Jerry Cook was fired as principal of East Aurora High School in March 2024 after a unanimous school board vote, and now he is asking Kane County voters to make him their next regional superintendent of schools. Cook, the Democratic nominee facing Republican incumbent John K. Jonak in the Nov. 3 election, is campaigning for an office that licenses thousands of educators and inspects every public school building in the county while carrying a disciplinary record from two different districts into the race.
A Unanimous Vote to Dismiss
Cook took over as principal of East Aurora High School in July 2023 under a one-year, $205,000 contract with East Aurora School District 131, according to kanecountyreporter.com. By Feb. 20, 2024, he was placed on unpaid administrative leave after Superintendent Jennifer Norrell issued a cease-and-desist order tied to a second student placement. Norrell recommended his dismissal on March 1, 2024, citing both the outplacement of two students into an out-of-district alternative program without required due-process hearings and his failure to evaluate five assistant principals, per her termination letter. The District 131 school board voted 7-0 on March 18, 2024, to dismiss Cook as a probationary administrator, and the termination was confirmed in a letter from Amanda Sanderson dated March 19, 2024.
Months later, applying for a job with Cicero Public School District 99, Cook acknowledged the firing directly. “I was terminated from District 131 in March due to not completing my evaluations,” he wrote in his application, as reported by the same outlet, attributing the gap to an ongoing investigation into a student's due-process rights. He was hired that July as a special education program supervisor in Cicero District 99, and the kanecountyreporter.com account notes he most recently worked there as a school-based special education coordinator.
Cook's Account of the Firing
Cook has offered his own version of events to Kane County Democrats, the party that slated him as its candidate on April 15, 2026, according to the Illinois Appellate Court's review of his candidacy. He has said the superintendent conducted an investigation into a student discipline situation and that she wanted him terminated over it. According to Cook, the board ultimately determined Norrell made the decision to outsource the students and that he was not responsible. He has also said he could not complete the evaluations of the five assistant principals because he had already been placed on leave, and that he was upfront with Democrats about the firing, telling them they would not be surprised by it.
Cook has said he considered suing over his termination but that lawyers advised him the case would not succeed. Former District 131 school board members have said they believed Cook was railroaded. Among them is Alex Arroyo, a current Kane County Board member who sat on the District 131 board when Cook was terminated; Arroyo has said the board acted prematurely and should have let Cook finish his contract, and he has endorsed Cook for regional superintendent. Aurora 1st Ward Alderperson Daniel Barreiro, who voted for the termination at the time, has said he would have asked more questions and sought more details before casting that vote, and he now supports Cook for the regional office. Barreiro is married to Kane County Circuit Clerk Theresa Barreiro.
Not every former board member agrees. Juan Sifuentes, who voted for Cook's termination and now serves as District 131 board president, has said he does not support Cook and stands by the board's 2024 decision. Norrell, now superintendent of Homewood-Flossmoor District 233, declined to comment on Cook's termination and referred questions to Sifuentes.
An Earlier Ethics Finding in District 214
Cook's departure from East Aurora was not his first exit from a district post. An ethics commission in Township High School District 214 found that meals, drinks and a whiskey bottle Cook received from a Trane-related vendor exceeded the district's $100-per-year gift limit by $147.40, according to kanecountyreporter.com, a finding dated Nov. 6, 2023. The District 214 board subsequently voted not to renew his contract as director of operations, effective June 30, 2023. The Daily Herald reported on the district's review of the ethics complaint against Cook at the time.
A Court Fight Over Cook's Candidacy
Before Cook's record became a campaign issue, his very place on the ballot was contested. An objection to his nomination papers reached the Kane County Officers Electoral Board, which sustained the challenge to two petition pages, 8 and 96, over erroneous notary dates while overruling the objection to the rest of his petitions, according to the Illinois Appellate Court opinion in Nelson v. Kane County Officers Electoral Board. The appellate court affirmed that Cook's petitions substantially complied with the Illinois Election Code despite the certification errors, writing simply, “We affirm,” and clearing him to appear on the Nov. 3 ballot.
Jonak Points to His Record, Trusts Voters to Judge
Jonak, a former history teacher, became regional superintendent on July 1, 2025, after the Kane County Board appointed him to finish the term of Patricia Dal Santo, who had recommended him for the post before her retirement. He previously served as superintendent of Rosemont Elementary School District 78. Jonak has said he cut the county-funded portion of the regional office's budget by 11.48% without cutting a single service, a claim he made to kanecountyreporter.com.
Asked about Cook's disciplinary history, Jonak wrote that the records speak for themselves. He has framed the race around trust, saying the regional office exists to help districts protect students' rights and develop leaders, and urging voters to ask whom they trust to hold every Kane County district to the office's standard. Cook, a former civics teacher, and Jonak laid out their competing visions at a candidate forum at Batavia City Hall on Sept. 23, 2026, as covered by Shaw Local.
What the Office Actually Does
The Kane County Regional Office of Education licenses and background-checks thousands of educators a year, inspects every public school building in the county, and provides professional learning to public and nonpublic schools, per Shaw Local's reporting. Jonak has said the office serves more than 107,000 students and more than 9,600 educators across the county. At the forum, Cook pointed to his own experience as a high school principal in discussing chronic absenteeism, saying most of the causes he observed related to mental health and economic factors, while Jonak told the outlet that one in four Illinois students is chronically absent every day.
The dispute over Cook's firing was first detailed in Shaw Local's report, based partly on termination records released through a Freedom of Information Act request. With early voting underway ahead of the Nov. 3 general election, Kane County voters will decide whether Cook's account of his dismissals or Jonak's record in office carries more weight in choosing who oversees the regional office's reach into schools across the county.
