District 65, District 202 elect new school boards

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Illustration by Meher Yeda

Four candidates were elected Tuesday out of a slate of eight to serve on the Evanston/Skokie School District 65 board.

Tal Schatsky, Senior Staffer

Unofficial results show voters re-elected Joey Hailpern, Soo La Kim and Elisabeth “Biz” Lindsay-Ryan, the board’s current vice president, to serve on the Evanston/Skokie School District 65 board. Newcomer Donna Wang Su is also projected to win a seat in the race, though Marquise Weatherspoon trails her by 46 votes.

Kim has over 20 years of teaching and administrative experience in higher education, and is currently the assistant dean of graduate programs in the School of Professional Studies at Northwestern. She is a founding member of Lincoln Elementary School’s equity committee and has been on the board since filling a vacancy in April 2020.

Hailpern, a resident in the Walker Elementary school community, is a school principal in Lake County and the father of four children. He has served on the board since 2017 and is the chair of the finance committee.

Lindsay-Ryan is an equity, diversity and inclusion consultant and professor. She is a leader of the PTA Equity Project, which reallocates funds from the highest revenue D65 PTAs to other D65 schools. She was originally appointed to the board in August 2019.

Su is the associate director of operations/program manager and an adjunct lecturer for the Farley Center at NU. Within the district, Su is the district’s PTA Council president and serves on the PTA Equity Project enrichment committee.

Days before Tuesday’s election, District 65 parents of color led a march and rally Saturday, encouraging community members to vote for these four elected candidates, whom they characterized as the candidates most committed to equity.

With four positions open, District 202 reelected current board members Gretchen Livingston, Patricia Savage-Williams and Patricia Maunsell, who were the only candidates on the ballot. The board will need to appoint a member to fill the fourth open seat.

Livingston, a former attorney and a parent of two Evanston Township High School graduates, will be serving her fourth term. Savage-Williams, also a parent of two ETHS graduates, is a long-time Evanston resident with nearly 40 years of experience as an educator. Maunsell has worked in education for 30 years and is the parent of one current ETHS student and one ETHS graduate.

This is a developing story, and will be updated as more information becomes available.

Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @BinahSchatsky

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