Dan Seals
Avoca District 37 School Board
candidate video
responses to voter guide questions
Please tell us about yourself, your qualifications, and what prompted you to run for School Board?
I’m running for the School Board because I am passionate about our kids—and serious about our finances. I was elected to the board three years ago as a write-in candidate. This year I became President of the Board.
By way of qualifications, I began my career teaching overseas and later became an adjunct professor at Northwestern. I have worked for companies like T-Mobile and GE, as well in state and federal government. I most recently served as CEO of Intersect Illinois, a public-private organization focused on attracting more business to the state. I have also raised three daughters in the District.
To my knowledge, I am the only candidate without children in Avoca schools. That’s important, because the board should represent the entire community.
Questions:
What do you see as the main priorities and challenges for the incoming school board?
I see three main priorities for the incoming board. First is academic achievement. Avoca 37 has worked hard to be one of the best school districts in the state. But it has to keep working hard to maintain its place and get even better. To do that we are currently reviewing and improving the curriculum with evidence-based research. The goal should be to improve educational outcomes not just by improving the performance of the top students, but by improving the performance of the average student.
The second priority is the social and emotional health of the students. Kids aren’t computers. They need to feel comfortable at school in order to learn. Avoca is known for its strong diversity. The issue of emotional health is important to students of every background. Building a strong social and emotional foundation for our kids will pay dividends for the rest of their lives. The District has already established benchmarks, metrics, and basic tactics to support the emotional health of students. Continued support will be needed as this effort develops.
Last but certainly not least, is fiscal responsibility. As a taxpayer, it is important for me to know that my tax dollars are being spent efficiently and effectively. For many years, Avoca 37 was in deficit. Since I have joined the Board, I have worked with my colleagues and the District leadership to reduce that deficit. It worked. We have had three straight years of budgets surpluses—without sacrificing educational quality. I intend to keep it that way.
What, if any, specific educational goals do you have for D37 and how would you work to achieve them?
The focus right now is strengthening our curriculum. Avoca 37 is famous for its nationally ranked Science Olympiad team. That said, there is an opportunity to strengthen math and science education for more students. By broadening our curriculum to cover Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math (STEAM), we can give students more ways to grow and prepare for their futures.
By the same token, we should give equal weight to the English, social studies, and language arts curriculum. Right now, that is not the case. For example, a talented student can take New Trier Math as a class but can’t take New Trier English. Today that isn’t possible. Fixing this imbalance will give more students a chance to thrive.
Lastly, I would like to see Avoca strengthen its support for students with special needs. These students may need additional support inside or outside the classroom. That can be challenging for a small school district with limited resources, but it is the right thing to do.
I use my position on the board to advocate for all of these and will continue to do so.
How would you improve the board’s transparency and community engagement?
We recently held focus groups and conducted a large community survey to understand better ways to communicate and engage with the Avoca community. Based on that, here are a few changes that I support.
First, we have to communicate throughout the year. We need regular communications to the community to keep people informed and engaged. The school district has limited resources (we must stay fiscally responsible), so we need to look at tactics that offer the most bang for the buck. To that end, the most newsletter contains a QR code so that residents can receive information via email.
Second, I have argued we that need to find more ways to invite households without children into our schools. The District has responded by signing up to host events by the Family Action Network, which brings a wide array of speakers to talk about topics that go beyond elementary education. I hope community members will take advantage of the opportunity to hear a great speaker while visiting our schools.
Third, I want to dig deeper into how community residents want to receive information. Most households without kids in our schools are busy with other things. The don’t have time to visit our website to find out how things are going with Avoca. I want to understand what kind of information they want to know and how they want to receive it. It may be that they only want to get an email or mailer about certain topics. If so, that will allow us to have more effective and less costly communications to the district.
In 2024, the Avoca District proposed a bond issue to upgrade Avoca facilities that did not pass. What is your recommendation on Avoca facilities upgrades?
My recommendation is to hold off on another referendum. Here is why. The referendum for the bond issue lost by roughly 75 percent to 25 percent. This result was completely the opposite of what months of community input suggested. That means that the process for gathering input was severely flawed. An unfortunate side effect of this is a loss of trust between some members of the community and the District.
We have begun to address this in some important ways. First, we held the focus groups mentioned above to get more feedback from the community. Second, when a strong pro-referendum board member stepped down, we appointed a strong anti-referendum member to the board to strengthen that perspective. Third, we have new leadership in both a new superintendent and a new board president (me). These changes will help us to take a fresh look at the problem and potential solutions.
Does this mean the need to upgrade Avoca facilities has gone away? It does not. The Avoca West building is old, has become inordinately expensive to maintain and will only become more so. But in order to even approach this issue we have to go back to basics. We start with rebuilding trust with the community. Then together we take another look at the costs of inaction and the costs of different options to improve the facilities. Then we must engage the community to find out which options make the most sense. Our community places a high value on education, but they want to make sure that their tax dollars aren’t wasted and that costs are reasonable. I believe we can find a solution that meets those criteria.
