There are a handful of things that really bother me about what is happening.
The fact that the District is proceeding with looking at closing buildings not knowing what can and can't be done with the property brings back echoes of the decision to close Bessie Rhodes without realizing that they needed to have 3 hearings before a formal vote to do so.
Which brings me to the next point. The whole discussion about about schools facilities, finances, etc. is a long term, wholistic issue which needs to be addressed as such. In other words: are schools going to be closed, what is going to be done with the properties, are we going to have a referendum, what is going to happen with that money. Instead, it is all being done piece meal.
As someone who lives in North Evanston and has watched more Board meetings than any healthy person should, having these discussions in sequence rather than a part of a whole gives me hives. The District was talking about "right sizing" the number of schools back in 2020-21 but no one was really paying attention, and as a result, the North Evanston schools were emptied out as part of the Foster School plan.
Now, we talk about "utilization rates" as being a justification for closing those schools. In other words, the Foster School plan set the stage for closing North Evanston schools. It was a feature, not a bug. But no one talked about that then because that was not what was immediately in front of us.
Today, we have at least two issues that are not being talked about because they are not immediately in front of us in addition to the closure of schools - the disposition of the properties and the inevitable referendum.
If we are going to have real, honest discussions about these issues, these are things that need to be talked about all at once - even if it makes discussions longer and decisions harder. For a Board that professes to want to earn trust, that is what should be done.
Re: Elijah Palmer. He did not have a master’s degree when he came to DeKalb in July and was not qualified for the CoS position. He received a master’s degree in business in December 2023 from Northern IL (I assume virtually). He was immediately promoted once his degree was conferred.
The promotion to title required board approval, but apparently not a $60k raise.
Sarita Smith’s position in DeKalb required an educational administrator certificate. Unlike Palmer, she appears to have waited until she met all the requirements and finished the D.65 principal program (paid Master’s) and received an IL principal license in Jan 2024 before she moved on to GA. She received a reciprocal license in GA in early March 2024 shortly before she began her position.
Based on the records I have seen, more people came from Jefferson County than District 65 during Dr. Horton’s tenure in DeKalb. I watched the video of Elijah Palmer’s hearing and I have a feeling that more people realized Dr. Horton was more talk than was understood (i.e., moves were more risky than appeared).
I was just going to ask, has anyone foia'd the ADMINITRATORS making taxpayers pay for their continuing education? You've got to be kidding me, fat cat Administrators that never do the student facing work😡😡
I understand the "strike while the iron is hot" suggestion, but I cannot get behind a referendum if administration is not cut in half. Scrolling through your excellent database, Tom, to observe the job titles in the admin building is an exercise is absurdity. Am I counting at least 4 technology specialists at a a minimum of $75K a head when the national and international evidence is clear that iPad use compromises student learning, and the particular evidence is that the math curriculum, delivered via iPad, is garbage? Two full-time positions just to manage substitutes? I teach in a one-school district with 5000 students and we don't have a person who's entire responsibilty is managing subs; it's a shared responsibility. Director of Strategic Projects --does this mean every other administrator's projects are haphazard? How does a district with this much admin perform so poorly? Make it make sense.
The substitute thing is a whole world unto itself. I've talked to a lot of folks about this and my understanding is (I have an article about this somewhere..)
Pre-Horton, D65 used to have a single person that would do that role. She retired and the District backfilled the position with Dr. Turner's sister who then got a team of 2-3 people to manage subs. Then, they couldn't even fill all the roles, so the District still had to engage with an outsourced firm to do placements at $2-3 million per year. So they took something small and made it something very expensive. The whole time, the prior boards (2019-2023) just buried their head in the sand and pretended like this wasn't happening. The head counts were just added without any board approval and the placement agencies hired without bidding.
Okay, I appreciate that background. I can concede that maintaining substitutes has been way more challenging post-Covid; however, it really isn't much of a commendation to Dr. Turner's sister that she did not fulfill the job she was hired for and then hired 2-3 more people who also are not able to manage the job.
Also shocked by the amount of nepotism among admin????
I have been talking about this endlessly! Look at the central office employees!! Look at all of those folks and find out what they do and see if those positions can be done by fewer people. It's crazy that a district this small needs all of those people. Do a thorough audit, analyze who does what and get rid of the excessive fat over there and get to work! I won't be supporting any referendum until major cuts are done and we honestly know what we are looking at financially.
This is why I got so frustrated! I have gone through this list, however there is no description of what these people do. I want to understand what they do, do they really need all of these folks, I just don't see it. I have been in education for over 30 years. I have worked in K-12 districts and K-8. I am scratching my head on D65 and all of these positions.
I'm writing about the proposal to close the JEH Building and move preschool programs to neighborhood schools. This is how early childhood was handled way back in the 70s and 80s, and in the late 80s, I sat on the early childhood task force at Dist 65 that was assigned the responsibility to explore, assess, and make recommendations about the best path forward for delivery of early childhood services in the district.
The task force, which included community experts (such as myself, an early childhood social worker in Evanston) as well as District staff and administrators at various levels. An especially beloved longtime head of the psychology department for the district, whose name sadly escapes me at the moment, was a leader in advocating for creating one space for all early childhood services in the district. Scattering early childhood services across many schools is problematic for many reasons, including the fact that when children need special services, there has never been, nor will there ever be, enough staff to serve these children in a bunch of different school buildings.
The idea of having the expertise, assessment teams, and service delivery folks all in one building to be available to observe children and provide services on site as they were attending their preschool programs was deemed to be essential. That was the main recommendation of our Task Force, and many of us who worked so hard on our report, having visited and explored districts around the country who were leaders in providing high quality preschool services, all of which had the model of an early childhood center for their district, were thrilled when District 65 finally decided to create JEH.
Sadly, even when the building was built, the proper kind of observations, assessments and service delivery never happened as well as it should have...but scattering the children in a bunch of different schools around the district would likely be a lot worse.
