Is School District 74 Just the Tip of the Spending Iceberg?

Quick, name all seven members of your school board. You know, those men and women who decide where our tax dollars go, choose whether or not to expel our kids and decide how much to pay our hard-working teachers.  Can't do it?  

You may be surprised to learn that to qualify as a school board candidate you must be 18 years old, a US citizen and live in the district for which you are running for one year.  That. Is. It.  No accounting experience or advance degrees necessary.  No fancy titles.  And for all intense and purposes no training is needed.  A little shocking, but that's the law.

And perhaps that lack of experience causes school boards to get into trouble.  In Lincolnwood, a recently rocked their board and forced the resignation of several members as well as their superintendent.  You read about the bottles of wine, extensive travel and limousine spending; it makes some of us wonder, is this just the tip of the spending iceberg?

Although laws were not necessarily broken, the public trust certainly took a hit. And while none of the FIVE Skokie elementary school districts have been publicly scrutinized; these boards are subject to the same laws as Lincolnwood or any other in Illinois.  Which also means that board members don’t get paid and do not receive any benefits.  But at the end of the day, a latte or dinner board by a district is one thing and blatant disregard for tax payers who fund our district is another and should not be tolerated.

There is less than a year before the next school board elections.  Perhaps we can all take a little time to find out the names of those on the ballot.