Strange are the ways of the Park Forest-Chicago Heights Elementary School District 163 Board.

Last week, after a 2 1/2-hour closed-door meeting which at times was punctuated by angry shouting able to be heard by the dozen or so gathered in the hallway of district headquarters, the board voted not to hire board President Walter Mosby’s wife as its grants and budget coordinator.

That it could hire relatives of sitting board members was surprising to some as district policy merely states that relatives on the board must abstain from voting.

When the board met in open session at 11 p.m., Randall White, the board’s vice president, denounced and then supported the board’s history of nepotism in which “people made millions off the back of the district dollars while others go hungry.”

White charged that an unnamed former “longtime board member” had “multiple people” living in the same house who had jobs with the district.

After criticizing the board’s blemished history, White said he did not want to see Mosby “being thrown under the bus,” saying nepotism has been “practiced in the district” and “it’s not breaking any laws our any of our policies.” He then casting one of two yes votes to hire Belinda Mosby.

Board member Takesha Howard cast the only other yes vote.

Four of the seven board members were needed to approve the appointment, but Walter Mosby could only abstain as did board member Judy Hawthorne. The three “no” votes of Christina Dupee, Jacqueline Jordan and Allison McCray quickly doomed the nomination.

At the end of the 4 1/2-hour meeting, President Mosby noted “we have been elected to govern by policy and it is a sad day when board members are frightened to vote their … ”

The word “conscience” was supplied by board member McCray.

During the regular meeting, White complained bitterly about his belief the village of Park Forest owed the school board more than $400,000 for its use of the gymnasium in the Michelle Obama School of Technology and the Arts.

“They owe us the money that was taken from our children,” White said, adding the village has refused to act in good faith and that meager checks for $2,600 and $3,400 from the village were not enough.

“You can’t pay when you want to,” he said.

The board then voted to seek a meeting with the village.

With the 2022-23 school year scheduled to start Aug. 22, the board was faced with the problem of replacing nearly 30 teachers who handed in their resignations at the end of the last school year.

Vicki Morris, president of the Teacher Federation of Park Forest, explained that teaching salaries had skyrocketed during the pandemic and although a number of instructors chose retirement, some left for better paying jobs, including one who received a $16,000 raise working in another district. Others just left. There was a time when board members would get summaries of teacher exit interviews. That seems to be no longer the case.

The system

Late last month, Nicor Gas Foundation wrote a check for $175,000 payable to the Southland Juvenile Justice Council, a group based in Park Forest and one determined to break down the school to prison pipeline; one in which low-performance students arrested for minor infractions are quickly placed on a one-way ride from school to prison.

Those are the people the council is designed to help as it works with 19 of the 62 school districts in Rich, Bremen, Thornton and Bloom townships, serving as a red light to the prison bus, and using both innovative and intervention programs to stem the seemingly endless flow of youths of color from the classroom to the prison cell. Some cities, villages, schools, churches and community organizations are on its roster of supporters.

Jaclin Davis, the Southland Juvenile Justice Council executive director, says the money will be used to provide methods to reduce juvenile delinquency in the south suburbs, thwart school truancy, train counselors and keep doors of mental health facilities open to both students and families. This bridge of support from home to school to community is part of a wraparound services for the council.

In the past year, Davis says, the council helped 1,792 families in efforts to decrease the abysmal downward spiral. Struggling youth deserve support, not imprisonment, according the council’s website, sjjcouncil.org.

Jerry Shnay is a freelance columnist for the Daily Southtown.

jerryshnay@gmail.com