Why the building was designed the way it was, with that huge waste of space at the front of the building never made much sense to me...
Perhaps there might be enough room at another existing school to move all early childhood services to one building, I don't know. But scattering early childhood services, which already are not sufficiently meeting young children in the community's needs, would only make the task harder.
I will say that many decades ago, there were itinerant experts who actually did go to community preschool programs to provide services to children there who needed them, and if such a project could be revived, that might be a good model...having children attend a half day preschool for all program at the district and then having to be bussed to another program for the rest of the day creates additional transitions, bussing costs, and challenges for the children in needing to deal with two different programs on a daily basis. Finding a way to house most of Preschool for all programs in community full day programs would be excellent...but clearly all of this needs to be carefully thought through and closing JEH without really taking the time to figure out the impact of that to service delivery to our youngest and most vulnerable children is not the way to go about this process.
I support the concept of closing only 1 school in addition to Bessie Rhodes for this next school year...but solving the financial shortfall by closing JEH and just shifting all of our youngest children to a bunch of other buildings is surely not the right way to go about figuring this out in the short term.
A fourth option should also be: "Close NO schools. Assemble a referendum that will pass. Further cut administrative costs. Map savings from closing JEH. We, the administration and Board, acknowledge we didn't have the facts or fiscal controls yet to make a one-way decision to close more schools. Our former superintendent was just indicted! Through the SDRP process, we were humbled and finally realized that closing schools does not solve anything but instead harms students and the Evanston community."
The problem is the short term cash position is pretty bad! My opinion has always been to take a referendum and peg the closures to the referendum (voters made this problem, voters can fix it) but this hasn't been the most popular
Unfortunately, I think many people who normally would be very supportive of a referendum are going to vote “no” after the ridiculous misuse of the money from the last referendum. So much trust has been lost and I’m not sure when or if it will be earned back…
I don't think the generic Evanston voter has feelings about the schools one way or the other. People said what you are saying to me about Daniel Biss to me before the last election (lost trust) and he won with 62%. Voting is all vibes based now.
The readers of this blog or the Evanston RT make up a minority of the 50,000 eligible voters in the town.
I agree that many evanston voters don’t care all that much, because many of the issues don’t really affect them. I now know more dual voter/no children households now than I ever did before. It pains me to say that some have no idea what Biss OR the school board did or did not do. Some had never heard of Superintendent Horton, have no knowledge of the Fifth Ward school or Bessie Rhodes School, and lived in Evanston for reasons known only to themselves. Some so idolize the presence of a major university, they approve whatever NU does with no care about how it actually affects the town. Vibes it is.
I think the Board listening now, and not closing more than one school, plus showing more financial intelligence in the upcoming months, will go a long way toward referendum support.
Is a sale-leaseback of JEH an option? They can realize the cash and then sign a one year lease and then move into extra school space or discounted city-owned offices in a year - all while cutting administrative (non-instruction) overhead.
I think everything is on the table. The JEH land is massive and beautiful and I'm sure some developer would eat it up in a second .. but I do wonder about the FEMA flood rating since it's on the canal.
I would love to think Beardsley and Turner support this, but I believe that is wishful thinking. They asked for a grant to be used for a new door at JEH earlier in the year ($80,000+) and just two board meetings ago, asked for the board to approve using the same grant/or different grant(?) for a $50,000+ awning. Could that grant not have gone to fixing other schools or prepping neighborhood schools for the pre-K kids? And the recent approval was after the initial pitch to put JEH on the table and move the kids to neighborhood schools. (Which I'd also add was never ever ever on the SDRP facilities nor financial committee's radar as an option.) They don't want to leave their comfortable work environment and would rather make taxpayers suffer.
I've been meaning to go back and read your excellent write up about who exactly is accountable to who? Isn't it the board that needs to answer to the taxpayers? And Turner answers to the board, but doesn't have to care about what tax payers want?
Wow, I didn't realize the property extended all the way up to Church. It looks as if part of the JEH building is on the King Arts parcel which might complicate things.
I wonder if at the meeting the administration or Board will acknowledge the deed restrictions on Lincolnwood (and possibly other schools). Even if they think there’s a way around it to sell or lease Lincolnwood, it means a likely legal fight with legal fees/costs.
I have to imagine this is going to come up. I've been trying to pull all the other titles/deeds but it's a complicated mess. Dawes mostly owned by the City. Orrington land is a byproduct of a native american treaty with the Ouilmette family. It's messy and this work should've been done up front.
Edit: I just saw in the FOIA log that someone is pulling the Willard deed from back in 1922. So I have to wonder if something is up with that property too.
I hope they bring it up. And my understanding is that the district has not done similar title searches as was done for Lincolnwood, which means other schools could have similar restrictions.
I am also in the camp that they could have closed 0 schools given how little each saves them. Then implement other cuts and revenue solutions to do more diligence.
But now they started the process and I worry we'll just have vacant buildings. So here's to hoping to contain the potential damage with them voting to only close 1 in addition to Bessie Rhodes.
I do think with Foster opening that you need to close one school so you don't have to hire new teachers. They can move some over from Bessie Rhodes but we should avoid having to staff a whole new school from scratch
And what's going on with the students who are slated to go to Foster School but were told that if they wanted to finish their years at their current school and not go to Foster they could? They were promised this and now it seems the district is changing its mind. Also, parents/students were asked to let the district know if they intended to go to Foster School but the district won't share the numbers? Just how many kids are slated to come to Foster School in the fall of 2026?
This is crazy, my understanding is that the number of students impacted by this is pretty small - like there aren't many students who live by Foster and want to continue to go to Orrington, for instance, but there are a few. They might as well let them finish out? I don't really get why this is the fight they want to have?
