And then there is this op-ed from The Evanston Roundtable by Larry Gavin on October 14. Larry’s letter is full of details about the many school administrators that are still on staff, including Angel Turner’s sister. Read through all the comments to find more newsworthy items. The sister earns about $136,000/year.
If I were a parent of a District 65 student I would be irate and questioning the ability of the current Superintendent to act with full transparency and a sense of professional responsibility.
Seems like a noteworthy shift in tone now that neither of the top people on the board are folks that hired him or even necessarily know him. We shall see if there's a shift in substance.
Don’t hold your breath. They’ve known about the fed investigation since 2023 and not much has changed except that they now appear to be more panicked about closing schools —wanting to move the process forward despite the financial tarnish and distrust that exists. Maybe they should be panicked about the funding scheme dreamt up by Dr. Horton to fund Foster School and the $$ that’s coming due in the near future —realizing that even closing 4 schools won’t get them in the arena to pay that debt.
Don’t forget Dr. Horton also built a brand new school where we didn’t need it as well that hasn’t even been completed. They have touted that it will save $50k per year in energy costs whatever that phrase means. If that means electricity and gas then we should make sure to monitor that. Why not close an adjacent school and maybe make some pay cuts. Their salaries are public right?
Any thoughts on whether the Board has an issue in how they handled Sergio stepping down? The Board policies are clear that the vice president assumes the presidency upon a vacancy. There is no provision to hold a new election amongst the board as it seems was done to elect Pat. Upon Sergio's resignation as president, Nichole would have become president by operation of law. Would it be a big deal in most situations, nope. The problem is if it is just another of dozens of examples of the various permutations of the D65 board not following proper proceedure.
Interesting, I'd never read that specific board policy before (2:110). I assume there must be another policy somewhere that permits them to hold officer elections? Do you know where I can find that in the rules, like where's the rule that dictates the period after a public election that the board member elections are held?
Huh this is very very interesting. Has anyone asked the Board about this? Someone should email the ISBE regional superintendent and ask them this question, they'd know the answer 100%.
I have been on the board of a few non profits and a school committee that has government rules for officers and I thought that vote was wrong when I watched it, based on all rules I know about governance. I think if the VP did not want to be president, she needed to resign and both positions needed to be elected again. The whole point of the VP of any board is that they are to step up if the presidency is vacant. It is statutory- they have no other responsibilities. If she did not want to step up, she needed to be relieved of her position under the law.
Is there any language drawing a distinction between a board president who resigns and one who "refuses to perform his duties"? Also, if Nichole took over as president, couldn't she just step down and repeat the process until Pat Anderson was next? Do we have a problem with Anderson as board president? I'm not sure what the point of your question is.
I don't have a problem with Pat but I do think it's a fair question and we should avoid playing fast-and-loose with the rules because that's what got us here in the first place (also i love questions like this).
Chris, the issue is that Sergio had to step down in large part because of a failure of the board to execute their duties. You would think they would dot the i's and cross the t's especially in this situation, national media was focused on the district at that exact moment. Could they have accomplished the same result by a more complex method maybe. Don't we deserve a board that at least takes the time to read their own rules when facing such scrutiny?
I have no issue with Pat, it is a matter of the board as a whole not following their own rules and the law. This Board needs to rebuild trust with the community. If Nichole doesn't want to serve as president but is willing to continue as VP, then do it the right way, so that that is all out in the public.
The applicable law and D65 policy is clear that the VP fills a vacancy of the President.
Did Sergio have to step down, though? Where in the D65 policy does it state when a board president shall be required to resign?
I think the national media was focused Horton more than the district by capitalizing on an anti-DEI trend with an easy, sensationalistic story about corruption.
As for Tom's comment, I don't think we got here by playing fast-and-loose with the rules. We got here through a combination of factors: successive generations of school boards ignoring maintenance concerns on aging buildings; falling victim to a disturbing trend of school superintendents taking advantage of credulous, inexperienced school boards; cost-of-living and population changes that are outside of a school board's control, to name a few.
