OPUSD Board candidate wants more parental input




Daniel Bilchik

Daniel Bilchik


By Gregory Koteles
Acorn Staff Writer

The race for the three open seats on the Oak Park Unified School District board of education is one that will be mostly decided by voting parents and at least one candidate thinks parents should have a stronger voice in how their children are educated outside the voting booth.


"I don’t think the board is listening as a whole to the parents," said Daniel Bilchik of his decision to run for the board.


An 11-year resident of Oak Park, Bilchik, 38, has two children, Jonathan and Tara, who attend fourth- and first-grade respectively at Brookside Elementary School. A flooring contractor by trade, Bilchik was motivated to run for the school board in opposition to the open enrollment policy of the district.


"They didn’t seem to have room for people who moved into the community," said Bilchik. "I could buy a $300,000 to $1 million home in the area, and then be told my children can’t go to the local school because there is no room."



Bilchik feels the current board, though dedicated and hard-working, is out of touch with the community and the students.


"… Most of them no longer have children in our schools and do not have a direct interest in the decisions which affect us and our kids," he said of the board in a written statement.


He maintained that substantial opposition from the community was disregarded by the board when it accepted open enrollment for the district.


Aside from open enrollment, Bilchik said he was also concerned about school safety and that he’d like to see more emphasis placed on security and welfare of students.


He also said more diligent monitoring of district expenditures was needed to prevent construction cost overruns and delays such as that with the Oak Park High School library.


Soliciting and responding to feedback from the community would also be high on his list of priorities, Bilchik said. Keeping a "free flow of communication between the board and the community" would help ensure parent involvement with Oak Park schools, he said, and bring the board closer to its constituency.


Bilchik has been involved with the Triunfo YMCA’s Indian Guides and Princesses, a program similar to Boys and Girl Scouts, but putting special emphasis on father-son/father-daughter relationships. He served as federation chief for the program in 2000-01 and is currently on the board of directors for the YMCA.


"It will be a heck of a learning curve for me," Bilchik admitted, if he were to be elected to office. "But I’ve learned through the Indian Guides program that everything can be figured out."


 

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *