The hostility of the board towards its constituents is so strange. Why ask the consultants for memos on these subjects, including whether to do a pause + new referendum, but stall disclosure of that to the public? They appear to believe they are entitled to complete trust despite everything that has gone wrong.
Blows my mind - I don't get it. These memos are newsworthy but they're not really saying anything we don't already know. Baffles me why they can't just include in the meeting packet, like every other government agency around here does.
One more thing on this - like they are considering a referendum, ok. The deadline to file for that is in January, why isn’t the board having these discussions mow? They just wait until some magical plan arrives on their desk in January? What is with the three months
i get the idea that they are basically stalling and want to wait to have enough money sunk in to the school and enough construction to show that it reaches the point of no return. That’s the sense I get. Notice how the district is never talking about all these things at once? Like what is stopping them from doing sap 3 (what happened to the last 2?) in public and naming the schools they are going to close along with having budget conversations all as one process. I mean they are directly connected so why not discuss them in connected manner?
I have never been more sure of anything in my life as I am of this: I absolutely, positively, and assuredly REFUSE to forsake one dollar that is currently allocated to my child’s elementary school tuition and my practically non-existent and paltry retirement fund in order to fund District 65 because of their utter and complete abdication of duty and common sense. I will fight loud and vocally against any referendum. Sorry, I don’t care what happens to the district. I’m already in debt up to my eyeballs funding my child’s school because of how woefully inadequate Biz and the Buzzies made our public option. I’m not going to further fund her mistakes. Last time, the Board fear-mongered about how we would lose art and orchestra and music and good teachers blah blah blah. I voted against it then. I’ll triple down on my efforts this time. Even with a whole new BoE and no one working at JEH that ever set foot in the CPS employment line, there is no way this district is getting another extra cent until trust is restored. And at the very least, this city needs to provide Finance/Accounting 101 for Elected Officials Who Think Money Grows On Trees/Are Sheep Easily Led By Shysters. And maybe EPD can offer a mini course on “How To Identify a Scam For Senior Citizens and Board of Education Members”. I am so angry at what has gone on here. They stole from me and they sit there, proud as punch. Do you all get this: they STOLE from us and they STOLE from our children so they could put on their consulting resumes that they are the Kings and Queens of Equity!! You know what doesn’t have equity? Any of the district’s financial outlook. Eff these people. Zero shame, zero apologies. They are the real Halloween monsters.
Also, did you see Biz on her phone during the community testimony at the last Board meeting?? This has occurred on multiple occasions at past BoE meetings. It’s surreal. So insulting—and it speaks volumes.
I see this a lot among board members and it's not just her. Technically any communications done on her mobile device during a meeting are subject to FOIA. I don't have time to FOIA that, though.
Absolutely. It should be board policy for laptops to be closed and phones away during public comment. It's the board meeting equivalent of "no phones at the dinner table"
I agree with you about any current ask for money but the 2017 referendum was not fear-mongering. The Board had already voted 7-0 to authorize the cuts; I know because my program was put on the chopping block. The referendum had wide support from the community and the local media and it passed with 80% of the vote. The problem was that nobody could imagine that we would be dealing with a corrupt Board and Admin two years later.
Thanks for calling this out -- I think people have varying awareness about the circumstances back then. Weirdly, one of the "issues" was a 10-year +1500 student enrollment gain was part of nudging costs up. Seems we gave those gains back!
I think Tom has noted before, but many of the underlying financial issues were there back then, the influx of $ allowed them to somewhat fly under the radar, till Horton poured gasoline on the flames.
Another factor was that Horton knew that the money was supposed to last through 2025 but he could just blow through it because he wouldn’t be here. He was looking for his next job before the ink was dry on his D65 contract. This was something that Sergio ADMITTED when he was walking out the door. It’s always bothered me that if the Board claimed to know that Horton had no long-term plans to stay in Evanston then WHY DID YOU EXTEND HIM BEFORE HIS ORIGINAL CONTRACT WAS UP????
Yeah I'm not sure I've seen evidence on this. Horton definitely knew the ESSER money was there, though, and in early 2023 treated it like his slush fund. For instance, the contracts he awarded to his friends early in the year were allegedly paid for with ESSER money. (This is why you all should complain to the DoE OiG). Nobody made any firm plans on how to spend that money and they were so bad with budgeting at the time that I don't think anyone was really looking closely. Like they used ESSER money to paid for a Principal Retreat (I can prove this) - how is that a valid use?
Oh yeah, but I always thought he meant it in an ass-kissing kind of way, like "you are too good for us and we couldn't expect you to stay here forever"
"Sorry, I don’t care what happens to the district."
Petty take, TBH. Hope you get some help with your debt and anger. Ironically, if the district continues to get worse overall, you very well may "forsake" dollars in the form of your declined property value. But at least you'll be able to say you helped dunk on four board members whose terms were expiring!
