The Evanston/Skokie School District 65 may be one step closer to making the school in a Fifth Ward a reality.
In a memo released last week to the board, the district summarized its proposal with Evanston Family Focus about the use of the Weissbourd-Holmes Community Center for a potential school and learning center. The center will provide nine classrooms, a gymnasium and two offices.
But the district’s financial burdens may make it a Fifth Ward school impossible, said Terri Shepard, an Evanston resident and former District 65 board member.
“We’re trying to be creative and develop something that would work within the confines of the district’s budget,” said John Henry Turner, the director of Family Focus.
The proposal will require a $1.3 million initial investment by District 65 for the rehabilitation of the community center. In addition, the district will pay $200,000 to equip the building with a new elevator to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
During the year, District 65 also will be responsible for 50 percent of the building’s utility costs and will have to contribute $60,000 for custodial and security services.
The district began to pursue negotiations with Family Focus after the board approved the idea of a neighborhood school in the Fifth Ward on Nov. 18.
Family Focus currently occupies the center, which once housed Foster School, 2010 Dewey Ave. Family Focus provides Evanston with after-school programs, child care and other services.
The district could use the center until 3 p.m. on weekdays. Family Focus would continue its programs after 3 p.m. and on the weekends.
A neighborhood school could help close the widening gap in minority test scores and increase parents’ participation, Shepard said.
“We know that it creates better parent involvement and that the children become more invested in the school,” Shepard said.
The Fifth Ward has been without a neighborhood school since 1967. When the district was integrated, black students from the ward were bussed to other schools in order to meet a 60-40 percent racial guideline, eventually shutting down Foster School.
But after 35 years, some community members believe a Fifth Ward school could better integrate minority students into the school system.
“What we want to do is stop the busing,” Turner said. “We want to provide a community school that would be the center of the neighborhood.”
However, because of the district’s financial concerns, some board members would rather see a charter school brought to the Fifth Ward.
“The charter would function as an agreement with the district,” board member Bob Eder said. “It is a public school and it’s publicly funded.”
A charter school would be able to solicit additional sources of revenue, he said.
“We should be improving achievement for minority kids, and this kind of alternate model is worth our time to pursue,” Eder said.
But charter schools may not always be responsible to the district’s rules. Teachers, for example, would be exempt from union contract guidelines and could be paid less, according to Julie Drew, a fourth grade teacher at Washington Elementary School.
“I’m for a school any way I can get it,” Shepard said. “But I think that a charter school is an indictment against the public school system. I hate that the only way black children can get an education is by saying the public school system isn’t working. Let’s seek funding and do it another way.”
