Dupage Policy Journal

Before announcing her run for Community High School District 99 school board, the wife of U.S. Rep. Sean Casten (D-Downers Grove) sought to discuss her candidacy with the district's superintendent, who she would oversee if elected.

That's according to CUSD 99 emails obtained by DuPage Policy Journal.

The emails show that on Oct. 26 of last year, Kara Casten emailed District 99 Superintendent Hank Thiele asking if he would "have a conversation outside of school hours." She also asked for his cell phone number.

Kara Casten, the wife of U.S. Rep. Sean Casten (D-Downers Grove) sought to discuss running for school board with the superintendent of the district, emails show. | CUSD 99

"I would like to help support the school board in the upcoming election," Casten wrote.

Thiele responded 16 minutes later with his cell phone, along with the qualifier that "it would be inappropriate" for him to "comment on specific candidates."

"Feel free to reach out to me anytime," he wrote.

Kara Casten announced her run for school board 45 days later, promising to support continued instruction in controversial political ideologies, including Marxist "Critical Race Theory" (CRT) and transgenderism, which holds there is no such thing as biological sex, for students at Downers Grove North and Downers Grove South high schools.

"White Men"

Thiele, 49, who Illinois State Board of Elections records show has voted in eleven straight Democrat primaries, has been an outspoken advocate of CRT and transgenderism, and an ally of U.S. Rep. Casten.

In 2021, he participated in Casten's "listening tour" of the district. Later that year, when Thiele took criticism for keeping the pornographic comic book Gender Queer in District 99 school libraries-- he said that school attorneys didn't feel illustrated scenes of graphic gay sex qualified as pornography-- U.S. Rep. Casten publicly supported him.

Casten, who blames "white men who are petrified to live in a world where they might be judged by the content of their character" for broad public opposition to CRT-driven policies, like slavery reparations, said its opponents of Thiele and Gender Queer who are "the problem."

"They’re part of the biggest threat to our country, domestic terrorism," he said.

In 2015, District 99 hired Thiele, an assistant superintendent at Maine Township High School District 207 in Park Ridge, to replace then-superintendent Mark McDonald. His starting salary was $195,000. 

In 2022, Thiele's total compensation was $395,363-- $348,633 in base compensation and bonuses as well as nine weeks of paid time off worth an additional $46,730.

Thiele's wife, Annel Thiele, is a teacher at Queen Bee School District 16 in Glendale Heights who earned $139,863 in 2022. The couple lives in Roselle.

CUSD 99 has two high schools-- Downers Grove North and Downers Grove South-- serving 4,549 students, mostly from Downers Grove and Woodridge. It also serves parts of Bolingbrook, Darien, Lisle and Westmont.

A survey of DuPage County high school scores on the statewide English exam found that 50 percent of students at Downers Grove North H.S. scored at grade level, versus just 34 percent at Downers Grove South.

In 2021, the district received $97.6 million in property tax funding and spent $165.2 million, or $39,239 per student, according to Illinois State Board of Education data.