Pablo, silly thing, don’t be ridiculous. I’ve been dunking on these assholes for TWO election cycles and was vocally and publicly ALWAYS opposed to a 5th ward school. Back since 2010 and again in 2019. I don’t care what happens to the district when the next referendum fails. It’s not my dumpster fire any longer. Yet the 5th ward property values go up and up and up whether there is a school there or not. I’m not worried about the value of my home, or the short-term hole I have to dig to out-source education to an entity that does it right. Short term pain, long term gain. Don’t be pissed at me because I’ve been right all along and you presumably are stuck in public schools that are sinking like the titanic. We each make choices in our lives for what we think is best and just. I don’t have to willingly sign a contract to pay more property tax just because other people didn’t speak out like I have, didn’t campaign for sensible alternatives like I did, and didn’t vote like I have consistently and without fail since 1988. I’m not the enemy here. But what about all the other families that didn’t give a shit until BR was axed? Where were they for the past 4 years? Physician heal thyself.
To be fair, Karl is an OG shitposter around here and has been saying this since like my first post. I mean that in the nicest way, Karl. On the other hand, Pablo was commenter of the month last month!
For the record, I think Karl is a very fine shitposter and often find his takes entertaining. I'm disagreeing with him, not asking or expecting him to be silent.
Ahh, so you've been a stick in the mud since before it was cool! Good for you, man. Not "stuck" in public schools. If private was on my radar, I wouldn't have taken up residence in Evanston, but you do you.
If the 2017 ref. failed, I'll go out on a limb and say more kids here over the past 6-7 years would've had a degraded experience through larger class sizes and potentially losing their school (those were the two main risks of the then-looming deficit). The en-masse enrollment decline we've seen more recently probably gets a jump-start before Covid hit as a result, and we might be even lower than we are now. And then to bring it full circle, the private schools would've been max capacity sooner and your kid(s) might've been "stuck" in the public schools! So I guess good news for both of us nobody wanted to listen to you back then?
I understand the trust issues though. It's really dispiriting to hear so much of that sentiment growing, mainly because it's inescapable that a lot of kids (and some educators too) are about to bear the brunt of the consequences. And I'd guess some of those kids are those of your friends and neighbors, so that's where I have a hard time relating to your take of "it's not my dumpster fire but i'm going to triple my efforts to make sure that MF fully burns!"
My man- I’m not out her making sure the mf burns. I vote. Iam active in local politics and have been since before my first election. Yes, that’s right. I joined the DPOE in the mid 80s before I could even vote. I was a nerd like that. I didn’t “come” to Evanston; I’ve always been here. But now I’m an adult with a family and a house and cars and all this crap I took for granted back then and it’s a struggle. And frankly, there are like 50k voters in this town and even during this “overwhelmingly wanted” 2017 referendum, only 14.5k voters cast a yes ballot. If Evanston gave a shit, Evanston would vote. They don’t. The parents of the kids in the schools don’t vote. So I’m not going to fork over another effing 6% to an entity that among many other things stopped educating my student when it was paramount, hired inept administrators, and burned itself at the stake under the guidance of a Board that consistently flips its constituency the bird. It’s not my circus anymore, and I’m not enabling the alcoholic by giving him gift cards to Binny’s. I put several kids thru d65. Can’t do it anymore. And I’m not paying for other people’s mistakes. It will be a HARD NO on any referendum for me. This city has a budget for el Ed most would kill for. It’s time to live within it. For a population that cares so much about affordability, it’s laughable that anyone would hold their hand out asking for more, and after the huge hit we all just took with the latest increases?? Especially asking me, a resident of the ward that this Board said needed the help that led to this fiasco in the first place. Again with the (not-so-delicious) irony. Not gonna do it, wouldn’t be prudent.
Your beef isn’t with me or the many others on this same forum who say we don’t feel like giving money to this school district in the form of referendum tax increases. Your beef is with your fellow parent population who allowed this to happen thru voter apathy. I hope the next election is different. I hope we get an apology when every seated BoE member leaves in shame. I won’t hold my breath.
To your point, D65’s current per capita expense per child is around $24,000. This is almost double what it was 10 years ago. The national average in 2019 was $15,500.
Can we create a separate account for the funding with the stipulation that it only be used to pay teachers and school support staff? Because if it's not that then I'm not voting for it.
Exactly. They aren't following the resolution from the 2017 referendum, why would we trust them with more money?! I am planning to vote a hard no unless something drastically changes.
It’s almost like the ESSER funds in excess of $10 million they received during Covid, that was supposed to be used for student learning-loss,
after school initiatives, technology, summer enrichment, health and safety yet Horton used it for security and pet projects and the board never questioned any of it.
