As schools across the country struggle to emerge from two years of COVID, as well as the turmoil caused by school shootings and other issues, incoming School District 219 board member Matthew Flink said he knows the district is facing ongoing challenges.
The Niles Township High School District 219 Board of Education recently appointed Flink to the board after the abrupt resignation of board member Jill Manrique.
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Flink, 36, of Morton Grove, said one of his top priorities is to help create “equity across the entire organization, whether that is creating equity for the students or teachers and giving everybody the same opportunity to advance and to be the best District 219 member they can be.”
Manrique resigned from the board earlier this year after she stirred controversy by wearing a Palestinian scarf, also called a keffiyeh, on the dais at the Niles West High School graduation ceremony in May. Some community members said they found it inappropriate or offensive. Manrique said her resignation had more to do with finding affordable housing in the district than the scarf controversy.
Flink said he believes Manrique and others should be allowed to have their own opinions, feelings and thoughts. But he also that Manrique “took an opportunity as a board member and used it for something that wasn’t meant to help the entire district, and that’s something I didn’t agree with.”
“I think as a board member we should be held to a standard where we’re always doing what is best for the district as a whole,” he added.
He also said he hopes to help the district emerge from COVID and the two years of remote learning that came with it.
“Working in health care, I got to see how much the pandemic flipped people’s worlds upside down,” said Flink, who is director of pharmacy administration for NorthShore University Health Systems.
“It’ll be good for us to get students and teachers back on a schedule that allows for them to be in the classrooms as much as possible and interact as much as possible,” he said. “Being on Zoom doesn’t give you that same interaction with your classmates as you get from being in class. It is really important for us to get back into the classroom fully, which they are.”
Flink said he hopes to help the board navigate other pressing issues like violence in schools and the proliferation of school shootings. He said he’s not sure if adding metal detectors to Niles West and Niles North high schools in the best way to protect students.
“I don’t know if there’s an easier, better way to address it,” said Flink who graduated from Niles West in 2004. “I don’t want to say with 100% certainty that is what I want.”
“I think one of the situations that causes turmoil in schools is when you’re lacking that ‘equity piece,’ when some students feel like they’re underserved in comparison to other students within the school, when they feel there’s favoritism across different races or genders,” he explained. “If we can help stabilize the school environment by creating equity for all students and all teachers involved, I don’t know if metal detectors are what is needed to make students feel safe.”
The district is also in the midst of a $27 million capital improvement plan, something Flink said he wholeheartedly supports.
“The best thing is to continue to provide these world-class facilities for students,” he said. “If we can continue to provide world-class facilities for them, we will continue to get the most out of our students that we can.”
“We’re going to have to continue to invest over the years, because there’s part of the schools that probably haven’t been touched in a while,” he added. “So hopefully we’ll be able to provide for the students the way we want to and the community will hopefully rally behind it.”