by W.R. Hothershall
Preface: Information in this article is supplemented by a phone call between the author and an elected member of the District 209 Board of Education (BoE) on November 30th, 2022. They want it to be known that they are running for re-election “because [they don’t] want to abandon [their] community.”[1] Proviso Township is located in Cook County Illinois, and its Board members service a majority non-white population.[2] The elected Board member supplied this information to New Spark to help inform the public about the heroic struggle currently being waged by District 209 students, teachers, and community members. This member has been blocked by sitting superintendent James L. Henderson via phone and email, despite them both being active members of the District 209 BoE. They also note that Henderson threatens to fire or suspend those who contact her.[3]
Introduction
The teachers at Proviso Township High School District 209 (PTHS D209) have been waging an ongoing, persistent, and heroic struggle against anti-educator, anti-student policies in their district that are being spearheaded by tyrannical superintendent James L. Henderson. Far from being new to pursuing horrific educational policy as a superintendent of a public school district, Henderson has a documented history of it. Before being given the opportunity in 2021 to facilitate the destruction of District 209 in the state of Illinois, Henderson was previously caught misappropriating public funds from the Holmes County Consolidated School District (HCCSD) in Lexington, Mississippi.
Former superintendent Henderson, former Chief Financial Officer Cheryl Peoples, and four former HCCSD Board of Education members were “issued demand letters resulting from audit findings released in December 2020” from the Mississippi Office of the State Auditor.[4] The total amount that Henderson is being requested to return is $90,677.18.[5] Mississippi state auditor Shad White explains that “[w]e are demanding this money back on behalf of the students and taxpayers of Holmes County who deserve to have their money spent in the way that the law requires.”[6] The audit findings reveal, among other conspicuous dealings, that Henderson “was paid a $170,000 salary despite the school board only voting to pay him a $160,000 salary,” that “[t]he district also paid the former superintendent for relocation expenses in excess of the amount allowed by state law,” and that “[a]uditors identified payments [totaling $14,000] made to companies owned by the former superintendent’s relatives.”[7]
On August 3, 2021, the Mississippi State Board of Education released a statement which “determined today that an extreme emergency situation exists in the [HCCSD],” that “[t]he [HCCSD] has significant issues that jeopardize the safety, security and educational interests of the children enrolled in its schools.” The statement also noted that “[t]he district is in violation of 26 of the 32 accreditation standards that all Mississippi public school districts are required to meet.”[8]
The Proviso Struggle
The current struggle of the Proviso community is directly connected with the courageous strike of the Proviso Teachers Union (PTU) back in March 2022, to fight for higher wages and against an unbearable increase in class sizes that would harm students.[9] Following the tentative agreement reached in March between the PTU and the District 209 BoE, Henderson has only intensified his anti-teacher, anti-student rampage. Of the seven members sitting on the District 209 BoE, five have rallied around Henderson’s agenda and have formed a clique leadership completely divorced from the needs of the District 209 community.
Henderson recently tried to rally his clique to oust four courageous teachers who were vocally opposing his anti-education agenda, but he failed due to an overwhelming amount of public support for said teachers. He did succeed, however, in unjustly suspending these teachers without pay, thus emptying even more classrooms. The November 15 Board meeting at which these teachers were suspended was preceded by a closed-door session of the Board of Education which was accompanied by catered food service from Gibson’s Steakhouse.[10] [11] The Board member interviewed for this article was not invited to this closed-door session. Some students who were allowed to speak testified that Henderson had coerced them to give testimony that would falsely charge the teachers with “supporting student protests.”[12]
Students have also fought back against their horrific conditions, forming the organization Students for a Better Proviso[13] back in October 2022, to fight back against “overcrowded classrooms, late buses, a teacher shortage, deteriorating buildings, rotten food, among other conditions caused by what they claim is a misuse of funds.”[14] Henderson and his clique are crying wolf about the teachers “encouraging student protests,”[15] but the community clearly sees that this is an attempt at gaslighting in order to distract from the innumerable issues going on within the District, caused by the Henderson clique.
The struggle within District 209 is symbolic of the broader “post”-COVID educational issues affecting teachers across the country and particularly in Illinois. A pervasive issue in contemporary public education is the ongoing teacher shortage. According to the Illinois Association of School Boards (IASB) website, “[t]he latest 2021 Illinois report of shortages was gathered through the 26 regional superintendents and identified 6,200 teacher, substitute teacher, and other staff shortage positions. This was up from the 4,800 in 2020.” District 209 is particularly affected by this issue, as the interviewed Board member notes that they are working on a “skeleton staff”[16] with “40 students in some classes, and gym classes with 60 or 70 children per teacher.”[17] Does Henderson honestly expect students to learn anything under these awful conditions?