So let’s get this straight - they may not be able to make payroll as soon as early 2025 but it’s okay to plow ahead with a construction project that is largely not bid out and therefore subject to change over a pretty long time horizon? One which is actually not covered in full by lease certs - remember the ~$7 million in costs they must fund for non construction costs)? One which their financial consultant (by having one you are admitting you don’t have in-house finance expertise, fyi) says is a very horrible decision. Seriously could this board make worse decisions?
I literally laughed out loud when I saw that “D65 either was or is considering a referendum.” As if I’d vote yes to giving this district more of my money to burn in their money burning bonfire I’m convinced exists behind JEH. I’m waiting to see what cuts they are proposing in January but I’m coming to the hard conclusion that we are either going to have to figure out how to afford private school or how to move out of this district in this difficult housing market, neither of which are easy financial options.
I realize this may sound futile but you should consider writing a letter that says this to your alderman and Mayor Biss. The Mayors email a few weeks ago, I think really moved the ball. I am not sure why D65 would defer to his authority but it does move things around here.
We're in the same boat. I just sent an email to both mayors letting them know I'd never vote to give this board more money. I also urged the mayors to request that the board follow Grossi's advice and pause construction.
Pause construction with what as the intended plan? If it's a pause till, say, May 2025, you can leave the field of dirt. If it's an indefinite pause, we have to spend $1M to restore the field plus any kind of early payment penalties for trying to unwind the lease certs...but hey, maybe the city will still pop the $200k for the new track!
I'd say pause at the very least long enough to see just how much the consultants recommend cutting from the district and if they're comfortable with the consequences (you know, like the whole comprehensive plan they should have done before borrowing the money in the first place). Ideally we'd have access to two scenarios -- what state we'd be in with the new school and without. Of course shopping for a consultant could all be a show because they probably already know what they want to cut/close.
Even better if they pause until May and we have a (hopefully competent) new board to oversee things.
Yep. Once the district is burned down to a skeleton of an education they will have a new building but that is about it. That will harm the kids that need the most help. How they can't see the forest through the trees is nuts. These cuts will need to be huge and will be painful. It will be like Covid-- parents with means will hire tutors, take private music lessons, move or attend private school while other families will be stuck with a shell of school district. Nothing about this is equitable.
This is the logical culmination of an identity politics ideology animated by grift.
It is an Evanston version of Trumpism: make decisions based on grievance, demonize opponents and others based on identity categories, deprioritize competence and experience in favor of ideological purity, throw fiscal prudence out the window and engage in petty grift, ignore the whole purpose of public service in a diverse community.
There is little substantive distance between Trump and Tanyavutti, Joey, Sergio, Biz, etc....
It’s fine if you want to hate on Trump, after all this is Evanston. But Trump would hate everything that Tanyavutti, Joey, Sergio, Biz and Horton stand for. He would have fired them all!!
Trump pardoned Kwame Kilpatrick, the original politician that basically inspired this whole project (my journalistic approach is modeled after the amazing journalists that wrote about Kilpatrick in Detroit, circa 2008). Kilpatrick was a bad dude and did not deserve that pardon. He pardoned Blago too.
100% Trump would be a Horton fan. If Horton ends up in jail and Trump as president, he should apply for a pardon.
So many issues! Setting priorities should certainly direct this board to settle teachers contract and get the finances in order. That probably means delaying Foster School.
Not seeking a referendum was in violation of community trust. I agree with other writers here that it will be nearly impossible to seek more funds from voters.
And again, for every teacher cut, 10 administrators should leave.
As one of the parents mentioned on Monday, the board has failed to comply with the oath of office as well as not following local governing policies… both counts have grounds for prosecution (class 4 felony).
The job is above their heads, they should be held accountable
Would guess the burden of proof is high for something with implicit subjectivity - I wouldn't hold your breath on a legal angle being the recourse here but would love to be wrong about that.
Will someone clear this up for me? Here’s what I have cobbled together to explain how the Lighthouse District became the Dumpster Fire District. We have (yes, still present tense) a superintendent that fleeced the community’s taxpayers. That, however, could not have happened by a single person. There was abundant help from the either complicit or incompetent decisions made by cronies and school board. The community should be demanding the immediate removal of all of the people who directed this or helped in the decline of the district. The teachers did not do this. The students did not do this. The parents did not do this. Corrupt, complicit and incompetent people knowingly did this. Remove them, don’t ask them to fix the problem they couldn’t figure out they created.
In terms of the people responsible, it is the board--largely the 2019-2020 board who were most responsible. This would be Suni Kartha, Anya Taynavutti, Candance Chow, Rebecca Mendoza, Biz, Sergio, and Joey.
That was the crew that broke precedent by hiring a superintendent in the dark without any public input. That was the crew that hired Horton in early 2020. That was the crew that--before hiring him-- hid from the public his background as someone with no experience running a district and who owed tens of thousands of dollars related to his real estate business.
