Sorry to hijack the thread, but I just received an e-mail blast from a middle school assistant principal with the following text:
“School Board Candidate Forum: Today, I had the opportunity to attend the D65 school board candidate forum at Evanston Township High School. There are 17 candidates running for the school board, and I had the c…
Sorry to hijack the thread, but I just received an e-mail blast from a middle school assistant principal with the following text:
“School Board Candidate Forum: Today, I had the opportunity to attend the D65 school board candidate forum at Evanston Township High School. There are 17 candidates running for the school board, and I had the chance to hear from 12 of them. One quote that stood out was from a candidate who quoted Barack Obama: “We are the change that we have been waiting on.” As we discussed with our students back in November, it’s important to be responsible citizens and understand the role of elections in shaping our community.
I’d also like to share that one of our very own 6th grade parents, Daniel Lyonsmith, is running for the school board! It’s exciting to see our community members stepping up to be part of the change. I encourage you to take some time to learn more about the candidates and their platforms, as there will be an important election in April to elect four new members to the school board.
Get Informed Before the Election: For those of you looking to learn more about the candidates, please visit Kuumba Evanston’s website after January 31st. There, you will find responses to questions that the community has asked the potential school board members. This will be a great resource to help you make an informed decision when voting in April.”
This seems utterly inappropriate for a school administrator to use school resources to a) talk about the election, b) mention ONE candidate and exclude the others, c) offer a link to some private advocacy group to “learn more about the candidates.”
It seems to me that it may even be illegal—or at least against the school board’s ethics code. Electioneering using school district resources was
an issue a few years ago when Candance Chow was running for state rep.
Why are they pushing this Kumba group and not, say, Foiagras?
It just seems out of line for a district employee to be even be talking about the election.
I know the organizers of the event and was at the event. I will absolutely be sharing some of the stuff that Kuumba is going to post. I'm a big fan of the organizers, this was probably the most well run forum I've been to in a while.
Yeah, staff definitely should not send emails like this. I wrote about something like this that happened in Skokie, where a staff member promoted a specific slate of candidates:
Ultimately, it is technically "election interference" which makes me feel nuts to say but the recourse for staff is mostly administrative because this is small fry to the state. This AP should get a warning from HR not to do it, for sure, though. If you got this email, you should forward to D65 Admin and suggest as much. They might want to blanket warn their staff not to do this with District resources!
I'm going to email the board and admin about this because they really should warn staff not to do this. This one is pretty innocuous but if they end up promoting various forums, it gets problematic and god knows D65 spend too much on lawyers as it is. Niles HS had to spend a ton of money and ended up doing a lengthy investigation of the issue.
I agree that it is innocuous, but when you announce the candidacy of someone and then say "It’s exciting to see our community members stepping up to be part of the change": that's about as close to an "endorsement without endorsing" as you can get.
Yeah just to be clear I only think it’s innocuous because all the candidates were there. If that wasn’t the case, the excluded one could have a case this was biased against them
I don't know if they'll be endorsing but yeah, you're not wrong here and that's basically what happened in Skokie too. I haven't heard a peep from OPAL this cycle, are they still around?
I emailed the District about this and they sent out an email to staff with some guidelines. I bet if you were to ask the lawyers, they would tell you to remove Dan's name for sure but otherwise it's okay.
Wait, Ms. Brunson... Is she related to Tierre Brunson, the former D65 Chief of Culture and an old Horton friend?
Sorry to hijack the thread, but I just received an e-mail blast from a middle school assistant principal with the following text:
“School Board Candidate Forum: Today, I had the opportunity to attend the D65 school board candidate forum at Evanston Township High School. There are 17 candidates running for the school board, and I had the chance to hear from 12 of them. One quote that stood out was from a candidate who quoted Barack Obama: “We are the change that we have been waiting on.” As we discussed with our students back in November, it’s important to be responsible citizens and understand the role of elections in shaping our community.
