A series of community meetings this fall will give the Evanston/Skokie School District 65 school board new input on its decisions, board members said at their Monday meeting.

The meetings, part of a five-year strategic planning process, will be in a workshop format involving school board members and administrators, community group leaders, district residents and parents. The process is assisted by Northwestern School of Education and Social Policy professors Fred Hess and Solomon Cytrynbaum as part of the Lighthouse Project, a partnership between D65 and NU.

In the past, only board members and administrators decided budgetary issues and identified challenges.

Hess said at the board meeting that the process will help particular groups voice their concerns.

“We hope to solicit community input and particular constituencies such as the business and church communities,” Hess said.

D65 board members Greg Klaiber, Lisa Kupferberg and Betsy Sagan met with the NU professors last week to discuss their hopes for the process.

“I hope that it will allow us to collaborate with all segments of our community and to get their priorities,” Klaiber said. “We have to be conscious of diversity and how things appear.”

The community meetings will start in November and focus on planning a “challenges” agenda by Jan. 1, 2001. The follow-up meetings will focus on planning the “goals” agenda by March 1. The hope is that this process will help with planning the budget for the 2002-03 fiscal year as well as allow the board to address community concerns.

The board members disagreed about who should be involved in the board’s Steering and Advisory committees during the process.

The original plan was to add a parent and community member to the Steering Committee. The Steering Committee will plan the logistical elements of the community meetings, keep documentation and make sure the challenges and goals agendas are followed through. Sagan felt it was important to include the community, not just the board.

“Adding two more people to the Steering Committee won’t change the outcome, but it will change the perception,” Sagan said.

Other board members, however, said they thought the Advisory Committee will be adequate as a vehicle for parents and community members. They agreed to each submit two names for the Advisory Committee and to decide on a group of 20 to 25 committee members by Oct. 16.

D65 Superintendent Hardy Murphy also questioned the decision to target certain audiences such as the business community, saying he is concerned that parents or residents might be intimidated.

“I feel it’s important to get feedback from parents so that we can improve their and their child’s needs. … I’m concerned that the spontaneity of concerns might be stifled,” Murphy said.