The hardships currently being suffered by the District 209 community at the expense of Henderson and his clique are nothing short of frightening. Major issues which the teachers and students are valiantly combating include but are in no way limited to the following.
“Holding periods” Instead of Classes
Arguably the worst consequence of the Henderson clique’s policy agenda has become the dreaded “holding periods.” A recent increase from 7 to 8 class periods combined with teachers leaving the district due to Henderson’s failures has resulted in scores of students who are assigned classes without teachers to teach them. This is compounded by the fact that Henderson decided to do the scheduling for the 2022-23 school year during August of 2022, instead of in February when schools usually perform such administrative work. Thus, instead of staying inside empty classrooms, students are expected to mill around in a cafeteria and wait for their interests to be prioritized by the Henderson clique. Considering the student reports of rotten food, it is unlikely that the cafeterias are even safe places to eat.[18] Students are not even given the chance to read and attempt to teach themselves, as the libraries have been closed down due to a lack of properly distributed resources.[19] Henderson seems to expect the students to teach themselves!
Buses
James L. Henderson oversaw and conducted the utter dismantling of the District 209 transportation system. Buses routinely fail to pick up students and bring them to school, with some students waiting at the stop for more than 2 hours.[20] This also affects parents, as they depend on school transportation to pick up their children so they can go to work. Despite this, students are still marked as having unexcused absences for circumstances they clearly have no control over.
Phones
Henderson has overseen a woefully disastrous ‘transition’ to a new phone service for the District, which left phones down for over a month of school being in session. Rightfully upset parents who wanted to voice their complaints about the conditions of their children’s education were met with dial tones. The catastrophic ‘transition’ to the new phone service was a part of a broader initiative of dismantling the district’s technological capabilities, as Henderson has “replaced the competent admins and [technology workers] with people who are not accomplishing the job.”[21] A tragic consequence of this initiative of dismantling the technology department was that students who wanted to take the SAT were unable to, thus minimizing their prospects of post-secondary education.
Usage of Racial Epithets
Henderson further exacerbates tensions within the District 209 community by hurling racial epithets on social media against Latinx or white community members who oppose his extreme anti-education agenda.[22] The Board member interviewed for this article noted that racism plays a “huge part” in this struggle and that Henderson uses it as a weapon to silence the broad majority of those opposed to his agenda. The policies of the Henderson clique have exacerbated tensions between the Black and Latinx populations of the District 209 community. The Board’s president, Arbdella “Della” Patterson, consistently closes Board meetings if issues are brought up about the needs of Latinx students.[23] Concerned community members have been referred to during open Board meetings as “the peanut gallery,” and Patterson in particular has been accused of calling white members of the District 209 Community “the trailer park people.”[24]
Elimination of the Dean Position
Another part of Henderson’s policy agenda included laying off 13 deans throughout the district, opting to abolish the position altogether. Combine this with the ongoing teacher shortage and you have counselors sitting in classrooms formerly occupied by teachers. Community members also have raised concerns about the unjust disciplinary measures enacted against students and educators.[25] Henderson and his clique have also prevented the funding of essential bilingual and special education programs that are needed to meet standard requirements set by the Illinois State Board of Education.[26]
Looking to 2023
The proceedings of the December 13 Board meeting, which drew an attendance of roughly 150 people, made it clear that this struggle won’t be solved with empty words and false promises, but rather by solutions that qualitatively improve the conditions of District 209 teachers, students, and community members.[27] Arbdella Patterson opened the proceedings of this meeting and seemingly tried to wish away these profound issues by asserting that “this” will not be “an ongoing thing” (i.e. the vocal opposition to brutal working and learning conditions). When the meeting was shortly thereafter opened up to public comments, all those who spoke highlighted (in one way or another) the outrageous failures of the Board.
The major deficiencies on which all speakers converged were poor classroom working conditions, the handling of disciplinary methods, and the frightening incompetence of James L. Henderson. Henderson’s tyrannical nature was so apparent that he was referred to as a ‘Thanos’ by one public commenter, as ‘an Emperor with New Clothes’ by another, with a third vainly calling on the Board to fire the superintendent. Henderson seemingly confirmed these accusations when he referred to the concerns of these District 209 community members as mere ‘rhetoric.’[28] The Board further proved its unseriousness by subjecting the audience to a video from The Kelly Clarkson Show following public comments.[29] Later in the meeting, the Board voted to terminate teacher Jennifer Labash.