I see the potential of having board decisions challenged due to not following policy to the letter. Until we decide to turn school board member into a paid position, though, I think we have to tolerate a non-encyclopedic knowledge of policy from a group of adults who have day-jobs and other responsibilities
I think you are looking at this the wrong way. Random citizens shouldn't have to figure out and answer the mechanism that a Board president used to resign/stepdown/vacate whatever. This is all required to be public. The need and benefit of that is even more so in this particular situation given the issues D65 is facing. From what I can tell from the public information, Sergio opted to no longer be the President. That either left the Office of the President vacant under the rules or Sergio unwilling to perform his duties as President, in either event the VP fills the vacancy.
As far as I am concerned, we did get here by playing fast and loose with the rules or more specifically having a mentality that leads to that. This goes back a decade to before the referendum. Successive boards have not complied with numerous rules some more egregious than others, Open Meetings act violations, ignoring the financial rules relating to required approvals (such as 25k contracts), issues relating to p-card oversight, contract bidding requirements, residency requirements, all the way to how the Foster school was funded. All the things you list, population changes, cost of living, difficult administrators, those are all things School Boards are supposed to be able to deal with. If there were no issues and everything ran on rails just fine, there would be no need for a School Board.
Every single school board member opted to run. There were more candidates than slots. They are running a 200 million dollar a year operation. Just saying we shouldn't hold them accountable for what the position requires is how you end up with an indicted former superintendent and a crisis of confidence from the public. This wasn't a major lift or require specialized knowledge. If the Board doesn't know what to do, the Board has access to resources, for example the board may engage an board attorney for just these types of issues. There is no issue approving district funds on consultants or attorneys for numerous other issues or for many of the p-card abuses Tom has highlighted over the years.
I am guessing Anderson was a compromise choice between the reform faction and the establishment folks that got us to where we are today. And I am glad to see her now as the Prez.
Not to defend Dr. Horton (really not), but that is some strange accounting. If he missed March, that was when he defaulted per his agreement. If they kept taking payments from him and did not send him notices that those were not being applied to past balances, his lawyer is probably going to be able to negotiate some of it down as that may be a legitimate argument in court, that D.65 was not managing his repayments on their end for him to know his balance. But he is definitely in default now. Hopefully this is not a sign of how D.65 manages its other Accounts Receivables!
Because the Board is stuck in this Carl Sagan quote: "One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back."
I don’t get this passive attitude of the Board and Administration. The fact that he owed the money and they knew it and weren’t aggressively collecting what he took from them/from us is….bizarre. They knew about the federal investigation in 2023 and yet, we find out this?
Also, where’s the independent forensic audit demanded by the Board and Administration the minute they found out about the investigation? Oh wait….there appears to be none. Members of our community are asking why this hasn’t been done —I think this is an excellent question. Why, indeed?!!
Yeah, I will die on this hill - I don't understand this passive thing from board members, especially in this case. The repayment agreement here says he owes legal fees, so in 2024, if it was me, I'd just say "fuck it" and send the problem to the lawyers to resolve instead of wasting my administrator time being a collection agency for a single man.
The only thing I can think of is perhaps they knew more about his personal financial situation than we do and figured $700/mo is our best shot at actually getting paid. If that's the case - yikes.
I get what you’re saying —but that’s not for them to decide. They have a fiduciary duty and are answerable to the voters. They’ve shown over and over that they could care two licks about that duty and being answerable to the voters. This is why I believe —to my core —that they are culpable enablers of theft. I also believe that there’s more to this story and wouldn’t be surprised if the feds amend the complaint further. In the meantime, we’re starting the spiral —the spiral that is only going to get worse.
100% agree. The simple and right solution here was just to throw to the lawyers for collection instead of trying to determine the optimal strategy for working around Horton's allegedly fraught financial situation. I do wonder if that $18,000 fee waiver is a taxable event..?
Also one thing to consider is that the original repayment agreement is of dubious legality to begin with. I didn't put this in the story but it's written with monthly compounding interest on the principle, so if he doesn't make his payments within a few years, he owes us trillions of dollars. I do not think that Franzcek did a very good job with this contract, and it probably wouldn't hold up in court. But again, that's not a decision for the Board to make...