I have heard no one ask the most important questions: why are children leaving district 65 versus moving in. And, how would D65 be turned around and how short could thst turn around be.
The administration, politicians and community know why and refuse to acknowledge because the answers are politically incorrect. And EVERYONE is worse off for it.
I don't mean to defend the board and administration but I think they're well aware why people are leaving. They've done a bunch of surveys and I think, just did another one a few months ago. What politically incorrect result are you alleging? People keep saying this to me but at this board seems to be pretty honest about what's going on (the prior board definitely had their head in the sand, for sure)
I keep watching for, but have not yet seen (of course could have missed), figures on enrollment at the private elementary schools in town. Since they are private the information may be harder to get than public school enrollment data, but the city’s planning documents don’t show a mass exodus from town. We don’t have hundreds of houses sitting empty because families moved out to get their elementary kids in better nearby schools. And in the midst of the closing firestorm it is only the parents who are talking about how to improve the abysmal quality of the schools - and this is not a slap at the teachers.
They know. But as (now former) board member Omar recently said to me: “unfortunately, we don’t really care because those families still pay property taxes.” Insanely short sighted, but here we are..
This was the thing during the whole Horton era - neither Horton nor the Board believed that enrollment actually mattered. Horton himself would say shit like "go ahead and leave if you don't like this" .. but they were all too short sighted to see actual consequences. Financially, when enrollment drops the formula for reimbursement from the state goes down big time. This is part of why special education costs have gone through the roof, we don't get reimbursed nearly as much as we did before. Like, sure they still get the property tax revenue but does that make up for the drop in reimbursements? It seems like the answer to that is no. A smart Superintendent would warn the Board about the consequences here, but Horton was never one to think about the finances and the Board back then was more than happy to tell people to leave.
Jesus Christ ... "In 2025 on the ACT mathematics section, 79.6% of white students scored in the proficient range, compared to just 17% of Black students and 30.5% of Hispanic students. "
This is five alarm fire situation which they will resolve by hiring more consultants and sending more board members to equity training and will accomplish no gains.
Those numbers are criminal. We talk about equity, equality, and all kinds of stuff, like that makes a difference when teaching math, but when the rubber hits the road, the teachers are left trying to teach from curriculum that keeps changing year after year and kids simply don't learn math.
I think this is the biggest argument for consolidating all of our schools into a single district. I think we need to be able to track kids from Pre-K until they graduate and have a consistent curricula that doesn't change every three years based on the whims of some admin and trends in educational policy
You are 100% correct. Like any government department, they think nothing of kicking whatever can they are able, to consultants or to blame personnel biases for problems that have taken years of mismanagement or negligence to result in.
I will add: Every time I am critical of ETHS, I get a bunch of push back like ETHS is a beautiful perfect baby angel and D65 is the root of all evil. The reality is that the test scores at ETHS aren't much better than D65 and the racial achievement gap is actually worse (since you have more white kids coming in at 9th grade from private schools). It should be fair game to criticize the Board on this, but every time I do, I get a ton of push back that I'm beating up the one competent organization in Evanston but like .. what evidence is there that ETHS is doing any better?
How would ETHS, in four years, fix a student’s learning deficit that was 9.5 years in the making (assuming the .5 is half day Pre-k)? If you send an emaciated pig to market, the bacon ain’t gonna be too good. ETHS is doing a great job fixing a Denny’s Grand Slam by making the eggs and pancakes extra-tasty. And not to be a bad guy, but we’ve been talking about the gap for decades. People who have a child in their care know what they need to do to send said child to school prepared. People without a child know, either from their own experience, or because you can’t swing a dead cat in this town without hearing about the achievement gap. There’s nothing inherent in a person’s racial make up that makes a kid not read well. There’s language barrier, and then there is the something else. D65 can’t solve the “something else”. ETHS can’t make up for d65. The answer is that we will never fix the gap because it isn’t 100% racial, it’s socioeconomic, I am convinced, sprinkled with some vestiges of how people in power (here, white) have treated the others since the dawn of time in every society. Fixing socioeconomic inequity in the US will never, never happen- as evidenced by Elon Musk getting a 1T paycheck and the people in Appalachia not rioting. After so many decades, why do people act so shocked when they see test score disparity? If we really cared, there would be widespread attendance at Board meetings and we also wouldn’t be spending money on iPads in the classrooms. It’s a little yawn at this point. I would argue that at the most basic level, parents care about their own students getting through school and life. The other part is basic humanity and caring about others, and in Evanston, performative politics.
The current literature on DEI would suggest that any mentioning of context -- including the quality of the feeder district -- as a reason for a testing gap between different racial groups is just structural racism; that a school that can't bring students who are behind up to or even beyond the levels of the high-performing students is actually a racist school. As you may be able to tell from my tone, I think this is absurd, but that's the case. ETHS was one of 3 case studies in 2015's Despite the Best Intentions, and the researchers' data revealed that after ten years of implementing DEI initiatives to cover the testing gap, the gap grew larger, not smaller (https://www.amazon.com/Despite-Best-Intentions-Transgressing-Communities/dp/0195342720)
I wasn't trying to throw shade at ETHS. Expecting them to close a gap that is there when kids show up as 9th graders us folly. It is something that needs work before they show up in middle school.
I think people know when they get their tax bill and the largest font known to humankind says "WHERE YOUR MONEY GOES" with School District 65 at the top of the list.
To even catch wind of all this distress, much less read two schools are closing, inevitably leads to "what I am paying so much for?". Asking for even more funding through a referendum is going to be uphill...and then some.
Does the school board realize closing two schools against the north side's will is future political suicide? We're doomed if they don't.
I truly do not even know what to think about a referendum.
I think this will be really difficult to pass on the north and east side where MANY (in several census tracts a significant majority, per ACS data) school aged children are enrolled in private school already.
If we have to rely on voters with less engagement with D65 than ever I think of course there will be people saying "what am I paying for?" When they get that property bill.
