On Monday, the East Aurora District 131 school board voted to approve the appointment of Brian Moreno to fill a vacant seat on the board.
The 28-year-old graduated from East Aurora High School just over a decade ago, and now returns to sit on the district’s board.
Moreno fills the seat left by former board member Alex Arroyo, who had served on the board for nine years, according to past reporting. Arroyo now serves as the District 7 member of the Kane County Board, which voted on his appointment to that board in January. He resigned from East Aurora’s board on Jan. 16, according to the school district.
Moreno will serve the remainder of Arroyo’s term, which expires in April 2027.
At the same meeting on Monday, Robert Halverson was approved as the district’s new superintendent. He and the outgoing superintendent, Jennifer Norrell, will co-lead the district through June.
Moreno is the youngest member of the board in recent history, according to a statement from the city of Aurora. He attended Bardwell Elementary, Waldo Middle School and East Aurora High School, according to a press release from the school district.
Now a community engagement specialist for the city of Aurora, Moreno has been honored for his work in the community.
In May 2024, he received an award from Aurora Mayor Richard Irvin for performing CPR on a 63-year-old resident who collapsed at the top of a stairwell and lost consciousness prior to a neighborhood group meeting, according to past reporting.
A few months before that, Moreno de-escalated a situation at the city’s warming center at the Aurora Transportation Center, in which an 18-year-old was accused of entering with a firearm, pointing it at several people and striking someone at the center, according to past reporting. Moreno, who was staffing the warming center, called 911 and ushered individuals in the warming center outside to safety, officials said.
Applications for the vacant East Aurora board seat were due on Feb. 27, according to the district, and finalists were interviewed on March 1. Board members must be registered voters, over the age of 18, Illinois residents and U.S. citizens and live in the district for at least one year before they are appointed.
Moreno said that the district has changed a lot since he graduated from East Aurora High School in 2014.
“Prior to my graduation, there was always statistics … we would start out with 1,400 freshmen, and only 500 students would graduate,” Moreno told The Beacon-News after Monday’s meeting.
Now, the district has a 90% graduation rate, according to the latest data from the Illinois State Board of Education.
Moreno is also a current student himself. He is taking classes part-time for a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from Lewis University, as part of the 3+1 program at the College of DuPage. He previously received certification from Waubonsee Community College to work as a paraprofessional in schools.
“Now, the kids can be like … he went to Bardwell, he went to Waldo, he went to high school, he went to college, you know?” Moreno said on Monday. “I could do the same because he went through what I went through.”
The board could see further shake-ups in the near future. The terms of three of the current board members – longtime board member and current board president Annette Johnson, board secretary Bruce Schubert and member Theodia Gillespie – are expiring in April. All three are running for re-election in the April 1 election, against six non-incumbents, according to the Kane County Clerk’s Office.