THIS. Many times this. There is a fiduciary duty. Many iterations of this board have not met that standard. I remember sitting through numerous finance committee meeting presentations and it was astonishing how disengaged the board members were. At one point in a committee meeting, a head of the finance committee told the CFO that they weren't a "a numbers person" and asked them to not go into so much detail.
I do not see how the Board could possibly justify not pursuing the full recoupment under the contract, including all penalties, given the financial state of the District.
For that matter, why is the District not discussing a civil lawsuit against Horton. Relying on the Federal complaint to secure disgorgement or repayment is risky. At the very least there should be a discussion of these issues in a Board meeting.
In Board meetings, when it was open for people of the community to talk, I pushed for a forensic audit on the District’s financials… Do you think Sergio or the Board listened to the advice?
Who needs a forensic auditor when you have FOIA GRAS? 😂
In all seriousness, I think the people in Dekalb are about to learn that even external auditors are not always honest with the Board. For instance, they already did a whole p-card audit with an external firm that basically covered everyone's butts and said nothing in public. A sad sign of the times, but I'm not even sure you can get a fully honest independent auditor anymore.
I am posting this comment from Evanston Now Roundtable comment section so it gets noticed:
Ashley Bias, Senior Manager of Operations in Human Relations, also happens to be Dr. Turner’s sister!
She still has a job after all the cuts. She still has a full-time assistant as well.
Ashley Bias’s previous role at D65 was Manager of Guest Staffing, a position which, I can’t find records to suggest existed prior to 2022. According to compensation records, in 2023 her role paid a salary of $104,956.19 and in 2024: $114,842.89 (a 10% raise). Now in the new role I would like to know if she received another sizable raise.
Tom you are an absolute Gem in this community. Its criminal we are paying these high admin salaries and have this amount of bloat for a district so far in the Red. With enrollment dropping and AI, we should have no more than 40 Admin.
How in the world is this Superintendent Turner (of just Elem and Middle) making $100,000 more than my Senators? As far as I can tell, she's only had 23 meetings with public (some of those select) - so what are we getting out of paying her $12,000k per meeting? Abrasiveness, disrespect and refusal to do anything taxpayers suggest. She acts very untouchable. If I acted the way to my boss as she did to me in an audience, I would have been fired.
As I watch D65 board meetings from last year, I thought "this is crazy town". I literally was shocked at all the divisive language being used by the board- especially since other school board meetings are no where close to this insanity.
Unbelievable self-dealing; I mean believable after I started getting involved to see the amount of corrupt public officials that are in complete charge of D65. Nothing but nepotism and cronyism. Why does Dekalb get a forensic audit but we don't?
Why, with enrollment down, are we not back to 2017 admin levels of 44 personnel or even less? Lets start with right-sizing Admin before attacking students and neighborhoods.
Why wasn't JEH one of the first options to sell before attacking our students?
Well this certainly seems part of it; Turner, the board and all their family and friends got sweetheart high paying Admin jobs and want a nice comfy place to work while kicking our students out of their schools.
I would assume this falls under the CFO and the business office, but the buck ultimately stops with the board. To the districts point they did have a lot of turnover in 2023 in 2024.
How might Devon Horton’s life be different today but for FOIA GRAS? 🤣
And then there is this op-ed from The Evanston Roundtable by Larry Gavin on October 14. Larry’s letter is full of details about the many school administrators that are still on staff, including Angel Turner’s sister. Read through all the comments to find more newsworthy items. The sister earns about $136,000/year.
https://evanstonroundtable.com/2025/10/14/guest-essay-district-65-expenses-school-closures/
If I were a parent of a District 65 student I would be irate and questioning the ability of the current Superintendent to act with full transparency and a sense of professional responsibility.
Seems like a noteworthy shift in tone now that neither of the top people on the board are folks that hired him or even necessarily know him. We shall see if there's a shift in substance.
Don’t hold your breath. They’ve known about the fed investigation since 2023 and not much has changed except that they now appear to be more panicked about closing schools —wanting to move the process forward despite the financial tarnish and distrust that exists. Maybe they should be panicked about the funding scheme dreamt up by Dr. Horton to fund Foster School and the $$ that’s coming due in the near future —realizing that even closing 4 schools won’t get them in the arena to pay that debt.
