economics and associate provost at Dominican University, is running for school board after serving on its Community Finance Committee for the last two years.

The remaining two candidates, Nate Mellman and Josh Gertz, are running together as a slate. In June, they were among 100 people who signed a letter accusing three OPRF teachers of antisemitic statements and acts.

The complaint, filed with the Illinois State Board of Education and the Civil Rights Bureau of the Illinois Attorney General’s Office, also accused the school of permitting a culture of antisemitism. School officials have stated that the accused teachers were appropriately expressing their political beliefs.

Gertz, an employee benefits attorney and father of three young children, pointed to his experience working with “dozens of school districts and institutions of higher learning throughout the Midwest.” Mellman, an administrative law judge for the Social Security Administration and a retired Air Force colonel, is the parent of a current OPRF junior and two graduates.

In an interview, Mellman said that filing the complaint was a necessary step. “At some point when there was no action being taken, you have to elevate, and that’s what we did.” In an email, he added, “More specifically, all the 100-plus parents asked for is for the attorney general and ISBE to investigate.”

However, Mellman emphasized that “the issues today that we’re running on are much broader.” Mellman and Gertz are running under the banner of three major objectives, which are “to keep our kids safe,” “to challenge all students academically” and “to safeguard taxpayer dollars.”

When it comes to safety, they charge that the school has “too many fights” and “too many instances of repeat offenders,” according to their campaign website, gertzmellmand200.com.

“The plan, in general, is to ensure the Behavior Response Grid is consistent with state law, and fights should be a Level 5 offense,” Mellman wrote in an email.

The current Behavior Education Plan imposes a range of disciplinary consequences for fighting, from Level 2 (in-school reflection or restorative processes) to Level 5 (out of school suspension or expulsion).

For Mellman and Gertz, challenging students academically means ending an initiative to “detrack” the freshman curriculum, or eliminate differences between honors and regular classes. “Forcing students into a single classroom for basic freshman classes does not challenge those students who are more academically advanced, and it overly stresses and fails to adequately teach students who need more assistance,” according to their website.

To safeguard taxpayer dollars, Mellman and Gertz promise to “scrutinize spending on highly paid administrators, get to the bottom of why teachers are absent more than the state average, hold the line on property tax increases and pay close attention to spending on the over $100 million-plus Project 2,” the website states.

Schaafsma, a father of five including two OPRF alumni and one current student, said he was inspired to run first because of a desire to support his community and the school that his children have attended, but also to oppose Mellman and Gertz. Without his candidacy, at least one member of the Mellman-Gertz slate would fill one of the four open seats.

“I decided to run in this election as a write-in candidate because I and some others saw an urgency that came about because of the candidacy of Mellman and Gertz,” Schaafsma said in an interview. “I felt like I wanted to be an alternative to that way of acting in the world and approaching school matters.”

“I’m not angry,” Schaafsma added. “I’m not pushing a particular agenda. What I am is calm and ready to listen.” Schaafsma added that he hopes to bring his long experience as an educator to the board. “I’m a teacher, and I have a teacher’s perspective on issues,” he said.

Mellman said he is willing to work with other board members to achieve his goals, noting that he has worked with “people from all different backgrounds and religions and countries” as part of his military service.

“And so if the board members, and anybody at the community for that matter, wants to work with Josh and me on challenging each child academically, protecting all students and safeguarding taxpayer money, we’ll work with them,” Mellman said. “Doesn’t matter what you think about any other issue, politically or otherwise. We’ll work with them every day of the week and twice on Sunday.”

The members of Schaafsma’s coalition said they hope to focus on student equity as a top priority. “The school has a strategic plan where we are really focused on learning, we’re focused on leadership, we’re focused on equity and communications,” said Williams-Lee.

Arkin mirrored this statement, saying he “would continue our work in reducing the achievement gap by the monitoring and tweaking of curriculum change in order to break down barriers that some of our students face.”

Both Arkin and Williams Lee said they would focus on fiscal responsibility, student safety and improving facilities, creating “an up to date safe school in which to thrive,” according to Arkin.

O’Dell said defending these values is especially important given the national political climate. “The first week of the new presidential administration has shown us that we need to be ready for new challenges to some of our community’s core values,” she said. “As a member of the OPRF school board, I will take these new challenges to student safety very seriously and advocate for swift responses, based on best practices, to protect our students, especially immigrant and trans and non-binary students. While we don’t know exactly what to expect as federal policies are shifting, we do know that being organized and prepared is absolutely critical.”

The candidates have until April 1 to make their case to voters in Oak Park and River Forest. To learn more about how to register to vote and other local political races, please see the Huskie Voter Guide.

Additional reporting by Jonah Clark