North Cook News

At the start of the Palatine-Schaumburg High School District 211 school board election campaign, the local teacher’s union hosted a forum that not all candidates attended. 

As previously reported, Moms for District 211 candidate Kristen Steel was not invited to the Northwest Suburban Teachers Union forum in January.

“Apparently they held a forum and I wasn't invited but they invited other candidates,” Steel told North Cook News.

Illinois school board elections are today.

Since then, the Northwest Suburban Teachers Union has endorsed Curtis Bradley, Tim McGowan, and incumbent Anna Klimkowicz in District 211, according to the Daily Herald.

“Allowing powerful teachers’ unions flush with ill-gotten cash and non-diverse partisan leftist views on every political issue roiling America to endorse and fund the campaigns of leftist candidates creates an unfair playing field and robs parents and other taxpayers of the right to determine the outcome of their elections,” said Laurie Higgins, a cultural issues writer with the Illinois Family Institute (IFI), a traditional Christian organization that is affiliated with the American Family Association.

In District 214, the union endorsed incumbents Mark Hineman, Mildred Palmer, and Lenny Walker as well as newcomer Andrea Rauch.

“It should be parents and other taxpaying stakeholders who determine who serves on school boards that make decisions regarding those local schools,” Higgins told North Cook News.

Some local Republican officials view the endorsement as potentially unethical.

“It would seem to me that there's an inherent conflict of interest there, if not an actual or perceived conflict of interest,” Joseph Folisi, committeeman with the Schaumburg Township Republican Organization, previously told North Cook News.

School board elections are non-partisan, which is why the teacher’s union endorsements of school board candidates has generated debate over how the endorsement might affect a school board candidate who votes on a teacher’s labor contract, as previously reported by the Daily Herald. 

“Granting this power to unions is a grievous injustice to D211 taxpayers,” Higgins said in an interview.

The Northwest Suburban Teachers Union did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

“The goal of our all-too-powerful teachers’ unions is to advance its leftist political agenda and obtain yet more benefits for its members,” Higgins said. “The goal of school boards is to represent the interests, values, beliefs and needs of parents and children. In other words, union goals are antithetical to the goals of school boards.”