Yeah that $3.25m that they deferred is a real time bomb
Don’t forget Dr. Horton also built a brand new school where we didn’t need it as well that hasn’t even been completed. They have touted that it will save $50k per year in energy costs whatever that phrase means. If that means electricity and gas then we should make sure to monitor that. Why not close an adjacent school and maybe make some pay cuts. Their salaries are public right?
Yep salaries are published every September, it’s in the board agenda for that meeting
Any thoughts on whether the Board has an issue in how they handled Sergio stepping down? The Board policies are clear that the vice president assumes the presidency upon a vacancy. There is no provision to hold a new election amongst the board as it seems was done to elect Pat. Upon Sergio's resignation as president, Nichole would have become president by operation of law. Would it be a big deal in most situations, nope. The problem is if it is just another of dozens of examples of the various permutations of the D65 board not following proper proceedure.
Interesting, I'd never read that specific board policy before (2:110). I assume there must be another policy somewhere that permits them to hold officer elections? Do you know where I can find that in the rules, like where's the rule that dictates the period after a public election that the board member elections are held?
I don't believe there is any authority for an election. In fact, the state statute is pretty clear as well:
105 ILCS 5/10-13) (from Ch. 122, par. 10-13)
Sec. 10-13.
President of board of education.
The president of the board of education shall be elected by the
members thereof from among their number and serve for 2 years, except
that the board by resolution may establish a policy for the term of office
to be one year.
He shall preside at all meetings and shall perform such duties as are
imposed upon him by law or by action of the board of education. If he is
absent from any meeting or refuses to perform his duties, a president
pro tempore shall be appointed. The vice-president of the board, if the
board elects such officer, shall be appointed the president pro tempore.
Huh this is very very interesting. Has anyone asked the Board about this? Someone should email the ISBE regional superintendent and ask them this question, they'd know the answer 100%.
I have been on the board of a few non profits and a school committee that has government rules for officers and I thought that vote was wrong when I watched it, based on all rules I know about governance. I think if the VP did not want to be president, she needed to resign and both positions needed to be elected again. The whole point of the VP of any board is that they are to step up if the presidency is vacant. It is statutory- they have no other responsibilities. If she did not want to step up, she needed to be relieved of her position under the law.
Is there any language drawing a distinction between a board president who resigns and one who "refuses to perform his duties"? Also, if Nichole took over as president, couldn't she just step down and repeat the process until Pat Anderson was next? Do we have a problem with Anderson as board president? I'm not sure what the point of your question is.
I don't have a problem with Pat but I do think it's a fair question and we should avoid playing fast-and-loose with the rules because that's what got us here in the first place (also i love questions like this).
Chris, the issue is that Sergio had to step down in large part because of a failure of the board to execute their duties. You would think they would dot the i's and cross the t's especially in this situation, national media was focused on the district at that exact moment. Could they have accomplished the same result by a more complex method maybe. Don't we deserve a board that at least takes the time to read their own rules when facing such scrutiny?
I have no issue with Pat, it is a matter of the board as a whole not following their own rules and the law. This Board needs to rebuild trust with the community. If Nichole doesn't want to serve as president but is willing to continue as VP, then do it the right way, so that that is all out in the public.
The applicable law and D65 policy is clear that the VP fills a vacancy of the President.
Did Sergio have to step down, though? Where in the D65 policy does it state when a board president shall be required to resign?
I think the national media was focused Horton more than the district by capitalizing on an anti-DEI trend with an easy, sensationalistic story about corruption.
As for Tom's comment, I don't think we got here by playing fast-and-loose with the rules. We got here through a combination of factors: successive generations of school boards ignoring maintenance concerns on aging buildings; falling victim to a disturbing trend of school superintendents taking advantage of credulous, inexperienced school boards; cost-of-living and population changes that are outside of a school board's control, to name a few.