I think there are also going to be a lot of people who are less engaged with D65 who watch the d65 circus and perceive this as a bailout for a district unable or unwilling to take control of their finances and address low utilization and continued ineptitude at the board and administration.
The community and board push back on most austerity measure while well intentioned and maybe well founded could backfire. Calls to slow down closures without a lot of well founded alternatives and against the recommendation of the SDRP work combined with the constant mentions and reliance on this referendum I think to many is not going to sound like an investment in our community but more like a bailout for continuous mismanagement.
If on the ballot I would almost certainly vote yes but I am deeply frustrated by how little is getting done.
D65 is not just at the top of the list, but dwarfs most other expenses. On a bill we just got total was approximately 7,000, D65 was about 3,000 of that. For families involved in D65, it's also worth noting that in the revised revenue levers the district provided on 11/3 they're also expecting a $488,600 increase in student fees.
There are 10,000s of people who are getting these bills in Evanston that are not involved with D65 and I am sure there are some in both the "I don't want to vote for that if you are closing schools" and "I don't want to bailout a district that's mismanaged, has low utilization , and unwilling to make sacrifices " camps.
I am feeling pessimistic about our ability to act on the information that we have, and if we need to use alternative plans those need to be developed. Things have been slow and I am not sure this board or admin is suited to manage more complexity which many of the alternative plans include.
At the last meeting we were just asking for legal clarity on timelines and legal definitions of school closures.... as a reminder we already voted on three scenarios before anybody asked about that.
Based on the definition of closure Maria provided and some additional review of Illinois law it sounds like we might need to do similar work for JEH and Park School "relocations" as recommended by some. I think all of this confusion and mismanagement is going to be difficult for some to stomach when the only certainty is that we need a referendum.
I am involved with D65 and would be voting yes regardless. I am also not advancing or advocating for either camp. With many families already having disengaged with the district and there being a continued lack of clarity around board and admin direction. I do think the math has probably changed on referendums.
At a minimum I think the folks that think we have time to figure this out need to be managing to our financial and referendum timelines. For a March or November referendum we have got to be asking ourselves what progress will we have made and what messaging would we have to the community?
You guys are really overthinking how much the generic voter 1) looks at their tax bill 2) understands their tax bill 3) monitors local politics and governance and 4) cares about all the above. My mailing list has the most activated Evanston voters on it and I peak out at about 5,000 reads per story. Evanston has 50,000 registered voters, many of whom (myself included) live in rentals and never see a tax bill. Those of you who live in big single family homes know all about the tax bill, but the rest of us never see it.
Appreciate it that perspective. Agree many don't look or see property bills.
Understanding them is pretty easy because it is just really large font itemizing where it goes and D65 is literally the top line and it's literally the top of the front of the first page. But I agree you have to receive or open them to see that.
One point of clarification is that the bill I am mentioning is for a modest townhouse that was petitioned with the assessor to reassess. The big houses you are talking about are paying WAY more.
Who knows what is going on with elections, what the plan with D65 will be, and how this referendum may be marketed. Results seem to defy common sense, or I've lost mine. Everything is vibes so planning a year out is probably futile and talking about property taxes are the ultimate vibe killer so I should maybe just shut up.
If we synced it up with the 2026 midterm we might get a larger piece of registered voters. Seems like an aggressive timeline and we'd be looking at something in 2017. In 2012 (lost) we had around 15,000 voters and 2017 (won) we had 18,000. I am.
My understanding of the 2017 referendum is that it reversed over $5m in cuts the board approved pending the results of the referendum. We have some ground to cover before we can really propose what this referendum would be.
Aren't we selling two buildings that we can't get back and that currently serve students in this plan?
Why and how is selling park school and relocating the program and it's students different and better than selling and reassigning students to neighborhood schools?
This is a genuine question and not intended to be snarky even if it sounds that way.
I know very little about park school. My limited knowledge of the school is that it's students have a variety of challenges that many students do not. In this plan are we considering the same impacts regarding closure of park as we did with neighborhood schools?
This seems potentially very disruptive to a vulnerable group of students.
What has stakeholder engagement with the Park School looked like regarding this plan?
Are there other considerations unique to that school?
Park School is a joint thing between ETHS and D65 and to your point does have a vulnerable student population. I can’t speak for the parents there but the building on Main Street is highly not ideal for a school, much less one with special needs. It’s a tiny plot and the building is very old and doesn’t even have a separated dropoff/pickup for the busses. They have to do it right on Main Street. It’s also a plot that is valuable and easily developable by the City.
I think there is a general plan to rethink how D65 does special education, because the system now is very suboptimal financially and for the parents. Maybe an opportunity to expand the kind of services something like Park has been successfully offering.
Thanks, I am very open our district doing better by these students.
I really struggle to support a plan that would relocate this school without rigorous input akin to our other school closure processes.
Maybe those processes lack rigor.... but this plan from what I can tell recommends moving forward with a park school relocation without really any formal process or engagement.
We have heard a lot of arguments about suboptimality (like orrington for a variety of reasons) and then heard community members rally around their schools. I think it is critically important that plans involving park be vetted with their communities and stakeholders.
If this has happened apologies and please point me to that.
There are a handful of things that really bother me about what is happening.
The fact that the District is proceeding with looking at closing buildings not knowing what can and can't be done with the property brings back echoes of the decision to close Bessie Rhodes without realizing that they needed to have 3 hearings before a formal vote to do so.
Which brings me to the next point. The whole discussion about about schools facilities, finances, etc. is a long term, wholistic issue which needs to be addressed as such. In other words: are schools going to be closed, what is going to be done with the properties, are we going to have a referendum, what is going to happen with that money. Instead, it is all being done piece meal.
