Northwestern University and Evanston's Only Daily News Source Since 1881

The Daily Northwestern

46° Evanston, IL
Northwestern University and Evanston's Only Daily News Source Since 1881

The Daily Northwestern

Northwestern University and Evanston's Only Daily News Source Since 1881

The Daily Northwestern

Advertisement
Email Newsletter

Sign up to receive our email newsletter in your inbox.



Advertisement

Advertisement

New D65 plan would keep music in school, cut staff

Fourth- and fifth-grade instrumental music will remain an in-school activity under a revised list of possible program cuts presented Wednesday by the Evanston/Skokie School District 65 board.

Instead of making instrumental music an after school, fee-based program, as originally proposed, the school board plans to cut music staff.

“A fee-based instrumental music program is off the table for sure,” school board member Julie Chernoff told about 130 people at a community meeting Wednesday.

Supporters of instrumental music who attended the meeting at King Lab School, 2424 Lake Street, were relieved to hear that the program will stay next year. Under the new proposal, the district would save $70,000 by cutting the equivalent of 1.3 teaching spots out of the current 9.2 instrumental music positions.

The board is considering a series of cuts to make up for a $1.7 million budget deficit for the 2004-05 school year.

Although parents and teachers of instrumental music were pleased with the new plan, supporters of drama and childcare were still worried that their programs would be eliminated.

“We don’t want to hurt our children by outsourcing,” said D65 parent Mary Alice Ball, who is upset by the district’s proposal to hand the childcare program to the YMCA.

D65 drama teacher Tanya Sugerman went to the podium in support of keeping fourth- and fifth-grade drama with one simple request.

“I just want the school board members to read one of the letters that the children of Lincoln School wrote to the board,” she said.

Board member Jonathan Baum selected a letter from a young boy which read, “Please do not cut drama because it is fun and it gets all the silliness out of our system.”

The speeches and letters were what the board wanted to come out of the public forum, said Hecky Powell, vice president of the school board.

He said the purpose of the public forum was to allow the community and school board to engage in more dialogue than they would during regular school board meetings.

Parents at the meeting also looked toward alternate solutions to compensate for the deficit.

D65 parent Gwen Stein said she supported consolidating small classes to prevent programs from being cut.

Stein also said she wanted the district to continue protecting the arts.

“There are children who learn from the arts and can’t learn anywhere else,” she said.

Several parents urged the district to consider cuts at the administrative level.

But school board member Bob Eder said the district spends less on administrative costs than five years ago.

“Let’s operate on statistics and reality,” he said.

Other parents asked the district to propose a referendum that would raise property taxes and bring more money into the schools.

The school board would support the idea of a referendum, but school board member Mary Erickson said the referendum probably would not pass.

“A referendum is a very ‘iffy’ thing,” Erickson said. “Many have failed in the past. We can’t just rely on the fact that a referendum will pass. We need to work from the inside.”

Eder pointed out that a referendum could work only if the parents could persuade the residents of Evanston without children, who account for about 80 percent of the population, to pass the referendum.

Chief Financial Officer Lutaf Dhanidina said Evanston already is highly taxed, ranking in the top quartile compared to surrounding suburbs.

Asking for money from the state also may be unlikely, Erickson said. She said a proposal to lift the tax financing increments, or TIFs, also would fail to provide a solution.

“The TIFs are basically set in stone,” she said.

Board members continued to consider internal ways to reduce the budget.

“This is not an easy thing we are going through,” Murphy said.

The board will discuss final decisions on the budget at its meeting Monday.

More to Discover
Activate Search
Northwestern University and Evanston's Only Daily News Source Since 1881
New D65 plan would keep music in school, cut staff