The Evanston/Skokie School District 65 board has taken a step toward building an elementary school in the predominantly black Fifth Ward, re-evaluating its racial integration guidelines and changing its minority busing policy.
The board unanimously approved Tuesday the creation of a detailed program to lay out a five-year plan for the district. Earlier this month, a board-appointed special committee presented an outline of the plan that also examines the causes of a minority student achievement gap.
Board members agreed that the proposal, part of a five-year plan for the district, reflected the values of the community. The plan, which the special committee drafted for more than a year, outlines the most pressing challenges and goals the district hopes to achieve in the next five years.
“This is a community document,” said Terri Shepard, co-chairwoman of the committee. “It is incumbent upon (the board) to adopt these challenges and goals as closely as possible. It should reflect the community’s interests.”
An existing 60 percent guideline mandates that no district school can have more than 60 percent of any one race of students enrolled. Children from minority areas are currently bused to schools where the enrollment is mostly white in an effort to attain more racially diverse schools while improving minority academic achievement.
The creation of a neighborhood school in the Fifth Ward would break the 60 percent rule unless students were bused to the new school from outside communities, Northwestern professor Fred Hess told The Daily.
In other business, more than a dozen parents, teachers and students spoke out against the cuts to arts programs and library staff, as well as the possible changes in bilingual learning proposed in the district’s 2002-03 budget.
“The District 65 budget crisis really is a crisis of values,” said Susan Knight, Orrington Elementary School PTA co-president. “We need to focus on budget cuts with the eyes of children. We need to provide a quality, integrated education for our children.”
Teachers also raised their voices in concern about the possible replacement of part of their daily planning period with another class. The move would increase the number of students each educator deals with to more than 175 in some cases, said Haven Middle School fine arts teacher Dan Engh.
Teachers use their planning periods to create lesson plans and discuss students’ progress. Some teachers said that an increase in the number of classes will only decrease the level of attention they can devote to each of their pupils.
“The replacement of our planning period with a seventh class portrays teachers as being lazy,” Engh said. “We are put in the frustrating position of knowing what ought to be done, but not being able to do it. Many of these budget cuts negatively affect how children are spending their time in school.”
John Lalley, president of the 600-member District Educator’s Council, said that the council, after looking into the district’s current finances, does not believe budget cuts are warranted.”We do not see a situation that merits altering the educational fabric of this community,” he said.
School board President John Chatz said a serious budgetary problem exists because taxes have not increased in proportion to increases in teachers’ salaries and benefits.
In the coming weeks the school board will decide what concrete action it will take on the budget cuts, as well as the future of racial guidelines.
