1. I had a Zoom conference with Dr. Horton and Dr. Obafemi shortly before the vote to proceed with the 5th Ward project. They were at that point projecting only $1 million from the sale of Bessie Rhodes. I am pretty sure that was also stated in various Board meetings prior to the vote. Of course, market conditions change and both of these gentlemen have shown themselves to be liars of the highest order, so take that for what its worth. Anyone planning on the sale of BR providing meaningful funding should look elsewhere.
2. I have said it before and will say it again - how Cordogan Clark still has the contract for the project is completely beyond me. At a minimum, they should have let the Board know before they signed the lease certificates that the $40 million budget was not going to cut it. There were also multiple other opportunities for them to speak out as Horton continued to tell lies about the project, but they let him continue to spew nonsense about the project. They probably also should have told the Board that before they borrowed money for the project they should do some of the homework for the project like site suitability studies (the punchline to that story is that the soil conditions are subpar, adding something on the order of $6 million to the price tag). If I had a vendor that led me down the path the way that CC has, fired is a way too gentle word to describe how they would be gone. Instead they are billing this project out the wazoo and are trusted advisors to the District. I don't get it.
3. Sergio Hernandez's duplicity has not gotten nearly enough attention. He signed a letter to ISBE stating the transportation savings was going to be $5 million as part of the process of applying for an award. As we all know now, that number is actually $750K. In fact the entire D65 transportation budget was less than prior to 2022. (Source: https://evanstonroundtable.com/2024/02/12/district-65-prepares-for-budget-cuts-that-are-going-to-be-hard/) The net outcome of selling the 5th Ward financing project that was that D65 got an award, the communications team at D65 rolled out a press release right before the last election about all the awards the District was winning (nothing to see here ... ) and he snuck by John Martin.
4. The cost of the new building is $48M, they have $40M in the bank. No one is talking about how they are going to cover the hole between what they have and what they need to spend. That is something that they need cash for to pay contractors as the bills come due. My guess is that they will raid District reserves but so far, no one is talking about it.
5. There will be multiple school closures coming over the horizon. The District is talking about "consolidation" in public. The simple fact is that what they are going to do is going to change neighborhoods forever and this something that deserves robust public discussion. It will instead be delegated to the SAP Committee which is really a facade of public involvement.
6. The Board has no interest in seeing kids return to D65. Ed Finkel wrote an article a few weeks ago in the Roundtable where Sergio Hernandez claimed that they were doing outreach to families that left to bring them back. I am, ahem ... skeptical on that. The way that they are achieving reductions in expenses is through attrition. They don't need to replace folks who leave if there aren't students for them to teach. If people start using the schools that they are paying for again, that would be a disaster.
As for point three, I didn’t consider the election. Also relevant is that he works for the ISBE. I am working on a case involving election shenanigans in D219 right now, so staring at election laws. Gonna add this one to the list.
This is a great post, thank you! One thought .. can they touch the reserves for construction without triggering a requirement for a referendum? I guess yeah as long as nobody sues?
Did the board put out a CFP for the Cordogan Clark job? Also, I have never been clear about their role throughout the process. The first I remember hearing about them (I think) was when they did the District-wide facilities study that came up with the $180 million upkeep costs needed to address current deficiencies.
But they also are the architects of the new school, apparently. Are they getting the construction contract as well?
Again, was there one CFP for all this stuff? Or multiple ones?
That's a good question - I can't remember. Cordogan-Clark has been the District's architects for a long time, they were doing stuff for D65 long before the fifth ward school mess. Let me see if they put one out for this work, in particular. I'm not sure.
I have seen some stuff indicating they're bidding out contractor work, though.
It is curious to look at D65 process compared to what happened in Skokie. As far as I can tell they had the whole design situation wrapped up in Sept. 2019, got the lease certificates in Dec. 2019, and had 42 bids for construction with the winning bid being approved in April 2020. They have the whole process laid out in a nice part of their website: https://www.sd69.org/about-d69/construction-planning
Meanwhile, two years after issuing the lease certificates, D65 is still holding "Design Open Houses".
Also I noticed on the D65 page: "Spring-Summer 2024
Three phase bidding process. D65 is committed to working with minority- and women-owned businesses"
Thank you for doing this Skokie research. Also, they had their own drama with the building too, it wasn't like they didn't have to consider community feedback just as much as Evanston does.
I think the "Design Open Houses" are largely show-and-tell for administrators and not meaningful progress. I think it's useful in the initial phases before you take out the money, but once you have the money, you gotta move fast.
For instance, Horton held a big "Design Open House" in February 2023, right during election season (there were even candidates present at this meeting!)
The Skokie drama was really based on nostalgia and not at all realistic. I understand that alumni don't like to see their schools disappear; my elementary school is gone, my jr. high was renamed, my first HS is gone and even my college building was razed and rebuilt. There was simply no way to retrofit a nearly 100 year-old building. I thought D69 did a good job of explaining why they needed to do what they did. East Prairie D73 had to go through the same thing and now has a state-of-the-art K-8 school that was finished in 2019.