In his exit interview, Horton said he was asked by the Board before he started in July 2020 to find funding for a new school.
There had been no public discussion at all during this period about building a new school.
To be fair, Chow voted for Horton and endorsed the secretive hiring process but left the board in early 2020 and was replaced by Soo La Kim.
But that crew set this whole thing in motion with the original sin of hiring Horton and charging him with a task that he totally flubbed.
Don’t forget all the administrators under Horton who enabled this 💩 day in and day out. Every one of them is culpable and if they’re still working for the district they should not only be given their walking papers, but they should all be investigated.
That is another thing that blows me away. The CFO support staff still works here, they have been pulling bad numbers while under the CFO and after he left. WHY do they still work for the district? WHY doesn't the board care? Aren't they angry that those people "lied" to them?
Anya Taynaavutti the alleged author of the Lady Whistledown letter! The former president of our school board! That letter that published addresses and cost of homes that supported other candidates. You can't make this stuff up. It's like the movie Mean Girls with the Burn Book. Except we are adults not teenagers.
This is a good overall summary but probably worth noting how early Joey and Sergio specifically entered the arena (2017), given they're still around. If Sergio somehow sticks around his entire term he'll have done TEN years...
Also just throwing it out there, we should probably take anything Horton said in an exit interview with a massive grain of salt. It's definitely plausible but without something to corroborate that (or maybe someone already did?) it's hard to fully rely on his account of things.
I acknowledge that Horton is liar and an unreliable narrator; BUT how else can we account for his making a new school a major focus of his administration?
Especially given the ideological dispositions of Taynavutti, Kartha, and the rest of them? My understanding is that there were some professional ties between Taynavutti and Horton before he was hired. And why break precedent and have a secretive search?
Henry Wilkins--Mya's spouse--had been working on the STEM School idea for a few years before Horton was hired. Check his letter to the editor below where he says Biz was telling him to work on the idea in 2019 before Horton was even hired.
A new school was clearly on the minds of the board when Horton was hired so it is not unreasonable that he was telling the truth in the exit interview.
Given the current debacle at Bessie Rhodes, it is also interesting to remember that Mya Wilkins was an early opponent of TWI at the school, so her enthusiastic support for shutting it down as a board member should not be surprising:
Yeah, Horton and Tanyavutti worked together in AUSL (as did Turner). I'm not sure how well they knew each other - but he was a principal and she was a "network advisor" according to her LinkedIn. I'm not sure how closely they worked together if at all but it wasn't a huge organization.
I didn't appreciate how much push back there was to Bessie Rhodes back in 2017 and how it was viewed by some of the equity folks as a zero sum with the Fifth Ward School. Good background. Somehow we managed to find the worst possible outcome.
Is there any effort underway to conduct a legal investigation surrounding this financial situation, which should include the circumstances surrounding Horton's hiring? This board is plainly conflicted from conducting one on its own. A law firm should be hired (I know more expense but necessary to bring accountability) to work with Grossi.
Never thought I would say this as I have a second grader in d65 who loves his school, but I hope the state takes over sooner rather than later.
The entire ball of still warm hippo vomit that is the d65 admin and board are completely and utterly incompetent. Just political hacks using the term "equity" to literally punish everybody in Evanston. I support the idea of building a school in the 5th Ward, but not at the expense of punishing the entire city. This has to stop.
How can they have the chutzpa to even consider a referendum after their choices and complete lack of accountability and transparency from this board and recent administrations?
The District does have sufficient funds to pay current construction costs and is committed to making the necessary financial cuts to construct Foster School.
“Necessary financial cuts…” just sounds like bleeding the other D65 schools.
The hostility of the board towards its constituents is so strange. Why ask the consultants for memos on these subjects, including whether to do a pause + new referendum, but stall disclosure of that to the public? They appear to believe they are entitled to complete trust despite everything that has gone wrong.
Blows my mind - I don't get it. These memos are newsworthy but they're not really saying anything we don't already know. Baffles me why they can't just include in the meeting packet, like every other government agency around here does.
Maybe they’re embarrassed??? The promise they made to the community is in serious jeopardy!
One more thing on this - like they are considering a referendum, ok. The deadline to file for that is in January, why isn’t the board having these discussions mow? They just wait until some magical plan arrives on their desk in January? What is with the three months
i get the idea that they are basically stalling and want to wait to have enough money sunk in to the school and enough construction to show that it reaches the point of no return. That’s the sense I get. Notice how the district is never talking about all these things at once? Like what is stopping them from doing sap 3 (what happened to the last 2?) in public and naming the schools they are going to close along with having budget conversations all as one process. I mean they are directly connected so why not discuss them in connected manner?
Yeah plus we have an election in 6 months, so they can make this all someone else’s problem
I think you're making too much sense, stop it now.