I see the potential of having board decisions challenged due to not following policy to the letter. Until we decide to turn school board member into a paid position, though, I think we have to tolerate a non-encyclopedic knowledge of policy from a group of adults who have day-jobs and other responsibilities
I think you are looking at this the wrong way. Random citizens shouldn't have to figure out and answer the mechanism that a Board president used to resign/stepdown/vacate whatever. This is all required to be public. The need and benefit of that is even more so in this particular situation given the issues D65 is facing. From what I can tell from the public information, Sergio opted to no longer be the President. That either left the Office of the President vacant under the rules or Sergio unwilling to perform his duties as President, in either event the VP fills the vacancy.
As far as I am concerned, we did get here by playing fast and loose with the rules or more specifically having a mentality that leads to that. This goes back a decade to before the referendum. Successive boards have not complied with numerous rules some more egregious than others, Open Meetings act violations, ignoring the financial rules relating to required approvals (such as 25k contracts), issues relating to p-card oversight, contract bidding requirements, residency requirements, all the way to how the Foster school was funded. All the things you list, population changes, cost of living, difficult administrators, those are all things School Boards are supposed to be able to deal with. If there were no issues and everything ran on rails just fine, there would be no need for a School Board.
Every single school board member opted to run. There were more candidates than slots. They are running a 200 million dollar a year operation. Just saying we shouldn't hold them accountable for what the position requires is how you end up with an indicted former superintendent and a crisis of confidence from the public. This wasn't a major lift or require specialized knowledge. If the Board doesn't know what to do, the Board has access to resources, for example the board may engage an board attorney for just these types of issues. There is no issue approving district funds on consultants or attorneys for numerous other issues or for many of the p-card abuses Tom has highlighted over the years.
I am guessing Anderson was a compromise choice between the reform faction and the establishment folks that got us to where we are today. And I am glad to see her now as the Prez.
Sergio responded through an equity lens and really that’s all we can ask for.
This guy is the gift that just keeps on giving. Like a grifting Energizer Bunny.
Missing March 2025 was a surprise to me given it was all electronic payments, it was $700 and he made $360,000+ in Georgia.
Not to defend Dr. Horton (really not), but that is some strange accounting. If he missed March, that was when he defaulted per his agreement. If they kept taking payments from him and did not send him notices that those were not being applied to past balances, his lawyer is probably going to be able to negotiate some of it down as that may be a legitimate argument in court, that D.65 was not managing his repayments on their end for him to know his balance. But he is definitely in default now. Hopefully this is not a sign of how D.65 manages its other Accounts Receivables!
360 Large doesn't go as far as it used to, I guess lol
Buys fewer steak dinners than it used to, certainly.
Wonder how much of a retainer the law firm asked for up front since Horton is not exactly creditworthy! $$$$$$
And - Horton will need a law firm in Georgia to represent him in their forensic investigation!
Because the Board is stuck in this Carl Sagan quote: "One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back."
I don’t get this passive attitude of the Board and Administration. The fact that he owed the money and they knew it and weren’t aggressively collecting what he took from them/from us is….bizarre. They knew about the federal investigation in 2023 and yet, we find out this?
Also, where’s the independent forensic audit demanded by the Board and Administration the minute they found out about the investigation? Oh wait….there appears to be none. Members of our community are asking why this hasn’t been done —I think this is an excellent question. Why, indeed?!!
Yeah, I will die on this hill - I don't understand this passive thing from board members, especially in this case. The repayment agreement here says he owes legal fees, so in 2024, if it was me, I'd just say "fuck it" and send the problem to the lawyers to resolve instead of wasting my administrator time being a collection agency for a single man.
The only thing I can think of is perhaps they knew more about his personal financial situation than we do and figured $700/mo is our best shot at actually getting paid. If that's the case - yikes.
I get what you’re saying —but that’s not for them to decide. They have a fiduciary duty and are answerable to the voters. They’ve shown over and over that they could care two licks about that duty and being answerable to the voters. This is why I believe —to my core —that they are culpable enablers of theft. I also believe that there’s more to this story and wouldn’t be surprised if the feds amend the complaint further. In the meantime, we’re starting the spiral —the spiral that is only going to get worse.
100% agree. The simple and right solution here was just to throw to the lawyers for collection instead of trying to determine the optimal strategy for working around Horton's allegedly fraught financial situation. I do wonder if that $18,000 fee waiver is a taxable event..?
