I'm not Sweating the D65 Stalemate and Neither Should You
A long-term board watcher's take on the stalemate situation and the messy version of American democracy
After another meeting last night, the District 65 Board remains in a stalemate regarding school closures. It seems like this won’t be resolved until next year.
The Board is in a difficult spot. They have to make a genuinely hard decision, under a ton of uncertainty. Larry Gavin at the Roundtable wrote about some of the uncertainty yesterday. The only table I talk about is the one below, which compares annual budgets to the actual numbers. It’s grim.
Year after year, the actual spend is way off from the budget.1
The situation is improving. The administration was able to save the Board from themselves last year by turning an unbalanced budget into a small loss. Recall that in September 2024, as the Board considered approving a large -$13m unbalanced budget, Dr. Grossi warned them of the consequences. The Board unanimously passed the bad budget anyway followed by four board members announcing they weren’t running for re-election.
But if you’re on the Board now - this is as clear as mud. Consider the three options:
Close Two Schools: Layoff one full building worth of staff (move the other to Foster), save more money in theory, and feel confident that the pain is over. Is it?
Close One School: This will be paired with laying off administrators, potentially closing the administrative campus, and aggressively rebidding contracts. It’s no surprise the administrators seem unexcited about this approach and unclear whether they will be able to execute.
Close No Schools: Maybe this would work out if they aggressively laid off all the administrators and cut back services, but would require extreme action from the board.
There’s no guarantee that any of these will work - they could find more surprises like deed restrictions or litigation. If there is another surprise $10 million deficit from administrative overspending or transportation costs, we’ll be back here next year. I think the current CFO is great, but the District’s budgetary track record is not good. No private business of this size with fixed revenue would tolerate this level of annual budgetary miss - and this is why.
On top of all this, the data analysis is overwhelming: hundreds of pages of analyses from the District staff and parent groups. I can’t even get past the top line numbers: building capacity. Do you start with the 2022 Cordogan-Clark analysis or the 2025 SDRP assumptions? Does Lincolnwood hold 508 students or 432 students?
Stalemate is a Feature, not a Bug
The Roundtable story from yesterday documented anger regarding the current stalemate. I’ve redacted the parent names for privacy.
“It seems idiotic to me,” Willard parent (redacted) said immediately after the meeting. “They basically chose to do nothing.”
“I’m not surprised, but I’m a little disgusted,” he added.
“I feel a sense of dread for the future,” Oakton parent (redacted) said, adding that the blame for the deadlock rests with Anderson, who she said should have spent more time working to build consensus after the Nov. 20 meeting.
I got a lot of this in my inbox as well. “This is embarrassing” was a recurring theme.
I disagree and might be one of the few optimists in town right now.
This is the system working exactly as intended. When I see the photos of the full boardroom and the debate, I think of the historical line from the Old North Church in Boston in 1776 to the present.
When opinion is divided in a democracy, hard decisions should take time. This is a feature, not a bug. George Washington wrote in 1785;
It is to be regretted, I confess, that Democratical States must always feel before they can see: it is this that makes their Governments slow—but the people will be right at last.
I agree delays expose the District to more risk. But for me - someone watching the Board over the last five years - seeing disagreement is a breath of fresh air. We haven’t had nearly enough. Groupthink has ruled supreme. It’s not just Evanston - the thing I’ve found the most striking, writing about schools, is how undemocratic school boards are compared to City Councils. There’s a level of deference to authority (superintendents, staffers, consultants) that doesn’t exist in any other level of government. Look no further the familiar secret game going on in CPS’ Superintendent search now. 2
Do you know how much public debate there was over the (im)propriety of the Foster School lease certificate? Zero. Or the fact that for 18 months, the administration did no work to construct the Foster School until it was too late? None. Or the hiring of Dr. Horton? None. Or virtually any of the alleged financial shenanigans in 2023? Zero. And I haven’t even mentioned the deeply undemocratic COVID-era mess. We still don’t have legally-required public financial data for two months during that time.
It blows my mind that the one-school-closure plan comes from parents and is being taking seriously. Prior Boards (ie before March 2025) would’ve sent that plan right into the shredder. We’ve come a long way in nine months.
On the national scene, it feels like we’re watching a crisis of legitimacy as our democratic institutions collapse to Trumpism3. For as chaotic as it feels here, it’s good to know we still know how to play the game. I feel like I’m watching the community rebuild something that was lost.
I think everyone should be proud .. but we should also make a decision sooner than later.
The only year that wasn’t off (2021-22), it was later revealed that this was only because they’d been holding bills back and post-dating grants.
It blows my mind to see school board members win grueling elections and then hand off all their authority to a Superintendent and staffers, who don’t even like them. As the critics of Sergio Hernandez have found out, it’s very hard to fire someone who won an election. That’s by design!
Specifically, I am talking about things such as illegal impoundment of congressionally allocated funds, illegal tariffs, and even stuff like the East Wing of the White House.
I agree on the divided board being a good thing - for too long it was unanimous decisions, without this much debate or thought. The previous Boards rubber stamped whatever the Administration fed them. I think it says something that the three members asking the most questions and voting against closing two more schools right now are the three who had the most votes in the last election - and more votes than past elections, so it was a more engaged electorate. Plus local press and constituents raising questions about the data and analysis is valuable and not something every school district is afforded by its community - so I appreciate that Board Members are listening to that too instead of just the expert the Administration hand picked.
What I am having an issue with is the Board members who cannot get enough votes for two more closures refusing to even pass one more closure. That’s not reasonable governance. Nobody is saying closing an additional school later is off the table completely - Dr. Pinkard said that explicitly at the last meeting. But closing two out of three schools in NW Evanston poses legal risk, including because of Lincolnwood deed restrictions. They could blow through any savings from closing Lincolnwood with legal fees real fast.
There doesn’t seem to be an appreciation for how unrealistic it is to close 3 schools and open 1 in the same time period (plus move Step and TWI to different schools). Particularly for an Administration with the track record this one has (which Tom, you’ve covered extensively). That’s a lot of IES services to coordinate and a lot of transportation to change. Teachers and staff have raised issues about whether there will be space in consolidated buildings to provide appropriate IES services. There is a mentality from the Administration that they just want to get it all over with (Turner made a comment to that effect) - but it’s not about them. There seems to be no accountability for Administration staff when things go wrong or badly in this District, so maybe they feel job security and just don’t care if it goes badly.
Thank you, Tom. I agree. No matter the outcome of this school closure process, this Board (excluding holdover members - they don't get props for clinging on) has already fundamentally changed how business gets done in the District, for the better. As a Bessie Rhodes parent, I can confirm that school communities are getting much better treatment from the Board and the District, and even though this is bittersweet for Bessie Rhodes families, it is progress. Is watching this unfold still uncomfortable? 100% Do I still get angry and frustrated? Daily. Will mistakes still be made? Absolutely. But every time this Board asks questions, talks to each other in public, and takes the time to explain to the public why they are making the choices they are making, they are enacting transparency and accountability. I don't think we'll ever get all the access and visibility we want, but I'm seeing great strides by Board Members that are committed and doing the work.