By most accounts, peace ended and the sniping began at the Joyce Kilmer elementary school sometime late in 1990.
“They are trying to bully me because I’m standing up for what I think is right,” Malave counters. “I will not be intimidated.”
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Kilmer’s biggest problem is overcrowding. The school was built to house about 900 students, but enrollment may top 1,200 by next year. Classes are held on the auditorium stage and in the third-floor hallway. “Mr. Orenstein got us some extra room for classrooms by getting the board to rent space from a synagogue across the street,” says Galvan. “It just shows you what we can do when we work together.”
“I never really planned to run for the LSC,” says Malave. “But I attended some meetings right before the council election, and after I spoke a few people said, ‘You were really good, you should run.’” Malave finished second in a five-candidate race, just ahead of longtime Rogers Park resident Sheila Tobin.
According to the school-reform law, the council had until February to decide whether to retain Orenstein (Orenstein is a member ex officio, though he does not get to vote on his own contract). If they chose not to retain Orenstein, they would then create a search committee of parents, teachers, and residents to look for a new principal. By December, Malave says, he had decided he would vote against retaining Orenstein.
“I never talked to Maloney, and I never told Dominick [Galvan] that I talked to Maloney, and I don’t know why he or anyone else would say I did,” says Malave. “When Dominick told me about the anonymous letter, I said, ‘Have they filed an official challenge?’ He said no. I said, ‘OK, until they file an official challenge, don’t tell me about an anonymous letter.’ I don’t like anonymous letters. People should have the guts to tell you something to your face.”
Malave denies that he ever told Tobin that he had doubts about his eligibility. “I have lived at 6829 N. Wayne for years,” says Malave. “I lived there when my son went to Kilmer. Now it turns out that, yes, the Kilmer boundary ends at 6820 N. Wayne, so technically I’m in a different district. But come on, why would I send my son to Kilmer if I knew we didn’t live in the district? My lawyer and I researched this; since 1956 everyone who has lived in the four houses closest to me sent their children to Kilmer. None of us knew we were out of the district. No one told us. We were all acting in good faith.”
