Please introduce yourself and share any information relevant to your candidacy. Why are you running for school board? How can the community contact you to learn more and/or ask questions?
My name is Sara Paver. I live in Wheaton with my husband and two sons; my first grader attends the SAIL program at Hawthorne and my preschooler attends Jefferson. I am a member of CUSD 200’s Citizens Advisory Committee, the PTAs at Hawthorne and Jefferson, and I co-organize Jets and Java playdates at Jefferson. I grew up in Warrenville and attended Bower, Hubble, and Wheaton Warrenville South. I earned B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in Biology from University of Illinois campuses. My professional background is in academic research studying microbial communities in lakes. I am skilled at visualizing and analyzing data. I enjoy creative problem solving and thinking outside of the box. I excel at logical thinking and testing hypotheses. Perhaps most importantly, I have the ability to change my position when presented with new information.
I am running for school board in CUSD 200 because I want an inclusive future where every student has access to a high quality education, feels safe at school, and feels like they belong in their school community. As a former student, I experienced the excellence of CUSD 200 first-hand. As the parent of a first grader who has been subjected to unjustified segregation starting in preschool and has never set foot in our neighborhood school, I am acutely aware of areas where we need to do better.
Sometimes parents relocate so their children will have better access to special education services, but I have deep roots in this community and am prepared to be a vocal advocate and champion for change to happen here. My four siblings and I are the fourth generation to be educated in our community schools. My mother, Cindy Paver, is a teacher's aide at Monroe. My father, Steve Paver, managed and upholstered furniture for Chase’s Upholstering, a family business started by my grandparents, Bob and Vivian Chase. My grandmother, Rosemary Paver, worked in the Dean’s office and nurse’s office at Wheaton Central High School. My great-grandfather’s brother, Charles Paver, was one of the first firefighters and the second fire chief of the Warrenville Fire Department.
You can learn more about me at my website (paver4cusd200.com). Feel free to contact me with any questions at paver4cusd200@gmail.com.
As a potential board member, what do you feel CUSD 200 does well, and what opportunity areas do you see for improvement?
CUSD 200 employs excellent educators. I have been consistently impressed by the innovative, talented, creative, engaging, and invested professionals that I have had the privilege to learn from and collaborate with across the district. Our speech therapy department is especially impressive. In a short period of time, District 200 went from understanding very little about how to teach children like my older son to learn language to developing and hiring speech language pathologists who are experts, and for that I am deeply grateful.
We also have a high graduation rate, an impressive number of students taking AP classes, and a broad range of extracurricular activities that allow students with myriad interests find a sense of belonging in their school communities. We have a balanced budget. We have involved parents who generously donate their time and money to help students thrive and foster community within schools.
A summary of opportunities that I see for improvement include:
From your position on the BOE, what will you do to foster community representation and engagement, while ensuring that underrepresented voices are heard and elevated?
In addition to engaging with the BOE’s ongoing efforts to provide opportunities for engagement and communication (e.g., Coffee with the Board, Citizens Advisory Committee, Special Education Parent Advisory Council (new), opportunities to give public comments at Board Meetings, e-mailing the BOE as a collective), I would:
Hearing from underrepresented voices can be difficult because it takes a certain amount of privilege to have the time to send e-mails, take surveys, and go to meetings; and sometimes there are barriers to communication (which we should take steps to reduce/ eliminate). I think the most important mechanisms for encouraging feedback are to make sure people know that feedback is welcome and to ensure that people feel heard by the response they receive. The CAC currently considers elementary school boundary representation and whether or not a household has school-aged children; I would support adding to the facets of diversity considered when selecting CAC members. I would also advocate for specific surveys and forums directed at particular groups similar to the recent special education survey and listening sessions. A number of issues raised in those sessions have already been addressed.
Regarding school safety, what opportunity areas do you see for CUSD 200? (i.e., physical safety, psychological safety, parent communication, and/or community partnerships).