Funny since the rationale for the “Fifth Ward” school was also entirely based on nostalgia!
There was never any data presented indicating that bussing is a factor in poor educational outcomes and it certainly isn’t justified based on enrollment trends or budget projections.
Unfortunately in Evanston the nostalgics run the school board!
There's a quote from GK Chesterton that I think of often
“Now in history there is no Revolution that is not a Restoration. Among the many things that leave me doubtful about the modern habit of fixing eyes on the future, none is stronger than this: that all the men in history who have really done anything with the future have had their eyes fixed upon the past.”
This just shows the a$$ backwardness and incompetence of the Board and admin. In Skokie it started in 2016 with a comprehensive look at their facilities (admittedly it is less complex since they only have 3 schools, I think). They prioritized refurbs on a couple and then did the rebuild. They worked through all of the drama etc and tallied the costs so by Autumn 2019 they were ready to go.
Here the Board started from an end goal (new school) ignored its facilities analysis, lied about the cost of the school and how it would be paid for to avoid voter scrutiny, and then created a fiscal crisis that makes their "hand tied" regarding the need to close a school.
Perhaps the intent was never to build a new school but instead to say they built a new school so they could get a dream job in Dekalb. Keep in mind that the Superintendent (May 2023), the CFO (August 2023), and the Board President (September 2022) at the time have all bounced elsewhere. It is the former Board President who signed the lease certificate.
These are great comments. IMO they 1000% hid all of this so they could take the election. It's all so corrupt. I agree there will be multiple school closures but then that will require more bussing, then what? I thought Sergio said last night the goal is to have every child have a walkable school. I have also thought that if enrollment starts to increase again the remaining schools will be overcrowded and they will have to pay more staff, then what?
Do you think they have a plan of how they are going to come up with the extra $8 million for the new school? Perhaps someone should reach out to Dr. Grossi. He seems to have some financial sense.
I did reach out to him but haven't heard back, but it's only been a few days. I'm going to reach out to the District on this too because it's not super clear to me how they can proceed without all the funds in place.
There is so much to say on this topic:
1. I had a Zoom conference with Dr. Horton and Dr. Obafemi shortly before the vote to proceed with the 5th Ward project. They were at that point projecting only $1 million from the sale of Bessie Rhodes. I am pretty sure that was also stated in various Board meetings prior to the vote. Of course, market conditions change and both of these gentlemen have shown themselves to be liars of the highest order, so take that for what its worth. Anyone planning on the sale of BR providing meaningful funding should look elsewhere.
2. I have said it before and will say it again - how Cordogan Clark still has the contract for the project is completely beyond me. At a minimum, they should have let the Board know before they signed the lease certificates that the $40 million budget was not going to cut it. There were also multiple other opportunities for them to speak out as Horton continued to tell lies about the project, but they let him continue to spew nonsense about the project. They probably also should have told the Board that before they borrowed money for the project they should do some of the homework for the project like site suitability studies (the punchline to that story is that the soil conditions are subpar, adding something on the order of $6 million to the price tag). If I had a vendor that led me down the path the way that CC has, fired is a way too gentle word to describe how they would be gone. Instead they are billing this project out the wazoo and are trusted advisors to the District. I don't get it.
3. Sergio Hernandez's duplicity has not gotten nearly enough attention. He signed a letter to ISBE stating the transportation savings was going to be $5 million as part of the process of applying for an award. As we all know now, that number is actually $750K. In fact the entire D65 transportation budget was less than prior to 2022. (Source: https://evanstonroundtable.com/2024/02/12/district-65-prepares-for-budget-cuts-that-are-going-to-be-hard/) The net outcome of selling the 5th Ward financing project that was that D65 got an award, the communications team at D65 rolled out a press release right before the last election about all the awards the District was winning (nothing to see here ... ) and he snuck by John Martin.
4. The cost of the new building is $48M, they have $40M in the bank. No one is talking about how they are going to cover the hole between what they have and what they need to spend. That is something that they need cash for to pay contractors as the bills come due. My guess is that they will raid District reserves but so far, no one is talking about it.
5. There will be multiple school closures coming over the horizon. The District is talking about "consolidation" in public. The simple fact is that what they are going to do is going to change neighborhoods forever and this something that deserves robust public discussion. It will instead be delegated to the SAP Committee which is really a facade of public involvement.
6. The Board has no interest in seeing kids return to D65. Ed Finkel wrote an article a few weeks ago in the Roundtable where Sergio Hernandez claimed that they were doing outreach to families that left to bring them back. I am, ahem ... skeptical on that. The way that they are achieving reductions in expenses is through attrition. They don't need to replace folks who leave if there aren't students for them to teach. If people start using the schools that they are paying for again, that would be a disaster.
As for point three, I didn’t consider the election. Also relevant is that he works for the ISBE. I am working on a case involving election shenanigans in D219 right now, so staring at election laws. Gonna add this one to the list.
