Village Free Press_062018

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the village free press Vol. II No. 25

Maywood 5K M confronts confro cancer, PAGE 2

JUNE 20, 2018

thevillagefreepress.org

Meet Laura Puglessi, glessi, PAGEE 2

D209 board approves new contract for supt. Rodriguez gets 5-year deal amid allegations of discrimination By MICHAEL ROMAIN Editor

The Proviso Township High Schools District 209 school board approved a 5-year contract for Supt. Jesse Rodriguez during a contentious regular meeting on June 12 that could prove ominous, with some people referencing allegations of discriminatory hiring and workplace practices lodged against the administration to argue why the school board should vote the contract down. The board voted 4-3 in favor of Rodriguez’s new contract. Board members Rodney Alexander, Claudia Medina, Ned Wagner and Sam Valtierrez voted for it while Theresa Kelly, Amanda Grant and Della Patterson voting against it. The new contract, which extends from the 2018-19 to the 2022-23 school years, entails gradual salary increases over the next five academic years. Starting next school year, Rodriguez will collect a base salary of $228,960, which will gradually grow to $257,648 by 2023. Currently, Rodriguez makes a base salary of $234,090, according to district records. Board members who voted for the contract said that it was the result of a See RODRIGUEZ CONTRACT on page 4

SPOONER BAUMANN

LOIS RIDES AGAIN!: Maywood Fine Arts co-founder Lois Baumann completed yet another Le Tour de Shore bike ride, which spans 100 miles from Chicago to New Buffalo, Mich. This year’s ride took place on June 15 and June 16. The proceeds, as usual, went to support Maywood Fine Arts.

East golf team gets $60K in donations The generosity was from unexpected source, another high school golf program By MICHAEL ROMAIN Editor

Hinsdale Central High School’s golf team is a state powerhouse. They’ve won six consecutive state titles. Proviso East’s golf program, meanwhile, probably hasn’t had a winning record in four decades. Both teams compete in the Mid Suburban League West Conference, but they may as

well have been light years apart — until tragedy brought the two programs together, their unlikely convergence sparked by a simple gesture of sympathy. When the Hinsdale Central golf team’s assistant coach, Jimmy Horan, died from a car crash in March 2017, Gerald Holmes, Proviso East’s head golf coach, sent a card, enfolded into which was a small donation to

one of the Horan family’s charitable causes and a team photo. It was the photo that spoke the loudest. “As I looked at the Proviso East team photo, it hit me that all of the golfers were in gym shoes,” Horan’s brother, Terry, told a Daily Herald reporter for an article the paper published in May. See EAST GOLF TEAM on page 6


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