Oak Park and River Forest High School administration provided its annual update on student, faculty and employee demographics at the School District 200 Committee of the Whole meeting Thursday evening.
Despite a steady trend in the students and employees at the school, board members still wanted more representation at the school.
According to the data presented, approximately 47% of the pupils at OPRF are students of color and 53% are white at the start of the 2026-2027 school year.
Of the faculty members at OPRF, about 29% are people of color and of all employees, 45% are people of color.
Since the 2022-23 school year, the trends have been pretty consistent between students and all employees, though there has been a push for more inclusivity in faculty employment.
“I’m very disappointed with what’s in the report,” said District 200 board member Fred Arkin. “I haven’t seen an appreciable change since we started talking about this 10 years ago, specifically talking about the importance of having our faculty and the racial makeup of our student body mirror each other.”
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Of the 12 new faculty members hired this year, none are Black. Arkin said more outreach should happen at historically Black colleges or universities, especially with an estimated 30 teachers expected to retire over the next couple of years.
“Our starting salary is a rich starting salary, we ought to be able to attract good candidates,” Arkin said. “We have to develop better ways in thinking differently because how we’re thinking and what we’re doing is just not working.”
Other board members said that outreach is happening, but there has been a lack of interest or availability from Black teachers.
Janel Bishop, the director of employee relations and recruitment at OPRF, said she attended a job fair at an HBCU a couple of years ago, but there were more recruiters than candidates.
Attracting diverse applicants is particularly difficult in subject areas such as science, but the commitment to hire from a broad range of backgrounds is there, said Roxana Sanders, assistant superintendent for human resources.
Other demographic statistics presented at the meeting showed that of the 32 new employees hired since the start of this month, 59% were people of color.
The five-year demographic trends between students and faculty at OPRF are relatively consistent as well. There’s been a 5% decrease in Black students since the 2022-23 school year, and a 2% increase in Hispanic students.
There’s been a 2% increase in people of color among OPRF’s faculty, too, along with a 2% decrease in its white faculty numbers.
The overall retention rate during the 2025-26 school year for staff was 91% and 96% among faculty.
With a good amount of retirees expected in the next couple of years, district officials are planning in-house job fairs. While districts nationwide are experiencing a shortage of prospective teachers, applications are up at Oak Park and River Forest.
According to numbers presented Thursday, during the 2025-26 school year there were an average of 10 applicants per position, a rate that has increased to 19 this year.
“It’s wonderful that there’s a near 100% increase in average applicants, but it’s just astonishingly low,” said Jonathan Livingston, the board secretary. “I mean I’m just absolutely shocked at how low that is for a currently AI-proof vocation.”
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Greg Johnson, District 200 superintendent, said that’s been a topic of conversation since he’s been at the district.
Sanders chalked up the shortage to changes in pension and retirement rules.
As a result of people retiring and less interest, the pools shrink because there’s just not enough candidates, Sanders said. “Fewer people even want to go into education because now we have to work until we’re 67.”