Board of Education Service
Leys was elected to his first term on the Maine Township High Schools Board of Education in 2001 in a six-way race. In April 2005, Leys was re-elected to a second term. Upon reorganization of the board following the April 2005 Consolidated Municipal Elections, Leys was unanimously elected President of the Board of Education. At the time of his first election to the school board, Leys was one of the youngest elected officials in the State of Illinois.
In 2009, Eric Leys was re-elected to a third term of service in a contested six-way race that produced mixed results for incumbent board members (Leys and Edward Mueller were retained by voters, Jeffrey Bergen retired from board service, and Marijo Bustos was not retained by voters. Newcomers Eldon Burk and Margaret McGrath were elected to their first terms of service in 2009.) Following reorganization of the school board in May 2009, Leys was named by School Board President Edward Mueller to serve as Chairman of the board's Policy Committee, a role that Leys has held for several years in the past.
During the 2009 election cycle, Leys supported establishing a system of merit pay for District 207's certified staff, producing a white paper titled "Modernizing Teacher Pay in Maine 207". In the days following Leys' announcement of this campaign position on March 18, 2009, the Maine Teachers Association (an IEA-NEA affiliate labor union representing District 207's certified staff) declined to endorse Leys for re-election to a third term on the school board. To support their endorsements, the Maine Teachers Association engaged in voter canvassing efforts in the community that had not occurred in the prior six election cycles. According to filings with the Illinois State Board of Elections, the Maine Teachers Association political action committee ("Maine Teachers Assn PACE"), spent $3,766 on election-related activities in the 2009 election cycle.
Despite failing to secure endorsement of the school district's labor union for certified staff, Leys did receive the endorsement of several local media outlets including the Journal & Topics Newspapers, the Pioneer Press Newspapers, and Daily Herald and a number of local elected officials.
Leys became Chairman of the North Cook Division of the Illinois Association of School Boards in 2009 after serving on the Divisional Executive Board since approximately 2005. Leys has been very active with state association, serving as District 207's delegate to the annual association's Delegate Assembly since 2003. In 2002, he served as Alternate Delegate. Leys is the only currently seated District 207 board member to have received a designation of "Master School Board Member" by the Illinois Association of School Boards. Leys term as Chairman ends in September 2011.
Eric Leys has served as a member of the ED-RED Executive Committee representing District 207 since 2004. ED-RED, "the voice of suburban schools," is an advocacy organization that monitors and actively influences education policy at the Illinois Statehouse, particularly issues that are priorities for our member school districts. ED-RED currently has 97 "member" districts, primarily from Cook County, Illinois.
Leys is a graduate of Maine West High School in Des Plaines, Illinois, one of three large suburban high schools governed by the District 207 Board of Education. In addition to Maine West High School, District 207 also includes Maine South High School and Maine East High School, both in Park Ridge, Illinois.
Read more about this topic: Eric Leys
Famous quotes containing the words board, education and/or service:
“She hears me strike the board and say
That she is under ban
Of all good men and women,
Being mentioned with a man
That has the worst of all bad names.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“Whatever may be our just grievances in the southern states, it is fitting that we acknowledge that, considering their poverty and past relationship to the Negro race, they have done remarkably well for the cause of education among us. That the whole South should commit itself to the principle that the colored people have a right to be educated is an immense acquisition to the cause of popular education.”
—Fannie Barrier Williams (1855–1944)
“Barnard’s greatest war service ... was the continuance of full-scale instruction in the liberal arts ... It was Barnard’s responsibility to keep alive in the minds of young people the great liberal tradition of the past and the study of philosophy, of history, of Greek.”
—Virginia Crocheron Gildersleeve (1877–1965)