When I think about safety in our schools, I think a lot about the Board of Education meeting at Wheaton Warrenville South High School on March 13, 2024. I will include references to a few timestamps within the video below (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16D_D3FLSy0)
Some opportunities I see to improve school safety include:
Given the evolving landscape of AI technology, what will you do to ensure CUSD 200 has policies that address concerns related to student data privacy and security, academic integrity, accessibility, potential bias, etc.
CUSD 200 needs to implement policies governing the use of AI technology, including student data protections and a requirement to track its usage. The risks inherent in these technologies are real and I will err on the side of data privacy and caution. Anytime we use “free” services, we are the product, not the customer, as our information is collected and analyzed. I will continue to educate myself about AI technology by reading reports coming out of Illinois’ Generative AI and Natural Language Processing Task Force, looking to neighboring districts like Indian Prairie School District 204 to identify policies that we may want to adopt, and listening to community concerns.
Moreover, I will advocate for a policy that allows parents to opt out of having their student(s) pictured on CUSD 200’s public social media platforms while still being included in photos shared within school communities (e.g., yearbooks, newsletters). Digital privacy is essential in a landscape where publicly available images and videos can be retrieved and manipulated by AI.
Regarding hiring and retaining talent – particularly paraprofessional, other support staff and contracted workers -- how can CUSD 200 stay competitive in comparison to surrounding districts?
CUSD 200 needs to offer a competitive wages and benefits package, and demonstrate that we value the contributions of our faculty and staff. We should be compensating paraprofessionals and other support staff for the expertise that comes with years of service instead of simply raising the minimum wage and minimizing the pay differential between new hires and staff who have served in that capacity over the course of many years. We should consider offering incentives for staff who have taken specialized training programs and providing opportunities for career advancement.
How can our school district improve support for special education students, and what would you prioritize in your role as a board member?
I will prioritize inclusive education. Inclusion reduces school costs through more efficient use of resources. It allows staff to provide more frequent and individualized support for ALL students. Typical peers increase their acceptance of individual differences and empathy for others, develop enhanced leadership skills, and their academic performance improves or stays the same. Inclusion also improves academic, social, emotional, and behavioral outcomes for students with disabilities. Inclusion benefits everyone.
We need to change the way we think about students with disabilities and special education. All students need to be general education students first. All students deserve to be valued members of classrooms and belong to the communities in their schools. Special education is a service, not a location. We need to prioritize creating general education learning environments able to meet the needs of all students and move away from forcing students into segregated instructional programs over their parent’s objections and against decades of research in support of inclusive education. To be clear, I am not advocating for removing supports from children who need them, I am saying that we need to rethink our default.
Jefferson Early Childhood Center dramatically reduced the percentage of preschoolers with IEPs in segregated instructional classrooms between the 2022-2023 and 2023-2024 school years from 30.8% to 15.9% of students with IEPs in separate classes (Illinois Report Card). We need to make the move towards inclusion in our elementary schools as well. CUSD200 has a higher percentage of 6-21 year old students spending less than 40% of their day in general education environments compared to the rest of the State of Illinois (19.0% vs 13.3% in 2024; Illinois Report Card). Most, if not all, of the children who were segregated from typical peers in preschool for no good reason continue to spend most of their day segregated from peers in elementary school. They deserve better.
CUSD 200 can additionally work towards identifying IEP eligibility and implementing timely interventions to students with dyslexia across all of our elementary schools. According to feedback received on the special education parent survey, which is corroborated by parent discussions in online forums, we have a “reputation for not having sufficient resources/ instruction for those that would benefit from the Wilson or Orton Gillingham approach.” Compared to the State of Illinois, CUSD200 has disproportionately fewer students with an identified IEP eligibility of Specific Learning Disability, which includes dyslexia. Less than 20% of CUSD200 students with an IEP have a Specific Learning Disability compared to more than 30% of IEPs in the State of Illinois between 2021 and 2024 (Illinois Report Card). Teaching students to read is a fundamental responsibility of a public school. When families have to pay thousands of dollars for specialized out-of-school tutoring for their children, it makes access to education deeply inequitable.