I’d also like to share that one of our very own 6th grade parents, Daniel Lyonsmith, is running for the school board! It’s exciting to see our community members stepping up to be part of the change. I encourage you to take some time to learn more about the candidates and their platforms, as there will be an important election in April to elect four new members to the school board.
Get Informed Before the Election: For those of you looking to learn more about the candidates, please visit Kuumba Evanston’s website after January 31st. There, you will find responses to questions that the community has asked the potential school board members. This will be a great resource to help you make an informed decision when voting in April.”
This seems utterly inappropriate for a school administrator to use school resources to a) talk about the election, b) mention ONE candidate and exclude the others, c) offer a link to some private advocacy group to “learn more about the candidates.”
It seems to me that it may even be illegal—or at least against the school board’s ethics code. Electioneering using school district resources was
an issue a few years ago when Candance Chow was running for state rep.
Why are they pushing this Kumba group and not, say, Foiagras?
It just seems out of line for a district employee to be even be talking about the election.
Anyone else see this or similar stuff?
I know the organizers of the event and was at the event. I will absolutely be sharing some of the stuff that Kuumba is going to post. I'm a big fan of the organizers, this was probably the most well run forum I've been to in a while.
Yeah, staff definitely should not send emails like this. I wrote about something like this that happened in Skokie, where a staff member promoted a specific slate of candidates:
https://www.foiagras.com/p/niles-township-high-school-election
Ultimately, it is technically "election interference" which makes me feel nuts to say but the recourse for staff is mostly administrative because this is small fry to the state. This AP should get a warning from HR not to do it, for sure, though. If you got this email, you should forward to D65 Admin and suggest as much. They might want to blanket warn their staff not to do this with District resources!
I got that email as well. It is wildly out of line for the administration to use district resources in this way.
I would think that Dan Lyonsmith would be upset that he was name-checked by a Horton confidant.
He is on my list of preferred candidates, but if the old regime is pushing him.....
I'm going to email the board and admin about this because they really should warn staff not to do this. This one is pretty innocuous but if they end up promoting various forums, it gets problematic and god knows D65 spend too much on lawyers as it is. Niles HS had to spend a ton of money and ended up doing a lengthy investigation of the issue.
She also posted it online: https://secure.smore.com/n/gxd73k-the-sixth-scoop
I agree that it is innocuous, but when you announce the candidacy of someone and then say "It’s exciting to see our community members stepping up to be part of the change": that's about as close to an "endorsement without endorsing" as you can get.
Yeah just to be clear I only think it’s innocuous because all the candidates were there. If that wasn’t the case, the excluded one could have a case this was biased against them
You were ok with her mentioning one candidate in her email? That seems worse to me than promoting the Kumba website.
Do you know if Kumba is going to endorse candidates? I have never heard of them, but she is telling people to check their website.
We have had private groups like this hold forums and then offer endorsements, like OPAL.
If this Kumba group is endorsing candidates, that would make it 100% non-innocuous.
I don't know if they'll be endorsing but yeah, you're not wrong here and that's basically what happened in Skokie too. I haven't heard a peep from OPAL this cycle, are they still around?
Interestingly, she removed Dan's name from her post after Theo shared the above link here.
In the revision she removes Dan's name but left the link to Kuumba, however.
You can see the original here to compare: https://web.archive.org/web/20250113200304/https://secure.smore.com/n/gxd73k-the-sixth-scoop
I emailed the District about this and they sent out an email to staff with some guidelines. I bet if you were to ask the lawyers, they would tell you to remove Dan's name for sure but otherwise it's okay.
Wait, Ms. Brunson... Is she related to Tierre Brunson, the former D65 Chief of Culture and an old Horton friend?
Yes, they were married: https://trellis.law/case/17031/2024d002657/tierre-brunson-vs-erica-brunson
Oh boy. Do you know when she was hired? What is with this hiring of family thing?! I wish IL had statutes about this like other states do..
Oh August 2021. Yikes.
Hk
One addendum. This person who sent this has had an interesting career trajectory: Academy of Urban School Leadership -CPS-Louisville-Evanston.
Hmm….