The Naperville nonprofit where District 203 junior high and high school students attend after-school and summer programs is now at the center of a board-level dispute over whether two members should recuse themselves from votes involving the organization. Board President Charles Cush says the district's lawyers already settled the question. The member who raised it says they answered the wrong one.

At the Monday, Aug. 17, board meeting, Cush announced that board members Amanda McMillen and Marc Willensky have no conflicts of interest related to their ties to the Alive Center, a teen-focused nonprofit where McMillen serves as executive director and Willensky sits on the board of directors. Cush cited a Feb. 3, 2025, legal memo from the district's law firm Robbins Schwartz, posted in the meeting's supplemental materials, which concluded there was "no indication that board member McMillen used her board role inappropriately relative to her employment with the Alive Center."

The allegations came from board member Melissa Kelley Black, who said on social media and at the Aug. 3 board meeting that McMillen and Willensky could "personally benefit from their positions as elected officials" through the district's financial relationship with the center. During a discussion on extending Superintendent Dan Bridges' contract, Kelley Black argued McMillen should recuse herself from the vote.

District records show approximately $32,455 in payments to the Alive Center since 2018, primarily for after-school and summer programming, plus a $9,400 payment processed March 24, 2025, for a summer program completed in July 2024, one month before McMillen was hired as executive director, according to the Chicago Tribune. District spokesperson LeeAnn Betz confirmed no new paid services have been initiated with the Alive Center since McMillen assumed the role.

Kelley Black was not permitted to respond during the meeting. The following day she argued the memo's timing undermines its relevance.

"There's no way a letter from 2025 is a response to issues in 2026," Kelley Black said Tuesday, Aug. 18.

Her concern is specific: she believes McMillen and Willensky should recuse themselves from any vote on bills that include Alive Center payments and from the Aug. 3 vote that extended Bridges' contract through June 30, 2031. That contract vote passed 5-2, with Kelley Black and Holly Blastic dissenting.

Cush said Kelley Black's social media posts violated two 2025 censure resolutions against her for "unprofessional conduct detrimental to District 203" and for "making false and disparaging comments about the board on public and private forums and channels."

Kelley Black has also been excluded from all committee and adopt-a-school assignments for a second consecutive year. Cush has said that exclusion stems from her refusal to participate in the district's monthly bills and claims review, which she has boycotted since taking office more than three years ago, saying the documentation provided is insufficient.

Willensky, elected to the D203 board in 2025, picked up petition packets July 28 to run for Naperville City Council in the April 2027 election. No source has published a direct response from Willensky on the conflict-of-interest allegations.

The next opportunity for the board to vote on bills that could include Alive Center payments has not been publicly scheduled.