What is your philosophy around the CUSD 200 budget and fiscal priorities? In what areas do you feel spending could be curbed, and what areas should be prioritized for funding?
I am reluctant to suggest particular areas for spending cuts without understanding the full context and fiscal justifications for the relevant spending. I would prioritize investments projected to save us money in the long run like inclusive education, and those aimed at ensuring that students perceive and experience safety while they are at school given that children cannot learn when they do not feel safe.
What role do you feel board members should play in determinations around specific curriculum materials and library materials available to students?
Board members should thoughtfully consider feedback they receive during the established processes for selecting curriculum and library materials, ask questions needed to provide clarity to the community, and provide input where appropriate. The expertise of our professional educators should guide our policymaking in these important areas.
What is your perspective on the district’s approach to mental and behavioral health support for students, and is there anything additional the district could be doing?
To paraphrase Lisa Damour, the most powerful force for adolescent mental health is strong relationships with caring adults. I am impressed by the focus on school connectedness and that 96% of students are able to identify a caring adult. Student participation in sports and clubs are great for connectedness. I support bringing back “B” level teams in middle school sports, as coaches can make great caring adults and sports are a positive outlet for adolescents.
We must also ensure that our buildings have the staff they need to adequately support mental and behavioral health and that teachers and staff have access to professional development opportunities enabling them to meet student needs.
What is your perspective on the current PACE program and what opportunity areas do you see for supporting gifted students in our district?
PACE has been described to me as an accelerated learning program, not a gifted program. The feedback that I have heard on PACE varies depending on elementary school class size. Students in classrooms with low teacher-student ratios love the individualized attention. I think there are opportunities to enhance the education of gifted students (and all students) by prioritizing differentiated instruction within the general education environment; this would be particularly helpful for gifted students in grades and subjects for which PACE programming is not currently offered. I would like to hear more from parents about whether they feel like their gifted student’s needs are being met by the current set up of the PACE program. I’m concerned that the broad reach of the program (>20% of students per grade according to Illinois Report Card) and focus on learning acceleration and not depth may make it challenging to meet the unique needs of gifted children.
One of the board’s duties is to review appeals of district decisions in response to Uniform Grievance Procedure (UGP) complaints (and has historically affirmed most district decisions). As a board member, how would you approach the process of adjudicating UGP appeals.
I would work to ensure that the perspective of complainants is fully understood by the Board. I would scrutinize the record to make sure that the person investigating the complaint is a neutral party with no potential conflict of interest and request that additional information be gathered where appropriate. Finally, I would independently evaluate each individual grievance appeal on its merits and would not automatically defer to the recommended dispositions of district administration.
What role can the board play in helping to alleviate issues of racism and bullying in our schools, and creating a culture where all students feel welcome and safe at school, regardless of socioeconomic status, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, identity, or disability?
The Board can create a system where all students feel welcome and safe by prioritizing inclusive education and creating an expectation that we move away from the current system where the default condition is segregation and exclusion for too many of our students with disabilities. Students educated in inclusive settings exhibit increased acceptance of individual differences and more empathy for other people.
We can maintain high standards for our teachers and staff to model showing respect, empathy, and kindness to all students (e.g., respecting preferred pronouns). Equip schools with the resources they need to improve school culture and address underlying issues. Ensure that our policies and procedures include logical consequences for acts of violence, bullying, and hate speech that are enforced consistently across all district buildings.
We can continue to offer curricula that provide opportunities for students to learn about different cultures and life experiences. We can ensure that the books in our libraries feature diverse protagonists and reflect the diversity of experiences in our student body. As the parent of an autistic child, I appreciate books that feature characters with a range of disabilities and present neurodivergence in a way that is neurodiversity affirming. Books that I have donated to the library at my son’s school include Henry, Like Always, which features an autistic boy, and The Brain Forest, a book that explains and celebrates the different ways brains can be wired.
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