Members of the DuPage Regional Board of School Trustees make some of the weightiest education decisions in the county, everything from allowing neighborhoods to switch districts to dissolving entire districts.
But repeated absences by board members have slowed the decision-making process. On Monday, board officials had to cancel a meeting for lack of a quorum when the meeting had been called to rehear a petition a lawyer had complained was dealt with in August by too few trustees.
During the last 14 months, three of the seven members on the elected regional board have missed more than one-third of the meetings. One of those trustees, Joan Salvato, of Oak Brook, missed 19 of 20 meetings. Patricia Carney, of Wheaton, missed 16. Board Chairman R. Donald Mahlke missed seven.
The less-than-impressive attendance has frustrated lawyers and school district officials who argue cases before trustees. They complain privately that board members are not taking their responsibilities seriously. Even members of the regional board express frustration.
“It bothers me because these hearings seem to stretch on and on because we don’t have enough people at the meetings,” said Trustee Martha Rogers, of Warrenville, who has missed only one of the last 20 meetings. “It’s really become a problem for us and for the local school districts because we have to keep stretching things out.”
Yet, in fairness, she said, trustees who ran for the regional board never expected they’d be meeting so often.
The board is a little-watched, seven-member group whose main function is settling school boundary disputes. They are elected to staggered, six-year terms and serve without pay. They are required by state law to meet at least four times a year. If a vacancy occurs, trustees appoint a replacement.
For most of the 1990s, the DuPage board had few boundary disputes to settle and, therefore, met only a few times a year. But the last two years have been particularly busy, with the board meeting 20 times in the last 14 months. Trustees meet at night at the DuPage Administration Building in Wheaton.
Trustees Rogers, Joseph Patricelli, Laura Pollastrini and Gloria Scigousky have missed five meetings among them in the 14-month period.
Still, the board’s problems are, in part, self-created. Resignations from Salvato and Carney to Berardo DeSimone, superintendent of the DuPage Regional Office of Education, were not turned over to trustees and therefore not formally accepted.
“I held off because I was sick, and that’s it,” DeSimone said, adding that he does not think it’s a problem that the board functions with only five of seven members.
Salvato and Mahlke did not return phone calls. Carney has an unpublished phone number.
Rogers said trustees had heard Salvato resigned, but delayed accepting the resignation, and appointing a replacement, because they were in the midst of hearing several complicated petitions that had been dragging on for more than a year.
“We didn’t want to put in any new people until we got through with some big cases we were working on,” Rogers said. “We didn’t think it would be fair to put the new people in the middle of complicated cases and expect them to catch up to speed.”
Further delaying the appointments, said DeSimone, is that it is hard to find volunteers. While he initially said that resigning trustees are supposed to find replacements for themselves, he later acknowledged it’s the entire board’s responsibility.
In fact, the board of trustees had planned to accept the resignations and make new appointments Monday night, but could not do it because of the quorum problem.
The board expected to appoint Gwedolyn Bates, of Elmhurst, wife of William Bates, a York Township Republican Committeeman; and Debra Olsonof Wheaton, a Milton Township Republican committeewoman who campaigned for DuPage County Board Chairman Robert Schillerstrom.
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Rogers said the two women were the only ones who applied. She said trustees did not consider advertising the openings and said she does not think it is unfair to fill them without posting them.
“Fair. I don’t know what fair means. I guess if you were interested [in the openings] you would find out yourself,” she said. “Obviously, these are open meetings and although none of these resignations have been talked about at the meetings, well .. I think if someone was really interested, they could find out.”
Bates, who runs a non-profit adult literacy program in DuPage, said she heard about the openings “through the grapevine.” She said she sent a letter of interest to DeSimone, whom she said she knows through her husband’s political involvement.
“I’m a person with different ideas and thoughts,” said Bates, who also serves on the State Literacy Council.
Olson could not be reached for comment.