I’m running for the School Board because I am passionate about our kids—and serious about our finances. I was elected to the board three years ago as a write-in candidate. This year I became President of the Board.
By way of qualifications, I began my career teaching overseas and later became an adjunct professor at Northwestern. I have worked for companies like T-Mobile and GE, as well in state and federal government. I most recently served as CEO of Intersect Illinois, a public-private organization focused on attracting more business to the state. I have also raised three daughters in the District.
To my knowledge, I am the only candidate without children in Avoca schools. That’s important, because the board should represent the entire community.
Questions:
What do you see as the main priorities and challenges for the incoming school board?
I see three main priorities for the incoming board. First is academic achievement. Avoca 37 has worked hard to be one of the best school districts in the state. But it has to keep working hard to maintain its place and get even better. To do that we are currently reviewing and improving the curriculum with evidence-based research. The goal should be to improve educational outcomes not just by improving the performance of the top students, but by improving the performance of the average student.
The second priority is the social and emotional health of the students. Kids aren’t computers. They need to feel comfortable at school in order to learn. Avoca is known for its strong diversity. The issue of emotional health is important to students of every background. Building a strong social and emotional foundation for our kids will pay dividends for the rest of their lives. The District has already established benchmarks, metrics, and basic tactics to support the emotional health of students. Continued support will be needed as this effort develops.
Last but certainly not least, is fiscal responsibility. As a taxpayer, it is important for me to know that my tax dollars are being spent efficiently and effectively. For many years, Avoca 37 was in deficit. Since I have joined the Board, I have worked with my colleagues and the District leadership to reduce that deficit. It worked. We have had three straight years of budgets surpluses—without sacrificing educational quality. I intend to keep it that way.
What, if any, specific educational goals do you have for D37 and how would you work to achieve them?
The focus right now is strengthening our curriculum. Avoca 37 is famous for its nationally ranked Science Olympiad team. That said, there is an opportunity to strengthen math and science education for more students. By broadening our curriculum to cover Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math (STEAM), we can give students more ways to grow and prepare for their futures.
By the same token, we should give equal weight to the English, social studies, and language arts curriculum. Right now, that is not the case. For example, a talented student can take New Trier Math as a class but can’t take New Trier English. Today that isn’t possible. Fixing this imbalance will give more students a chance to thrive.
Lastly, I would like to see Avoca strengthen its support for students with special needs. These students may need additional support inside or outside the classroom. That can be challenging for a small school district with limited resources, but it is the right thing to do.
I use my position on the board to advocate for all of these and will continue to do so.
How would you improve the board’s transparency and community engagement?
We recently held focus groups and conducted a large community survey to understand better ways to communicate and engage with the Avoca community. Based on that, here are a few changes that I support.
First, we have to communicate throughout the year. We need regular communications to the community to keep people informed and engaged. The school district has limited resources (we must stay fiscally responsible), so we need to look at tactics that offer the most bang for the buck. To that end, the most newsletter contains a QR code so that residents can receive information via email.
Second, I have argued we that need to find more ways to invite households without children into our schools. The District has responded by signing up to host events by the Family Action Network, which brings a wide array of speakers to talk about topics that go beyond elementary education. I hope community members will take advantage of the opportunity to hear a great speaker while visiting our schools.
Third, I want to dig deeper into how community residents want to receive information. Most households without kids in our schools are busy with other things. The don’t have time to visit our website to find out how things are going with Avoca. I want to understand what kind of information they want to know and how they want to receive it. It may be that they only want to get an email or mailer about certain topics. If so, that will allow us to have more effective and less costly communications to the district.
In 2024, the Avoca District proposed a bond issue to upgrade Avoca facilities that did not pass. What is your recommendation on Avoca facilities upgrades?
My recommendation is to hold off on another referendum. Here is why. The referendum for the bond issue lost by roughly 75 percent to 25 percent. This result was completely the opposite of what months of community input suggested. That means that the process for gathering input was severely flawed. An unfortunate side effect of this is a loss of trust between some members of the community and the District.
We have begun to address this in some important ways. First, we held the focus groups mentioned above to get more feedback from the community. Second, when a strong pro-referendum board member stepped down, we appointed a strong anti-referendum member to the board to strengthen that perspective. Third, we have new leadership in both a new superintendent and a new board president (me). These changes will help us to take a fresh look at the problem and potential solutions.
Does this mean the need to upgrade Avoca facilities has gone away? It does not. The Avoca West building is old, has become inordinately expensive to maintain and will only become more so. But in order to even approach this issue we have to go back to basics. We start with rebuilding trust with the community. Then together we take another look at the costs of inaction and the costs of different options to improve the facilities. Then we must engage the community to find out which options make the most sense. Our community places a high value on education, but they want to make sure that their tax dollars aren’t wasted and that costs are reasonable. I believe we can find a solution that meets those criteria.