Six candidates are vying for three seats on the New Trier High School Board in the April 5 election.
Three were selected by the New Trier Caucus, and the other three formed an independent slate.
The New Trier Caucus slate is made up of Peter Fischer, Lori Goldstein and Timothy Scherman. The independent slate includes Joel Goldhar, Patrick O’Donoghue and Greg Robitaille.
Current board members Bob Merrick, Jim Koch and board president Wendy Serrino are not seeking reelection. Of the three, only Merrick applied and interviewed to be slated for re-election by the caucus, which is made up of 46 delegates from the high school’s six feeder districts relative to their enrollment at New Trier. Merrick served as the board’s vice president for the 2008-09 school year.
THE NEW TRIER CAUCUS SLATE:
Peter Fischer
Fischer, of Northfield, is a prosecutor in the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office and Chairman/CEO of Daubert Industries, Inc., a privately-held family company which specializes in metal corrosion prevention. He served on the Sunset Ridge School District 29 Board of Education from 2005-09, and was board president from 2007-09. He received his Bachelor of Arts and Juris Doctor degrees from Stanford.
Lori Goldstein
Goldstein, of Wilmette, is an attorney with Wildman, Harrold, Allen & Dixon, practicing employment law and consulting. She has served on the Temple Jeremiah Board of Directors since 2006 and the New Trier Ethical Conduct Global Citizenship Parent committee since 2008. She received her Bachelor of Science and Juris Doctor degrees from the University of Illinois.
Timothy Scherman
Scherman, of Wilmette, is an English professor at Northeastern Illinois University. He served on the Wilmette District 39 Board of Education from 2002-09 where he was vice president from 2003-07 and chair of the facilities committee from 2006-08. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Dartmouth University and a Ph.D. from Duke University.
THE INDEPENDENT SLATE:
Joel Goldhar
Goldhar, of Winnetka, is a professor of operations and technology management at the Stuart School of Business at Illinois Institute of Technology. He said he will be able to offer insights from the college perspective as a New Trier trustee. He said the school’s failed $174 million referendum earlier this year is not why he is running.
“It’s the budget. In the last 10 years, the New Trier budget has doubled with approximately the same number of students,” Goldhar said. “There’s nobody any better as a public high school. The question is how to keep it that in 20 years from now. If the budget keeps going up, I don’t think the New Trier tax payers will be able to afford it.”
Greg Robitaille
Robitaille, 47, of Winnetka works in corporate development for the heath care distribution company Sarnova, Inc. He said his experience with finance will help him manage the school’s revenues and expenditures.
“I’ve been involved with financial analysis my entire career,” he said.
Robitaille said he voted against New Trier High School’s $174 million referendum, but was not involved in the effort to defeat the measure. It is also not the main reason why he’s running for school board.
“I think it’s symptomatic of the other, larger issues and the reasons why we’re running, but it’s not the driving reason or the only reason,” Robitaille said.
He, his wife and two children have lived in Winnetka for seven years.
Patrick O’Donoghue
O’Donoghue, 31, is single and has lived in Northfield for five years. A former Winnetka resident, he has lived within New Trier High School’s boundaries since 1996. He works for the City of Waukegan’s engineering department and sits on the Northfield Zoning Board of Appeals, the Northfield Village Caucus, and is a head usher at St. Phillip the Apostle Church in Northfield. Like his slate-mates, he voted against New Trier’s $174 million referendum, but said it’s not the reason he is running for school board.
“Basically what happened was I looked at my tax bill and I was concerned,” he said. “That sort of motivated me to say, ‘What can I do?’”