This is a great post, thank you! One thought .. can they touch the reserves for construction without triggering a requirement for a referendum? I guess yeah as long as nobody sues?
Did the board put out a CFP for the Cordogan Clark job? Also, I have never been clear about their role throughout the process. The first I remember hearing about them (I think) was when they did the District-wide facilities study that came up with the $180 million upkeep costs needed to address current deficiencies.
But they also are the architects of the new school, apparently. Are they getting the construction contract as well?
Again, was there one CFP for all this stuff? Or multiple ones?
That's a good question - I can't remember. Cordogan-Clark has been the District's architects for a long time, they were doing stuff for D65 long before the fifth ward school mess. Let me see if they put one out for this work, in particular. I'm not sure.
I have seen some stuff indicating they're bidding out contractor work, though.
It is curious to look at D65 process compared to what happened in Skokie. As far as I can tell they had the whole design situation wrapped up in Sept. 2019, got the lease certificates in Dec. 2019, and had 42 bids for construction with the winning bid being approved in April 2020. They have the whole process laid out in a nice part of their website: https://www.sd69.org/about-d69/construction-planning
Meanwhile, two years after issuing the lease certificates, D65 is still holding "Design Open Houses".
Also I noticed on the D65 page: "Spring-Summer 2024
Three phase bidding process. D65 is committed to working with minority- and women-owned businesses"
https://www.district65.net/register4/student-assignment/student-assignment-planning-sap/5th-ward-school
We are 35 days into Spring with 59 left to go. As of today, there are no bid opportunities on the website: https://www.district65.net/about1/budget-finance/bid-opportunities
When is "Phase One" of the 3-phase bidding process going to commence?!?!
D65 Amateur Hour, once again!
FYI there was an update last night:
https://www.youtube.com/live/_VdF2nQqpZc?si=3O_hB3KNlOhm_HJn&t=2293
Seems like its in zoning and they are going to start collecting suggestions for the name. Who is going to submit Dr. Horton's name?
Thank you for doing this Skokie research. Also, they had their own drama with the building too, it wasn't like they didn't have to consider community feedback just as much as Evanston does.
I think the "Design Open Houses" are largely show-and-tell for administrators and not meaningful progress. I think it's useful in the initial phases before you take out the money, but once you have the money, you gotta move fast.
For instance, Horton held a big "Design Open House" in February 2023, right during election season (there were even candidates present at this meeting!)
The Skokie drama was really based on nostalgia and not at all realistic. I understand that alumni don't like to see their schools disappear; my elementary school is gone, my jr. high was renamed, my first HS is gone and even my college building was razed and rebuilt. There was simply no way to retrofit a nearly 100 year-old building. I thought D69 did a good job of explaining why they needed to do what they did. East Prairie D73 had to go through the same thing and now has a state-of-the-art K-8 school that was finished in 2019.
Funny since the rationale for the “Fifth Ward” school was also entirely based on nostalgia!
There was never any data presented indicating that bussing is a factor in poor educational outcomes and it certainly isn’t justified based on enrollment trends or budget projections.
Unfortunately in Evanston the nostalgics run the school board!
There's a quote from GK Chesterton that I think of often
“Now in history there is no Revolution that is not a Restoration. Among the many things that leave me doubtful about the modern habit of fixing eyes on the future, none is stronger than this: that all the men in history who have really done anything with the future have had their eyes fixed upon the past.”
This just shows the a$$ backwardness and incompetence of the Board and admin. In Skokie it started in 2016 with a comprehensive look at their facilities (admittedly it is less complex since they only have 3 schools, I think). They prioritized refurbs on a couple and then did the rebuild. They worked through all of the drama etc and tallied the costs so by Autumn 2019 they were ready to go.
Here the Board started from an end goal (new school) ignored its facilities analysis, lied about the cost of the school and how it would be paid for to avoid voter scrutiny, and then created a fiscal crisis that makes their "hand tied" regarding the need to close a school.
Perhaps the intent was never to build a new school but instead to say they built a new school so they could get a dream job in Dekalb. Keep in mind that the Superintendent (May 2023), the CFO (August 2023), and the Board President (September 2022) at the time have all bounced elsewhere. It is the former Board President who signed the lease certificate.
These are great comments. IMO they 1000% hid all of this so they could take the election. It's all so corrupt. I agree there will be multiple school closures but then that will require more bussing, then what? I thought Sergio said last night the goal is to have every child have a walkable school. I have also thought that if enrollment starts to increase again the remaining schools will be overcrowded and they will have to pay more staff, then what?
Do you think they have a plan of how they are going to come up with the extra $8 million for the new school? Perhaps someone should reach out to Dr. Grossi. He seems to have some financial sense.
I did reach out to him but haven't heard back, but it's only been a few days. I'm going to reach out to the District on this too because it's not super clear to me how they can proceed without all the funds in place.