Is District 113 Faculty Pressuring Students to Support the Referendum?

Update 4/4 at 6 p.m.

The co-chair of CLEAR (Community Leaders Educating and Advocating for the 113 Referendum) has issued a statement responding to claims that District 113 faculty is pressuring students to support the $89 million bond referendum.

CLEAR co-chair Tony Horwitz responds:

"CLEAR is an independent ballot initiative committee, organized to educate and advocate in support of the District 113 referendum. Our organization sent out a registration link for the April 6 and 7th Paint the Town Red activities to our entire database of supporters -- which includes thousands of local residents -- to encourage them to sign up for our get out the vote activities over the weekend. There are also independent student groups who have organized in support of the referendum and have been sharing this link. Our goal is to share the get out the vote message and to encourage voters to invest in public education by voting yes for the District 113 referendum."

Highland Park High School graduate Bryce Robertson also wrote to Patch earlier today to refute the claims from a Deerfield student that faculty pushed students to support the District 113 bond referendum in 2011.

"Were the referendum and their looming projects ever brought up in 2011 in the classroom? Of course they were," Robertson writes. "It was a social issue that was very impactful on the students at the time, and many students were curious about its impact."

Robertson says that there was discussion about the referendum, but never any pressuring on the faculty's part to get students to support it.

"We often had very intelligent and respectful discussion regarding the projects that the district wanted to undertake. We had students who supported both sides of the issue, and the differing opinions allowed for good discussion," Robertson writes. "At no time, however, was it ever suggested or even implied that students must take a position or help out in the political arena."

Earlier: A River Forest resident has accused District 113 of pressuring faculty and students to support and promote the $89 million bond referendum that will be voted on next Tuesday.

Read more: Referendum Campaign Picks up as Early Voting Opens

In a letter to the Highland Park and Deerfield high school district sent on Wednesday, Distict 113 property owner Bruno Behrend attached two emails from District 113 administrators that he said urged faculty "to recruit students to promote the referendum and promote it to students."

The first email, from Deerfield High School Athletic Director Robert Ruiz, asks coaches to register their teams on a website operated by a community group supporting the referendum to indicate when they can go door-to-door in the district to encourage residents to vote in favor of the referendum.

"We want to 'blitz the district,'" Ruiz's email reads, "encouraging those who have not yet voted to vote on April 9th."

Behrend, who also sent his letter the Lake County State’s Attorney, the Illinois Attorney General and the United States Attorney, Northern District of Illinois, wrote that the district should "cease and desist all efforts to use students as political foot soldiers."

In a response to Behrend that was passed onto Patch, Superintendent George Fornero said that he had "informed staff and board members, most recently again today, that there is to be no campaigning or electioneering during what our board policy refers to as 'compensated time.'"

He added that students who participate in campaigning do so strictly as volunteers.

"There is to be absolutely no coercion and/or persuasion on the part of staff requiring students to participate in such activities," Fornero writes.

A 2011 Deerfield High School graduate, however, says he recalls getting encouraged by his homeroom teachers to support the 2011 referendum, which failed.

"In homeroom I'd often hear about how we have to rebuild the pools," said DHS alum Nelson Novak. "They would usually win all of the other students over."

Novak also said that sports coaches at the high school would encourage "the social butterflies who believe in the referendum to go tell everyone."

Fornero, however, said in his response that he was working to ensure faculty did not violate any laws when dealing with the referendum.

"Board President Harvey Cohen and I assure you that District 113 makes every attempt to comply with state and federal laws as well as our own policies. Our focus is on teaching and learning." 

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