I have never been more sure of anything in my life as I am of this: I absolutely, positively, and assuredly REFUSE to forsake one dollar that is currently allocated to my child’s elementary school tuition and my practically non-existent and paltry retirement fund in order to fund District 65 because of their utter and complete abdication of duty and common sense. I will fight loud and vocally against any referendum. Sorry, I don’t care what happens to the district. I’m already in debt up to my eyeballs funding my child’s school because of how woefully inadequate Biz and the Buzzies made our public option. I’m not going to further fund her mistakes. Last time, the Board fear-mongered about how we would lose art and orchestra and music and good teachers blah blah blah. I voted against it then. I’ll triple down on my efforts this time. Even with a whole new BoE and no one working at JEH that ever set foot in the CPS employment line, there is no way this district is getting another extra cent until trust is restored. And at the very least, this city needs to provide Finance/Accounting 101 for Elected Officials Who Think Money Grows On Trees/Are Sheep Easily Led By Shysters. And maybe EPD can offer a mini course on “How To Identify a Scam For Senior Citizens and Board of Education Members”. I am so angry at what has gone on here. They stole from me and they sit there, proud as punch. Do you all get this: they STOLE from us and they STOLE from our children so they could put on their consulting resumes that they are the Kings and Queens of Equity!! You know what doesn’t have equity? Any of the district’s financial outlook. Eff these people. Zero shame, zero apologies. They are the real Halloween monsters.
100% all of this.
Also, did you see Biz on her phone during the community testimony at the last Board meeting?? This has occurred on multiple occasions at past BoE meetings. It’s surreal. So insulting—and it speaks volumes.
I see this a lot among board members and it's not just her. Technically any communications done on her mobile device during a meeting are subject to FOIA. I don't have time to FOIA that, though.
Absolutely. It should be board policy for laptops to be closed and phones away during public comment. It's the board meeting equivalent of "no phones at the dinner table"
She’s a piece of…something.
I agree with you about any current ask for money but the 2017 referendum was not fear-mongering. The Board had already voted 7-0 to authorize the cuts; I know because my program was put on the chopping block. The referendum had wide support from the community and the local media and it passed with 80% of the vote. The problem was that nobody could imagine that we would be dealing with a corrupt Board and Admin two years later.
Thanks for calling this out -- I think people have varying awareness about the circumstances back then. Weirdly, one of the "issues" was a 10-year +1500 student enrollment gain was part of nudging costs up. Seems we gave those gains back!
I think Tom has noted before, but many of the underlying financial issues were there back then, the influx of $ allowed them to somewhat fly under the radar, till Horton poured gasoline on the flames.
Another factor was that Horton knew that the money was supposed to last through 2025 but he could just blow through it because he wouldn’t be here. He was looking for his next job before the ink was dry on his D65 contract. This was something that Sergio ADMITTED when he was walking out the door. It’s always bothered me that if the Board claimed to know that Horton had no long-term plans to stay in Evanston then WHY DID YOU EXTEND HIM BEFORE HIS ORIGINAL CONTRACT WAS UP????
Wait a sec -- where was it that Sergio admitted that? Was that public?
Yeah I'm not sure I've seen evidence on this. Horton definitely knew the ESSER money was there, though, and in early 2023 treated it like his slush fund. For instance, the contracts he awarded to his friends early in the year were allegedly paid for with ESSER money. (This is why you all should complain to the DoE OiG). Nobody made any firm plans on how to spend that money and they were so bad with budgeting at the time that I don't think anyone was really looking closely. Like they used ESSER money to paid for a Principal Retreat (I can prove this) - how is that a valid use?
In an article discussing Horton’s departure, Sergio made the comment that they knew he wasn’t here for the long term.
Oh yeah, but I always thought he meant it in an ass-kissing kind of way, like "you are too good for us and we couldn't expect you to stay here forever"
"Sorry, I don’t care what happens to the district."
Petty take, TBH. Hope you get some help with your debt and anger. Ironically, if the district continues to get worse overall, you very well may "forsake" dollars in the form of your declined property value. But at least you'll be able to say you helped dunk on four board members whose terms were expiring!
Pablo, silly thing, don’t be ridiculous. I’ve been dunking on these assholes for TWO election cycles and was vocally and publicly ALWAYS opposed to a 5th ward school. Back since 2010 and again in 2019. I don’t care what happens to the district when the next referendum fails. It’s not my dumpster fire any longer. Yet the 5th ward property values go up and up and up whether there is a school there or not. I’m not worried about the value of my home, or the short-term hole I have to dig to out-source education to an entity that does it right. Short term pain, long term gain. Don’t be pissed at me because I’ve been right all along and you presumably are stuck in public schools that are sinking like the titanic. We each make choices in our lives for what we think is best and just. I don’t have to willingly sign a contract to pay more property tax just because other people didn’t speak out like I have, didn’t campaign for sensible alternatives like I did, and didn’t vote like I have consistently and without fail since 1988. I’m not the enemy here. But what about all the other families that didn’t give a shit until BR was axed? Where were they for the past 4 years? Physician heal thyself.