As someone who lives in North Evanston and has watched more Board meetings than any healthy person should, having these discussions in sequence rather than a part of a whole gives me hives. The District was talking about "right sizing" the number of schools back in 2020-21 but no one was really paying attention, and as a result, the North Evanston schools were emptied out as part of the Foster School plan.
Now, we talk about "utilization rates" as being a justification for closing those schools. In other words, the Foster School plan set the stage for closing North Evanston schools. It was a feature, not a bug. But no one talked about that then because that was not what was immediately in front of us.
Today, we have at least two issues that are not being talked about because they are not immediately in front of us in addition to the closure of schools - the disposition of the properties and the inevitable referendum.
If we are going to have real, honest discussions about these issues, these are things that need to be talked about all at once - even if it makes discussions longer and decisions harder. For a Board that professes to want to earn trust, that is what should be done.
Re: Elijah Palmer. He did not have a master’s degree when he came to DeKalb in July and was not qualified for the CoS position. He received a master’s degree in business in December 2023 from Northern IL (I assume virtually). He was immediately promoted once his degree was conferred.
The promotion to title required board approval, but apparently not a $60k raise.
Sarita Smith’s position in DeKalb required an educational administrator certificate. Unlike Palmer, she appears to have waited until she met all the requirements and finished the D.65 principal program (paid Master’s) and received an IL principal license in Jan 2024 before she moved on to GA. She received a reciprocal license in GA in early March 2024 shortly before she began her position.
Based on the records I have seen, more people came from Jefferson County than District 65 during Dr. Horton’s tenure in DeKalb. I watched the video of Elijah Palmer’s hearing and I have a feeling that more people realized Dr. Horton was more talk than was understood (i.e., moves were more risky than appeared).
It was nice of District 65 to pay for her masters from Chicago State. I wonder if we paid for the business degree too? 🤔
I thought this was part of the principal residency program.
Yup. Stay tuned. Story coming out on that next week.
I was just going to ask, has anyone foia'd the ADMINITRATORS making taxpayers pay for their continuing education? You've got to be kidding me, fat cat Administrators that never do the student facing work😡😡
I understand the "strike while the iron is hot" suggestion, but I cannot get behind a referendum if administration is not cut in half. Scrolling through your excellent database, Tom, to observe the job titles in the admin building is an exercise is absurdity. Am I counting at least 4 technology specialists at a a minimum of $75K a head when the national and international evidence is clear that iPad use compromises student learning, and the particular evidence is that the math curriculum, delivered via iPad, is garbage? Two full-time positions just to manage substitutes? I teach in a one-school district with 5000 students and we don't have a person who's entire responsibilty is managing subs; it's a shared responsibility. Director of Strategic Projects --does this mean every other administrator's projects are haphazard? How does a district with this much admin perform so poorly? Make it make sense.
The substitute thing is a whole world unto itself. I've talked to a lot of folks about this and my understanding is (I have an article about this somewhere..)
Pre-Horton, D65 used to have a single person that would do that role. She retired and the District backfilled the position with Dr. Turner's sister who then got a team of 2-3 people to manage subs. Then, they couldn't even fill all the roles, so the District still had to engage with an outsourced firm to do placements at $2-3 million per year. So they took something small and made it something very expensive. The whole time, the prior boards (2019-2023) just buried their head in the sand and pretended like this wasn't happening. The head counts were just added without any board approval and the placement agencies hired without bidding.
Okay, I appreciate that background. I can concede that maintaining substitutes has been way more challenging post-Covid; however, it really isn't much of a commendation to Dr. Turner's sister that she did not fulfill the job she was hired for and then hired 2-3 more people who also are not able to manage the job.
Also shocked by the amount of nepotism among admin????
I have been talking about this endlessly! Look at the central office employees!! Look at all of those folks and find out what they do and see if those positions can be done by fewer people. It's crazy that a district this small needs all of those people. Do a thorough audit, analyze who does what and get rid of the excessive fat over there and get to work! I won't be supporting any referendum until major cuts are done and we honestly know what we are looking at financially.
I feel like none of these people have watched Office Space. "What would you say it is....you DO here?"
The list is public, you guys can go view here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1rq3D8kB0w9AECf4bwFutO8YJr1msOLINYh36azMGGO8/edit?gid=494935153#gid=494935153
Click SY26 Admin or SY26 IMRF down at the bottom
This is why I got so frustrated! I have gone through this list, however there is no description of what these people do. I want to understand what they do, do they really need all of these folks, I just don't see it. I have been in education for over 30 years. I have worked in K-12 districts and K-8. I am scratching my head on D65 and all of these positions.
I'm writing about the proposal to close the JEH Building and move preschool programs to neighborhood schools. This is how early childhood was handled way back in the 70s and 80s, and in the late 80s, I sat on the early childhood task force at Dist 65 that was assigned the responsibility to explore, assess, and make recommendations about the best path forward for delivery of early childhood services in the district.
The task force, which included community experts (such as myself, an early childhood social worker in Evanston) as well as District staff and administrators at various levels. An especially beloved longtime head of the psychology department for the district, whose name sadly escapes me at the moment, was a leader in advocating for creating one space for all early childhood services in the district. Scattering early childhood services across many schools is problematic for many reasons, including the fact that when children need special services, there has never been, nor will there ever be, enough staff to serve these children in a bunch of different school buildings.
The idea of having the expertise, assessment teams, and service delivery folks all in one building to be available to observe children and provide services on site as they were attending their preschool programs was deemed to be essential. That was the main recommendation of our Task Force, and many of us who worked so hard on our report, having visited and explored districts around the country who were leaders in providing high quality preschool services, all of which had the model of an early childhood center for their district, were thrilled when District 65 finally decided to create JEH.
Sadly, even when the building was built, the proper kind of observations, assessments and service delivery never happened as well as it should have...but scattering the children in a bunch of different schools around the district would likely be a lot worse.
