South Cook News

St. Charles School Board 303 candidate Eli Palacious frowns on the level of partisanship interjected into races like his. 

"Outside donations from members of political parties to manipulate the school board elections do not help candidates who believe in local elections, especially school board elections," Palacious said. He added that such elections are not by their nature politically partisan.

With school board races across the state generating widespread attention, Gov. Pritzker recently donated $500,000 to the Democratic Party of Illinois in an effort that critics charge seeks to boost a liberal extremist agenda that promotes inappropriate sexual education curriculum and divisive concepts that stand to make race relations even more volatile.

Pritzker also recently labeled Illinois-based conservative grassroots organizations that recruit and support local school board candidates as “racists” and “anti-LGBTQ,” with local mom and conservative grassroots activist Shannon Adcock directly being on the receiving end of some of his most disparaging comments.

Palacious said that his candidacy has not experienced backlash from teachers' unions as some challenger candidates have.

"I was fortunate to have no issues with the teacher’s union," he said. "Teacher unions did not endorse me, but they support incumbent board members due to their perceived prior experience and rapport with them."

Palacious said academic excellence would be a priority for him as a school board member. 

He said he would work toward improving communication by gathering parents’ feedback before any potential changes that could affect their students' education. 

Student safety also would be addressed to reduce "the number of incidents of bullying behavior and preventing mass shootings within the school boundaries," he said.