To be fair, Karl is an OG shitposter around here and has been saying this since like my first post. I mean that in the nicest way, Karl. On the other hand, Pablo was commenter of the month last month!
For the record, I think Karl is a very fine shitposter and often find his takes entertaining. I'm disagreeing with him, not asking or expecting him to be silent.
I love that Karl and Pablo came together in this thread. This is Evanston at its finest. Thank you, Tom
Game recognize game.
Ahh, so you've been a stick in the mud since before it was cool! Good for you, man. Not "stuck" in public schools. If private was on my radar, I wouldn't have taken up residence in Evanston, but you do you.
If the 2017 ref. failed, I'll go out on a limb and say more kids here over the past 6-7 years would've had a degraded experience through larger class sizes and potentially losing their school (those were the two main risks of the then-looming deficit). The en-masse enrollment decline we've seen more recently probably gets a jump-start before Covid hit as a result, and we might be even lower than we are now. And then to bring it full circle, the private schools would've been max capacity sooner and your kid(s) might've been "stuck" in the public schools! So I guess good news for both of us nobody wanted to listen to you back then?
I understand the trust issues though. It's really dispiriting to hear so much of that sentiment growing, mainly because it's inescapable that a lot of kids (and some educators too) are about to bear the brunt of the consequences. And I'd guess some of those kids are those of your friends and neighbors, so that's where I have a hard time relating to your take of "it's not my dumpster fire but i'm going to triple my efforts to make sure that MF fully burns!"
My man- I’m not out her making sure the mf burns. I vote. Iam active in local politics and have been since before my first election. Yes, that’s right. I joined the DPOE in the mid 80s before I could even vote. I was a nerd like that. I didn’t “come” to Evanston; I’ve always been here. But now I’m an adult with a family and a house and cars and all this crap I took for granted back then and it’s a struggle. And frankly, there are like 50k voters in this town and even during this “overwhelmingly wanted” 2017 referendum, only 14.5k voters cast a yes ballot. If Evanston gave a shit, Evanston would vote. They don’t. The parents of the kids in the schools don’t vote. So I’m not going to fork over another effing 6% to an entity that among many other things stopped educating my student when it was paramount, hired inept administrators, and burned itself at the stake under the guidance of a Board that consistently flips its constituency the bird. It’s not my circus anymore, and I’m not enabling the alcoholic by giving him gift cards to Binny’s. I put several kids thru d65. Can’t do it anymore. And I’m not paying for other people’s mistakes. It will be a HARD NO on any referendum for me. This city has a budget for el Ed most would kill for. It’s time to live within it. For a population that cares so much about affordability, it’s laughable that anyone would hold their hand out asking for more, and after the huge hit we all just took with the latest increases?? Especially asking me, a resident of the ward that this Board said needed the help that led to this fiasco in the first place. Again with the (not-so-delicious) irony. Not gonna do it, wouldn’t be prudent.
Your beef isn’t with me or the many others on this same forum who say we don’t feel like giving money to this school district in the form of referendum tax increases. Your beef is with your fellow parent population who allowed this to happen thru voter apathy. I hope the next election is different. I hope we get an apology when every seated BoE member leaves in shame. I won’t hold my breath.
To your point, D65’s current per capita expense per child is around $24,000. This is almost double what it was 10 years ago. The national average in 2019 was $15,500.
There is also the Teacher contracts weighing the cost of raises. This will impact the budget further. This is messy.
I never thought I might vote against school funding, but until the Board roster substantially changes it is hard to justify giving them more money.
Even if the board changes it’s a bad idea to put good money after bad.
Can we create a separate account for the funding with the stipulation that it only be used to pay teachers and school support staff? Because if it's not that then I'm not voting for it.
Yes they absolutely can and would pass a resolution directing the spend. But .. they did this in 2017 and the board is in violation of it and 🤷
Exactly. They aren't following the resolution from the 2017 referendum, why would we trust them with more money?! I am planning to vote a hard no unless something drastically changes.
Yea I am not going to be out there shilling for it unless it has some real tight governance and doesn’t just get burned hiring more admins
We do need to hire a Deputy Director for the Tom Hayden School of Jazz...
It’s almost like the ESSER funds in excess of $10 million they received during Covid, that was supposed to be used for student learning-loss,
after school initiatives, technology, summer enrichment, health and safety yet Horton used it for security and pet projects and the board never questioned any of it.
I think the ESSER funds is the biggest scandal as far as finances go; they can start their audit by finding out what that money was used for.