Also one thing to consider is that the original repayment agreement is of dubious legality to begin with. I didn't put this in the story but it's written with monthly compounding interest on the principle, so if he doesn't make his payments within a few years, he owes us trillions of dollars. I do not think that Franzcek did a very good job with this contract, and it probably wouldn't hold up in court. But again, that's not a decision for the Board to make...
THIS. Many times this. There is a fiduciary duty. Many iterations of this board have not met that standard. I remember sitting through numerous finance committee meeting presentations and it was astonishing how disengaged the board members were. At one point in a committee meeting, a head of the finance committee told the CFO that they weren't a "a numbers person" and asked them to not go into so much detail.
I do not see how the Board could possibly justify not pursuing the full recoupment under the contract, including all penalties, given the financial state of the District.
For that matter, why is the District not discussing a civil lawsuit against Horton. Relying on the Federal complaint to secure disgorgement or repayment is risky. At the very least there should be a discussion of these issues in a Board meeting.
Your last paragraph is so right, Eric. 🤬
In Board meetings, when it was open for people of the community to talk, I pushed for a forensic audit on the District’s financials… Do you think Sergio or the Board listened to the advice?
Who needs a forensic auditor when you have FOIA GRAS? 😂
In all seriousness, I think the people in Dekalb are about to learn that even external auditors are not always honest with the Board. For instance, they already did a whole p-card audit with an external firm that basically covered everyone's butts and said nothing in public. A sad sign of the times, but I'm not even sure you can get a fully honest independent auditor anymore.
The Education of Devon Horton continues…
I am posting this comment from Evanston Now Roundtable comment section so it gets noticed:
Ashley Bias, Senior Manager of Operations in Human Relations, also happens to be Dr. Turner’s sister!
She still has a job after all the cuts. She still has a full-time assistant as well.
Ashley Bias’s previous role at D65 was Manager of Guest Staffing, a position which, I can’t find records to suggest existed prior to 2022. According to compensation records, in 2023 her role paid a salary of $104,956.19 and in 2024: $114,842.89 (a 10% raise). Now in the new role I would like to know if she received another sizable raise.
That's my reporting! :)
https://www.foiagras.com/i/142421727/district-employs-dr-turners-sister
They just posted the 2026 salaries last month:
https://meetings.boardbook.org/Public/Agenda/1247?meeting=709920
SY2025: $119,371.68 (4% raise)
SY2026: $124,145.28 (5.6% raise)
Tom you are an absolute Gem in this community. Its criminal we are paying these high admin salaries and have this amount of bloat for a district so far in the Red. With enrollment dropping and AI, we should have no more than 40 Admin.
How in the world is this Superintendent Turner (of just Elem and Middle) making $100,000 more than my Senators? As far as I can tell, she's only had 23 meetings with public (some of those select) - so what are we getting out of paying her $12,000k per meeting? Abrasiveness, disrespect and refusal to do anything taxpayers suggest. She acts very untouchable. If I acted the way to my boss as she did to me in an audience, I would have been fired.
As I watch D65 board meetings from last year, I thought "this is crazy town". I literally was shocked at all the divisive language being used by the board- especially since other school board meetings are no where close to this insanity.
Unbelievable self-dealing; I mean believable after I started getting involved to see the amount of corrupt public officials that are in complete charge of D65. Nothing but nepotism and cronyism. Why does Dekalb get a forensic audit but we don't?
Why, with enrollment down, are we not back to 2017 admin levels of 44 personnel or even less? Lets start with right-sizing Admin before attacking students and neighborhoods.
Why wasn't JEH one of the first options to sell before attacking our students?
Well this certainly seems part of it; Turner, the board and all their family and friends got sweetheart high paying Admin jobs and want a nice comfy place to work while kicking our students out of their schools.
Why doesn't Evanston deserve better?
Thanks Tom. Who on the Board or at JEH would be aware of the late/missed payments? Full board? Only those who asked?
I would assume this falls under the CFO and the business office, but the buck ultimately stops with the board. To the districts point they did have a lot of turnover in 2023 in 2024.
(The Letter)
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