Why the building was designed the way it was, with that huge waste of space at the front of the building never made much sense to me...
Perhaps there might be enough room at another existing school to move all early childhood services to one building, I don't know. But scattering early childhood services, which already are not sufficiently meeting young children in the community's needs, would only make the task harder.
I will say that many decades ago, there were itinerant experts who actually did go to community preschool programs to provide services to children there who needed them, and if such a project could be revived, that might be a good model...having children attend a half day preschool for all program at the district and then having to be bussed to another program for the rest of the day creates additional transitions, bussing costs, and challenges for the children in needing to deal with two different programs on a daily basis. Finding a way to house most of Preschool for all programs in community full day programs would be excellent...but clearly all of this needs to be carefully thought through and closing JEH without really taking the time to figure out the impact of that to service delivery to our youngest and most vulnerable children is not the way to go about this process.
I support the concept of closing only 1 school in addition to Bessie Rhodes for this next school year...but solving the financial shortfall by closing JEH and just shifting all of our youngest children to a bunch of other buildings is surely not the right way to go about figuring this out in the short term.
Also the administration might not want to cut administrative positions, but closing 3 schools results in a LOT of laid off teachers and staff.
parents 🤝 teachers
A fourth option should also be: "Close NO schools. Assemble a referendum that will pass. Further cut administrative costs. Map savings from closing JEH. We, the administration and Board, acknowledge we didn't have the facts or fiscal controls yet to make a one-way decision to close more schools. Our former superintendent was just indicted! Through the SDRP process, we were humbled and finally realized that closing schools does not solve anything but instead harms students and the Evanston community."
The problem is the short term cash position is pretty bad! My opinion has always been to take a referendum and peg the closures to the referendum (voters made this problem, voters can fix it) but this hasn't been the most popular
Unfortunately, I think many people who normally would be very supportive of a referendum are going to vote “no” after the ridiculous misuse of the money from the last referendum. So much trust has been lost and I’m not sure when or if it will be earned back…
I don't think the generic Evanston voter has feelings about the schools one way or the other. People said what you are saying to me about Daniel Biss to me before the last election (lost trust) and he won with 62%. Voting is all vibes based now.
The readers of this blog or the Evanston RT make up a minority of the 50,000 eligible voters in the town.
But this is just a Tom opinion, so who knows
I agree that many evanston voters don’t care all that much, because many of the issues don’t really affect them. I now know more dual voter/no children households now than I ever did before. It pains me to say that some have no idea what Biss OR the school board did or did not do. Some had never heard of Superintendent Horton, have no knowledge of the Fifth Ward school or Bessie Rhodes School, and lived in Evanston for reasons known only to themselves. Some so idolize the presence of a major university, they approve whatever NU does with no care about how it actually affects the town. Vibes it is.
I think the Board listening now, and not closing more than one school, plus showing more financial intelligence in the upcoming months, will go a long way toward referendum support.
I also add I think whoever is appointed to the open board spot will influence the referendum’s success.
Is a sale-leaseback of JEH an option? They can realize the cash and then sign a one year lease and then move into extra school space or discounted city-owned offices in a year - all while cutting administrative (non-instruction) overhead.
I think everything is on the table. The JEH land is massive and beautiful and I'm sure some developer would eat it up in a second .. but I do wonder about the FEMA flood rating since it's on the canal.
I would love to think Beardsley and Turner support this, but I believe that is wishful thinking. They asked for a grant to be used for a new door at JEH earlier in the year ($80,000+) and just two board meetings ago, asked for the board to approve using the same grant/or different grant(?) for a $50,000+ awning. Could that grant not have gone to fixing other schools or prepping neighborhood schools for the pre-K kids? And the recent approval was after the initial pitch to put JEH on the table and move the kids to neighborhood schools. (Which I'd also add was never ever ever on the SDRP facilities nor financial committee's radar as an option.) They don't want to leave their comfortable work environment and would rather make taxpayers suffer.
I've been meaning to go back and read your excellent write up about who exactly is accountable to who? Isn't it the board that needs to answer to the taxpayers? And Turner answers to the board, but doesn't have to care about what tax payers want?
Doesn't matter what Turner or her staff think about this - it's the Board's decision to make. They sign the paychecks!
Wow, I didn't realize the property extended all the way up to Church. It looks as if part of the JEH building is on the King Arts parcel which might complicate things.
I wonder if at the meeting the administration or Board will acknowledge the deed restrictions on Lincolnwood (and possibly other schools). Even if they think there’s a way around it to sell or lease Lincolnwood, it means a likely legal fight with legal fees/costs.
I have to imagine this is going to come up. I've been trying to pull all the other titles/deeds but it's a complicated mess. Dawes mostly owned by the City. Orrington land is a byproduct of a native american treaty with the Ouilmette family. It's messy and this work should've been done up front.
Edit: I just saw in the FOIA log that someone is pulling the Willard deed from back in 1922. So I have to wonder if something is up with that property too.
I hope they bring it up. And my understanding is that the district has not done similar title searches as was done for Lincolnwood, which means other schools could have similar restrictions.
I am also in the camp that they could have closed 0 schools given how little each saves them. Then implement other cuts and revenue solutions to do more diligence.
But now they started the process and I worry we'll just have vacant buildings. So here's to hoping to contain the potential damage with them voting to only close 1 in addition to Bessie Rhodes.
I do think with Foster opening that you need to close one school so you don't have to hire new teachers. They can move some over from Bessie Rhodes but we should avoid having to staff a whole new school from scratch
And what's going on with the students who are slated to go to Foster School but were told that if they wanted to finish their years at their current school and not go to Foster they could? They were promised this and now it seems the district is changing its mind. Also, parents/students were asked to let the district know if they intended to go to Foster School but the district won't share the numbers? Just how many kids are slated to come to Foster School in the fall of 2026?