The response of the District 209 community has shown that they will not take this anti-education agenda lightly. The organic formation of Students for a Better Proviso proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the students of the District care far more about their education than Henderson and his clique. Opposition to Henderson’s agenda is unlikely to cease so long as the community is still subjected to such wretched conditions. The next District 209 Board of Education meeting will take place at Proviso West High School on January 10, 2023, in Hillside, IL.[30]
[1] Author’s conversation with an elected District 209 Board of Education member, November 30, 2022.
[2] “Proviso Twp HSD 209: Racial/Ethnic Diversity.” PROVISO TWP HSD 209 | Racial/Ethnic Diversity. Illinois State Board of Education. Accessed December 3, 2022. https://www.illinoisreportcard.com/district.aspx?source=studentcharacteristics&source2=studentdemographics&Districtid=06016209017.
[3] Author’s conversation with an elected District 209 Board of Education member, November 30, 2022.
[4] “Civil Demands Issued in Holmes County School District Audit.” Mississippi Office of the State Auditor News. Mississippi Office of the State Auditor, July 14, 2022. https://www2.osa.ms.gov/news/civil-demands-issued-in-holmes-county-school-district-audit/.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid.
[8] “State Board of Education Asks Governor to Declare State of Emergency in Holmes County Consolidated School District.” The Mississippi Department of Education. Mississippi Department of Education, August 3, 2021. https://www.mdek12.org/news/2021/8/3/State-Board-of-Education-Asks-Governor-to-Declare-State-of-Emergency-in-Holmes-County-Consolidated-School-District_20210803.
[9] Struett, David. “Entering 10th Day of Strike, Proviso Teachers Demand Superintendent’s Ouster over School Board Meeting Confrontation.” chicago.suntimes.com. Chicago Sun-Times, March 19, 2022. https://chicago.suntimes.com/education/2022/3/18/22984750/proviso-teachers-union-strike-superintendent-henderson-modina.
[10] Singh, Ankur. “D209 Teachers Not Fired but Tensions Still Hot – Village Free Press.” vfpress.news. Village Free Press, November 20, 2022. https://www.vfpress.news/articles/education/d209-teachers-not-fired-but-tensions-still-hot/.
[11] Hothersall, W.R. Board of Education meeting. 13 Dec. 2022, Maywood, Illinois.
[12] Author’s conversation with an elected District 209 Board of Education member, November 30, 2022.
[13] The organization contains students from all 3 high schools within the district
[14] Singh, Ankur. “D209 Teachers Not Fired but Tensions Still Hot – Village Free Press.” vfpress.news. Village Free Press, November 20, 2022. https://www.vfpress.news/articles/education/d209-teachers-not-fired-but-tensions-still-hot/.
[15] Ibid.
[16] Author’s conversation with an elected District 209 Board of Education member, November 30, 2022.
[17] Struett, David. “Entering 10th Day of Strike, Proviso Teachers Demand Superintendent’s Ouster over School Board Meeting Confrontation.” chicago.suntimes.com. Chicago Sun-Times, March 19, 2022. https://chicago.suntimes.com/education/2022/3/18/22984750/proviso-teachers-union-strike-superintendent-henderson-modina.
[18] Singh, Ankur. “D209 Teachers Not Fired but Tensions Still Hot – Village Free Press.” vfpress.news. Village Free Press, November 20, 2022. https://www.vfpress.news/articles/education/d209-teachers-not-fired-but-tensions-still-hot/.
[19] Author’s conversation with an elected District 209 Board of Education member, November 30, 2022.
[20] Ibid.
[21] Ibid.
[22] Ibid.
[23] Ibid.
[24] Hothersall, W.R. Board of Education meeting. 13 Dec. 2022, Maywood, Illinois.
[25] Ibid.
[26] Author’s conversation with an elected District 209 Board of Education member, November 30, 2022.
[27] Hothersall, W.R. Board of Education meeting. 13 Dec. 2022, Maywood, Illinois.
[28] Ibid.
[29] Ibid.
[30] “Meet Our Board of Education / Board of Education Meeting Dates.” Meet Our Board of Education / Board Of Education Meeting Dates. Accessed December 22, 2022. https://www.pths209.org/Page/4474.