So let’s get this straight - they may not be able to make payroll as soon as early 2025 but it’s okay to plow ahead with a construction project that is largely not bid out and therefore subject to change over a pretty long time horizon? One which is actually not covered in full by lease certs - remember the ~$7 million in costs they must fund for non construction costs)? One which their financial consultant (by having one you are admitting you don’t have in-house finance expertise, fyi) says is a very horrible decision. Seriously could this board make worse decisions?
I literally laughed out loud when I saw that “D65 either was or is considering a referendum.” As if I’d vote yes to giving this district more of my money to burn in their money burning bonfire I’m convinced exists behind JEH. I’m waiting to see what cuts they are proposing in January but I’m coming to the hard conclusion that we are either going to have to figure out how to afford private school or how to move out of this district in this difficult housing market, neither of which are easy financial options.
I realize this may sound futile but you should consider writing a letter that says this to your alderman and Mayor Biss. The Mayors email a few weeks ago, I think really moved the ball. I am not sure why D65 would defer to his authority but it does move things around here.
While the Mayors have no authority over the school district, I think their public letter (email) shamed and embarrassed them.
If there is a referendum the Board better hope that the 20 percent that show up to vote is not the 20 percent that pulled their kids from D65.
We're in the same boat. I just sent an email to both mayors letting them know I'd never vote to give this board more money. I also urged the mayors to request that the board follow Grossi's advice and pause construction.
Pause construction with what as the intended plan? If it's a pause till, say, May 2025, you can leave the field of dirt. If it's an indefinite pause, we have to spend $1M to restore the field plus any kind of early payment penalties for trying to unwind the lease certs...but hey, maybe the city will still pop the $200k for the new track!
I'd say pause at the very least long enough to see just how much the consultants recommend cutting from the district and if they're comfortable with the consequences (you know, like the whole comprehensive plan they should have done before borrowing the money in the first place). Ideally we'd have access to two scenarios -- what state we'd be in with the new school and without. Of course shopping for a consultant could all be a show because they probably already know what they want to cut/close.
Even better if they pause until May and we have a (hopefully competent) new board to oversee things.
So their response is basically saying that they will burn the rest of the District down to get the new school done?
Yep. Once the district is burned down to a skeleton of an education they will have a new building but that is about it. That will harm the kids that need the most help. How they can't see the forest through the trees is nuts. These cuts will need to be huge and will be painful. It will be like Covid-- parents with means will hire tutors, take private music lessons, move or attend private school while other families will be stuck with a shell of school district. Nothing about this is equitable.
This is the logical culmination of an identity politics ideology animated by grift.
It is an Evanston version of Trumpism: make decisions based on grievance, demonize opponents and others based on identity categories, deprioritize competence and experience in favor of ideological purity, throw fiscal prudence out the window and engage in petty grift, ignore the whole purpose of public service in a diverse community.
There is little substantive distance between Trump and Tanyavutti, Joey, Sergio, Biz, etc....
It’s fine if you want to hate on Trump, after all this is Evanston. But Trump would hate everything that Tanyavutti, Joey, Sergio, Biz and Horton stand for. He would have fired them all!!
Trump would love Horton. He respects a solid grift. Game knows game.
Trump pardoned Kwame Kilpatrick, the original politician that basically inspired this whole project (my journalistic approach is modeled after the amazing journalists that wrote about Kilpatrick in Detroit, circa 2008). Kilpatrick was a bad dude and did not deserve that pardon. He pardoned Blago too.
100% Trump would be a Horton fan. If Horton ends up in jail and Trump as president, he should apply for a pardon.
So many issues! Setting priorities should certainly direct this board to settle teachers contract and get the finances in order. That probably means delaying Foster School.
Not seeking a referendum was in violation of community trust. I agree with other writers here that it will be nearly impossible to seek more funds from voters.
And again, for every teacher cut, 10 administrators should leave.
As one of the parents mentioned on Monday, the board has failed to comply with the oath of office as well as not following local governing policies… both counts have grounds for prosecution (class 4 felony).
The job is above their heads, they should be held accountable
Would guess the burden of proof is high for something with implicit subjectivity - I wouldn't hold your breath on a legal angle being the recourse here but would love to be wrong about that.
Will someone clear this up for me? Here’s what I have cobbled together to explain how the Lighthouse District became the Dumpster Fire District. We have (yes, still present tense) a superintendent that fleeced the community’s taxpayers. That, however, could not have happened by a single person. There was abundant help from the either complicit or incompetent decisions made by cronies and school board. The community should be demanding the immediate removal of all of the people who directed this or helped in the decline of the district. The teachers did not do this. The students did not do this. The parents did not do this. Corrupt, complicit and incompetent people knowingly did this. Remove them, don’t ask them to fix the problem they couldn’t figure out they created.
In terms of the people responsible, it is the board--largely the 2019-2020 board who were most responsible. This would be Suni Kartha, Anya Taynavutti, Candance Chow, Rebecca Mendoza, Biz, Sergio, and Joey.