This is crazy, my understanding is that the number of students impacted by this is pretty small - like there aren't many students who live by Foster and want to continue to go to Orrington, for instance, but there are a few. They might as well let them finish out? I don't really get why this is the fight they want to have?
I have heard no one ask the most important questions: why are children leaving district 65 versus moving in. And, how would D65 be turned around and how short could thst turn around be.
The administration, politicians and community know why and refuse to acknowledge because the answers are politically incorrect. And EVERYONE is worse off for it.
I don't mean to defend the board and administration but I think they're well aware why people are leaving. They've done a bunch of surveys and I think, just did another one a few months ago. What politically incorrect result are you alleging? People keep saying this to me but at this board seems to be pretty honest about what's going on (the prior board definitely had their head in the sand, for sure)
I keep watching for, but have not yet seen (of course could have missed), figures on enrollment at the private elementary schools in town. Since they are private the information may be harder to get than public school enrollment data, but the city’s planning documents don’t show a mass exodus from town. We don’t have hundreds of houses sitting empty because families moved out to get their elementary kids in better nearby schools. And in the midst of the closing firestorm it is only the parents who are talking about how to improve the abysmal quality of the schools - and this is not a slap at the teachers.
They know. But as (now former) board member Omar recently said to me: “unfortunately, we don’t really care because those families still pay property taxes.” Insanely short sighted, but here we are..
This was the thing during the whole Horton era - neither Horton nor the Board believed that enrollment actually mattered. Horton himself would say shit like "go ahead and leave if you don't like this" .. but they were all too short sighted to see actual consequences. Financially, when enrollment drops the formula for reimbursement from the state goes down big time. This is part of why special education costs have gone through the roof, we don't get reimbursed nearly as much as we did before. Like, sure they still get the property tax revenue but does that make up for the drop in reimbursements? It seems like the answer to that is no. A smart Superintendent would warn the Board about the consequences here, but Horton was never one to think about the finances and the Board back then was more than happy to tell people to leave.
https://evanstonroundtable.com/2025/11/13/scores-at-eths-balloon-following-statewide-changes-to-testing/
For those following ETHS
Jesus Christ ... "In 2025 on the ACT mathematics section, 79.6% of white students scored in the proficient range, compared to just 17% of Black students and 30.5% of Hispanic students. "
Holy cow! Those are breathtaking numbers.
This is five alarm fire situation which they will resolve by hiring more consultants and sending more board members to equity training and will accomplish no gains.
Those numbers are criminal. We talk about equity, equality, and all kinds of stuff, like that makes a difference when teaching math, but when the rubber hits the road, the teachers are left trying to teach from curriculum that keeps changing year after year and kids simply don't learn math.
I think this is the biggest argument for consolidating all of our schools into a single district. I think we need to be able to track kids from Pre-K until they graduate and have a consistent curricula that doesn't change every three years based on the whims of some admin and trends in educational policy
You are 100% correct. Like any government department, they think nothing of kicking whatever can they are able, to consultants or to blame personnel biases for problems that have taken years of mismanagement or negligence to result in.
I will add: Every time I am critical of ETHS, I get a bunch of push back like ETHS is a beautiful perfect baby angel and D65 is the root of all evil. The reality is that the test scores at ETHS aren't much better than D65 and the racial achievement gap is actually worse (since you have more white kids coming in at 9th grade from private schools). It should be fair game to criticize the Board on this, but every time I do, I get a ton of push back that I'm beating up the one competent organization in Evanston but like .. what evidence is there that ETHS is doing any better?
How would ETHS, in four years, fix a student’s learning deficit that was 9.5 years in the making (assuming the .5 is half day Pre-k)? If you send an emaciated pig to market, the bacon ain’t gonna be too good. ETHS is doing a great job fixing a Denny’s Grand Slam by making the eggs and pancakes extra-tasty. And not to be a bad guy, but we’ve been talking about the gap for decades. People who have a child in their care know what they need to do to send said child to school prepared. People without a child know, either from their own experience, or because you can’t swing a dead cat in this town without hearing about the achievement gap. There’s nothing inherent in a person’s racial make up that makes a kid not read well. There’s language barrier, and then there is the something else. D65 can’t solve the “something else”. ETHS can’t make up for d65. The answer is that we will never fix the gap because it isn’t 100% racial, it’s socioeconomic, I am convinced, sprinkled with some vestiges of how people in power (here, white) have treated the others since the dawn of time in every society. Fixing socioeconomic inequity in the US will never, never happen- as evidenced by Elon Musk getting a 1T paycheck and the people in Appalachia not rioting. After so many decades, why do people act so shocked when they see test score disparity? If we really cared, there would be widespread attendance at Board meetings and we also wouldn’t be spending money on iPads in the classrooms. It’s a little yawn at this point. I would argue that at the most basic level, parents care about their own students getting through school and life. The other part is basic humanity and caring about others, and in Evanston, performative politics.
ETHS is working with what D65 gives them for the most part.
The current literature on DEI would suggest that any mentioning of context -- including the quality of the feeder district -- as a reason for a testing gap between different racial groups is just structural racism; that a school that can't bring students who are behind up to or even beyond the levels of the high-performing students is actually a racist school. As you may be able to tell from my tone, I think this is absurd, but that's the case. ETHS was one of 3 case studies in 2015's Despite the Best Intentions, and the researchers' data revealed that after ten years of implementing DEI initiatives to cover the testing gap, the gap grew larger, not smaller (https://www.amazon.com/Despite-Best-Intentions-Transgressing-Communities/dp/0195342720)
I wasn't trying to throw shade at ETHS. Expecting them to close a gap that is there when kids show up as 9th graders us folly. It is something that needs work before they show up in middle school.
I think people know when they get their tax bill and the largest font known to humankind says "WHERE YOUR MONEY GOES" with School District 65 at the top of the list.
