Parents and community members gathered Thursday night to hear from all seven candidates running for the Evanston/Skokie District 65 School Board at one of a series of public forums leading up to Tuesday’s election.

The forum, at King Lab School, 2424 Lake St., focused on various issues including the school board’s perspective toward magnet schools and budget cuts for the magnet school program.

Parents of students at King Lab and Timber Ridge Middle School, both magnet schools, said magnet schools are targeted first when budget cuts are considered.

First-time school board candidate Sharon Sheehan said District 65 officials often pit schools against each other.

“I liked that a couple of candidates came out and said that we value magnet schools,” said Cindy Greising, co-president of King Lab’s Parent-Teacher Association.

Candidates addressed the issue of student underachievement, especially among black students. Sheehan, and candidates Jill Willis-Brown and Jerome Summers, agreed that high expectations and an afrocentric curriculum would increase black student performance.

“High expectations are important but in addition to that, we need to have a support system,” Sheehan said.

Parents also raised questions about District 65’s budget problems and possible ways to solve them. They questioned the elimination of a District 65 grant writer who applied for outside sources for school funding.

Summers said she thought the grant writer position should be reinstated.

“That is one way to gain more cash flow,” she said.

Non-profit and religious organizations could offer free services for students, said Summers, who noted that he also thought the district should have a volunteer coordinator.

Instead of cutting special programs, such as the Two-Way Immersion program that brings together native English- and Spanish-speaking students in the classroom, District 65 should find better ways of allocating money, candidate Dick Peach said.

“If you do your spending correctly, then I think we should be okay,” Peach said.

Peach also said that the school board could use the services of local businesses.

Improving special education was another common theme of the debate.

Incumbent Bob Eder said too many black boys are being diagnosed as special-education students.

“I’m of the opinion that there are too many kids in there,” Eder said.

Candidate Mary Rita Luecke agreed that the board should investigate the issue.

“I think that’s something we need to look at and understand better,” Luecke said.

Mary Erickson, an incumbent and the mother of two special-education children, said that she thought District 65 should look for other ways to help special education students improve, like bringing special education teachers into normal classrooms.

“We are trying to do more things in the classroom,” Erickson said.

Parents and candidates alike said they thought the forum was beneficial.

“They are helpful in both directions,” said Emily Nidenberg, mother of a King Lab student. “These forums can give (candidates) a feel of what the concerns of the community are. I think for some people this is their only way to get the flavor of what each candidate brings to the table.”

D65 school board candidates on Sunday will answer questions from Latino parents during a similar forum at St. Nicholas Roman Catholic Church, 806 Ridge Ave, at 2:30pm.

Reach Lensay Abadula at [email protected].