Laurie Fiorenza resigns from OPRF high school, and River Forest’s foolish iron curtain

Oak Park and River Forest high school’s assistant superintendent for student learning has resigned, just months before district ACT test results measure the impact of the new pedagogy meant to eliminate the racial predictability of achievement.

Is Laurie Fiorenza selfless, content to let others bask in the glory of her work? Or is this a pre-emptive measure for OPRF leadership, ushering a likely scapegoat off the “equity” stage without real public notice?

E3 warned the results at OPRF would most likely mirror Evanston’s academic failure.

In this newsletter, you’ll get context around the most recent turnover at OPRF, and a peek behind District 90’s “Iron Curtain” that seeks to shield River Forest prying eyes from sharp decline in school quality. 

Fiorenza joined the staff at OPRF as director of student learning in 2019 and quickly found herself responsible for all things related to the school board’s stated top priority: equalizing black and white student outcomes. 

Her ascent followed a period of leadership turnover, beginning with the unexpected resignation of six-year superintendent Steven Isoye in early 2016. To replace him, and consistent with “racial equity”, Jackie Moore’s district 200 school board recruited Joylynn Pruitt-Adams. Back then, in an introductory meeting with E3, Moore described how the district was “racializing everything”. Adams soon made equalizing outcomes the district’s top priority.  

Pruitt-Adams lasted five years, announcing her retirement in 2021. The board promoted Greg Johnson, who was like-minded on “racial equity” and studying Marxist philosophy to replace her. 

Johnson promoted Fiorenza to assistant superintendent level almost immediately and plans for a “transformative education” ramped up publicly in Sept. 2019.

Rooting out the systemic racism Fiorenza’s predecessors had identified would take loads of consulting, coaching, and significant changes to curriculum, instruction, testing, grading, teacher professional development, and methods of discipline to name a few. 

Freshman year would become a reset year, leveling achievement between black and white students “so they could access higher level curricula” in subsequent years, according to Johnson.  He slips occasionally, referring to detracking freshman year as a “a social experiment”, for which the district struggled to find a single example of positive results. 

Adams, Johnson, and now Fiorenza weren’t asking for anyone’s permission.

Records show in 2016, U.S. taxpayers funded a $29.4MM U.S. Dept. Education award, funding consultants who would help school officials like Johnson and Fiorenza keep nosy parents from interrupting “racial equity”.

The first “lower ceiling” was installed in District 90 by then-board president Ralph Martire, beginning in 2016.  The impact on students and teachers was immediate, and district communicators worked feverishly to distract and deny. That curriculum chief resigned as facts came out.

At OPRF, the moment of truth for Johnson and Fiorenza is now. Separate stand-alone honors classes were eliminated for OPRF freshmen in Fall 2022. 

As a result, juniors this school year that took the standardized ACT exam will be an imperfect first look at the impact of the new “racial equity” pedagogy. 

Detracking in Evanston, the model for OPRF, caused an inordinate rise in D’s and F’s under the new single curriculum, especially among poor and minority students. Had anyone warned Fiorenza?

School Board Member Fred Arkin told the Wednesday Journal in a March interview ahead of the most recent election that he wanted to press on with detracking.  He tried to reassure voters, saying “so far detracking appears to be having the effect we were hoping.”

From the outset, Fiorenza portrayed implementation of “racial equity” in education as driven by data and transparency. 

At a Oct. 9, 2019 community meeting, she said OPRF leadership would be “evaluating ourselves” and that it would “be responsive to what we are seeing based on the data.”

There was going to be a pilot program and a “common assessment,” she insisted, used to evaluate the intelligence of honors and college prep students now in the same class.  This didn’t happen.

In the Fall of 2024 E3 shared discrepancies between a 48 page consultant report on detracking and the rosy picture Fiorenza painted for board members.  

Fiorenza didn’t mention students disagreeing (for Math, English, and History) with the statement “I believe my classes are effectively preparing me for future academic challenges”, or disagreeing that English “offers a challenging curriculum, captures interest and attention, instruction is paced well, or my teacher provides the support I need to be successful”, or for all academic subjects, students disagreeing with the statements “things I learn are relevant to my everyday life”, or “I feel motivated to learn because I understand how material will be used”.  Student survey results begin on page 14. 

Furthermore, Fiorenza did not report the obvious displeasure of OPRF families with a detracked freshman year. 

At a March 6th, 2025 board meeting, Fiorenza described terminating a six-year consulting arrangement because "the data does not show us that we are obtaining the things that we wanted to see.” She did not clarify what she wanted to see; however, one might expect it was evidence of eliminating the racial predictability of achievement. When asked “was the program effective” Fiorenza answered “we didn’t actually collect data on specific student outcomes.”  Money well spent?

A foolish digital iron curtain

You receive the E3 newsletter, but where else can locals find news and information on education? 

 E3 asks you to read and rate three different local media reports on Fiorenza’s resignation. You be the judge on which is most and least informative – a quick survey follows.

1. The Chicago Tribune was first to announce the resignation on May 6th.  Oak Park and River Forest High School assistant superintendent Laurie Fiorenza to resign  If you can’t break through the paywall, the lede reads: “The administrator who oversees all things academic at Oak Park and River Forest High School is leaving the school at the end of this school year.” 

2. West Cook News published an article on May 12th.  Woman behind race-based grading, Laurie Fiorenza, resigns from OPRF 

3. Wednesday Journal published an article on May 13th.  D200 seeking new assistant superintendent for Student Learning

   
   

In a scan of how many articles on schools and education are published by each outlet, it seems West Cook News publishes far more than both other outlets combined with most articles briefly reporting school statistics such as salaries, attendance, and student proficiency, and fewer articles reporting current events. 

The Wednesday Journal editors put out very few articles on education and schools and instead seem to rely on their opinions section for disseminating education information. 

The Chicago Tribune first broke the story on Fiorenza’s resignation that OPRF administrators hadn’t even shared with the community – bonus points for attentiveness.

River Forest Facebook administrators censor education information on community group

Administrators of certain private River Forest community Facebook groups no longer allow members to post articles from West Cook News. 

For example, in the last 30 days administrators of the group 60305 Families themselves posted eleven articles (some for WJ, others Opinions) from the Wednesday Journal, three from the Chicago Tribune, and none from West Cook News.  Interestingly, most of the fourteen articles focused on schools and education. None of the 1,500 members posted anything about local schools. The censorship was clear when a group member was not allowed to post a West Cook News article on Fiorenza’s resignation.  An administrator said the reason for censoring was hers, and she “was not going to debate why.”

Another group, River Forest Parents, has 1,900 members and a similarly low tolerance for members pointing out steep declines in school quality under “social justice equity”.  The group’s administrators have rules: be kind and courteous, no hate speech or bullying, no promotions or spam, and these rules include statements like “make sure everyone feels safe”.  These administrators believe your “safety” comes from their limiting your access to information? 

An Oak Park Facebook group Moderate Citizens of Oak Park permitted posting of the same article where some called it “garbage” and others said “the data is accurate”.  

It' E3, where equity still means fairness and facts are not inherently political.

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