To even catch wind of all this distress, much less read two schools are closing, inevitably leads to "what I am paying so much for?". Asking for even more funding through a referendum is going to be uphill...and then some.
Does the school board realize closing two schools against the north side's will is future political suicide? We're doomed if they don't.
I truly do not even know what to think about a referendum.
I think this will be really difficult to pass on the north and east side where MANY (in several census tracts a significant majority, per ACS data) school aged children are enrolled in private school already.
If we have to rely on voters with less engagement with D65 than ever I think of course there will be people saying "what am I paying for?" When they get that property bill.
I think there are also going to be a lot of people who are less engaged with D65 who watch the d65 circus and perceive this as a bailout for a district unable or unwilling to take control of their finances and address low utilization and continued ineptitude at the board and administration.
The community and board push back on most austerity measure while well intentioned and maybe well founded could backfire. Calls to slow down closures without a lot of well founded alternatives and against the recommendation of the SDRP work combined with the constant mentions and reliance on this referendum I think to many is not going to sound like an investment in our community but more like a bailout for continuous mismanagement.
If on the ballot I would almost certainly vote yes but I am deeply frustrated by how little is getting done.
D65 is not just at the top of the list, but dwarfs most other expenses. On a bill we just got total was approximately 7,000, D65 was about 3,000 of that. For families involved in D65, it's also worth noting that in the revised revenue levers the district provided on 11/3 they're also expecting a $488,600 increase in student fees.
There are 10,000s of people who are getting these bills in Evanston that are not involved with D65 and I am sure there are some in both the "I don't want to vote for that if you are closing schools" and "I don't want to bailout a district that's mismanaged, has low utilization , and unwilling to make sacrifices " camps.
I am feeling pessimistic about our ability to act on the information that we have, and if we need to use alternative plans those need to be developed. Things have been slow and I am not sure this board or admin is suited to manage more complexity which many of the alternative plans include.
At the last meeting we were just asking for legal clarity on timelines and legal definitions of school closures.... as a reminder we already voted on three scenarios before anybody asked about that.
Based on the definition of closure Maria provided and some additional review of Illinois law it sounds like we might need to do similar work for JEH and Park School "relocations" as recommended by some. I think all of this confusion and mismanagement is going to be difficult for some to stomach when the only certainty is that we need a referendum.
I am involved with D65 and would be voting yes regardless. I am also not advancing or advocating for either camp. With many families already having disengaged with the district and there being a continued lack of clarity around board and admin direction. I do think the math has probably changed on referendums.
At a minimum I think the folks that think we have time to figure this out need to be managing to our financial and referendum timelines. For a March or November referendum we have got to be asking ourselves what progress will we have made and what messaging would we have to the community?
You guys are really overthinking how much the generic voter 1) looks at their tax bill 2) understands their tax bill 3) monitors local politics and governance and 4) cares about all the above. My mailing list has the most activated Evanston voters on it and I peak out at about 5,000 reads per story. Evanston has 50,000 registered voters, many of whom (myself included) live in rentals and never see a tax bill. Those of you who live in big single family homes know all about the tax bill, but the rest of us never see it.
Appreciate it that perspective. Agree many don't look or see property bills.
Understanding them is pretty easy because it is just really large font itemizing where it goes and D65 is literally the top line and it's literally the top of the front of the first page. But I agree you have to receive or open them to see that.
One point of clarification is that the bill I am mentioning is for a modest townhouse that was petitioned with the assessor to reassess. The big houses you are talking about are paying WAY more.
Who knows what is going on with elections, what the plan with D65 will be, and how this referendum may be marketed. Results seem to defy common sense, or I've lost mine. Everything is vibes so planning a year out is probably futile and talking about property taxes are the ultimate vibe killer so I should maybe just shut up.
If we synced it up with the 2026 midterm we might get a larger piece of registered voters. Seems like an aggressive timeline and we'd be looking at something in 2017. In 2012 (lost) we had around 15,000 voters and 2017 (won) we had 18,000. I am.
My understanding of the 2017 referendum is that it reversed over $5m in cuts the board approved pending the results of the referendum. We have some ground to cover before we can really propose what this referendum would be.
Aren't we selling two buildings that we can't get back and that currently serve students in this plan?
Why and how is selling park school and relocating the program and it's students different and better than selling and reassigning students to neighborhood schools?
This is a genuine question and not intended to be snarky even if it sounds that way.
I know very little about park school. My limited knowledge of the school is that it's students have a variety of challenges that many students do not. In this plan are we considering the same impacts regarding closure of park as we did with neighborhood schools?
This seems potentially very disruptive to a vulnerable group of students.
What has stakeholder engagement with the Park School looked like regarding this plan?
Are there other considerations unique to that school?
Park School is a joint thing between ETHS and D65 and to your point does have a vulnerable student population. I can’t speak for the parents there but the building on Main Street is highly not ideal for a school, much less one with special needs. It’s a tiny plot and the building is very old and doesn’t even have a separated dropoff/pickup for the busses. They have to do it right on Main Street. It’s also a plot that is valuable and easily developable by the City.
I think there is a general plan to rethink how D65 does special education, because the system now is very suboptimal financially and for the parents. Maybe an opportunity to expand the kind of services something like Park has been successfully offering.
Thanks, I am very open our district doing better by these students.
I really struggle to support a plan that would relocate this school without rigorous input akin to our other school closure processes.
Maybe those processes lack rigor.... but this plan from what I can tell recommends moving forward with a park school relocation without really any formal process or engagement.
We have heard a lot of arguments about suboptimality (like orrington for a variety of reasons) and then heard community members rally around their schools. I think it is critically important that plans involving park be vetted with their communities and stakeholders.
If this has happened apologies and please point me to that.
The dude threatening to sue over Lincolnwood was pretty epic.
And Turner, save your crocodile tears. You don't live here.
He’s an interesting character