That was the crew that broke precedent by hiring a superintendent in the dark without any public input. That was the crew that hired Horton in early 2020. That was the crew that--before hiring him-- hid from the public his background as someone with no experience running a district and who owed tens of thousands of dollars related to his real estate business.
In his exit interview, Horton said he was asked by the Board before he started in July 2020 to find funding for a new school.
There had been no public discussion at all during this period about building a new school.
To be fair, Chow voted for Horton and endorsed the secretive hiring process but left the board in early 2020 and was replaced by Soo La Kim.
But that crew set this whole thing in motion with the original sin of hiring Horton and charging him with a task that he totally flubbed.
Don’t forget all the administrators under Horton who enabled this 💩 day in and day out. Every one of them is culpable and if they’re still working for the district they should not only be given their walking papers, but they should all be investigated.
That is another thing that blows me away. The CFO support staff still works here, they have been pulling bad numbers while under the CFO and after he left. WHY do they still work for the district? WHY doesn't the board care? Aren't they angry that those people "lied" to them?
Anya Taynaavutti the alleged author of the Lady Whistledown letter! The former president of our school board! That letter that published addresses and cost of homes that supported other candidates. You can't make this stuff up. It's like the movie Mean Girls with the Burn Book. Except we are adults not teenagers.
I don't believe she is the author but you can read the document yourself:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Y_hPZJ_Fz_VEjGyhpmjTjH6MXx4p9C3f/view
I'm hoping to get a cool title in this upcoming cycle
Perhaps it was a collective of people from the Equity Army, but she kept sharing it on the D65 page over and over.
She was involved —without a doubt. Along with all the predictable devoted acolytes. You can’t make this shit up. 🤡
This is a good overall summary but probably worth noting how early Joey and Sergio specifically entered the arena (2017), given they're still around. If Sergio somehow sticks around his entire term he'll have done TEN years...
Also just throwing it out there, we should probably take anything Horton said in an exit interview with a massive grain of salt. It's definitely plausible but without something to corroborate that (or maybe someone already did?) it's hard to fully rely on his account of things.
I acknowledge that Horton is liar and an unreliable narrator; BUT how else can we account for his making a new school a major focus of his administration?
Especially given the ideological dispositions of Taynavutti, Kartha, and the rest of them? My understanding is that there were some professional ties between Taynavutti and Horton before he was hired. And why break precedent and have a secretive search?
Henry Wilkins--Mya's spouse--had been working on the STEM School idea for a few years before Horton was hired. Check his letter to the editor below where he says Biz was telling him to work on the idea in 2019 before Horton was even hired.
A new school was clearly on the minds of the board when Horton was hired so it is not unreasonable that he was telling the truth in the exit interview.
https://evanstonroundtable.com/2021/08/16/henry-wilkins-open-letter-to-the-district-65-school-board/
Given the current debacle at Bessie Rhodes, it is also interesting to remember that Mya Wilkins was an early opponent of TWI at the school, so her enthusiastic support for shutting it down as a board member should not be surprising:
https://evanstonnow.com/parents-fight-back-against-plans-for-bessie-rhodes/
Yeah, Horton and Tanyavutti worked together in AUSL (as did Turner). I'm not sure how well they knew each other - but he was a principal and she was a "network advisor" according to her LinkedIn. I'm not sure how closely they worked together if at all but it wasn't a huge organization.
https://www.foiagras.com/p/academy-for-urban-school-leadership
I didn't appreciate how much push back there was to Bessie Rhodes back in 2017 and how it was viewed by some of the equity folks as a zero sum with the Fifth Ward School. Good background. Somehow we managed to find the worst possible outcome.
Is there any effort underway to conduct a legal investigation surrounding this financial situation, which should include the circumstances surrounding Horton's hiring? This board is plainly conflicted from conducting one on its own. A law firm should be hired (I know more expense but necessary to bring accountability) to work with Grossi.
Not that I know of and I wouldn’t get your hopes up on this
To Sergio Hernandez: What would you say you do here?
Seems impossible to defend your fitness for this job after reading the above...
Never thought I would say this as I have a second grader in d65 who loves his school, but I hope the state takes over sooner rather than later.
The entire ball of still warm hippo vomit that is the d65 admin and board are completely and utterly incompetent. Just political hacks using the term "equity" to literally punish everybody in Evanston. I support the idea of building a school in the 5th Ward, but not at the expense of punishing the entire city. This has to stop.
How can they have the chutzpa to even consider a referendum after their choices and complete lack of accountability and transparency from this board and recent administrations?
Clown. Show.
Dumpster. Fire.
Totally. Predictable.
Bring. In. The. State. ASAP.
The District does have sufficient funds to pay current construction costs and is committed to making the necessary financial cuts to construct Foster School.
“Necessary financial cuts…” just sounds like bleeding the other D65 schools.