Members of the school board for Evanston/Skokie School District 65, Evanston’s elementary and middle schools, are weighing their options to handle increased enrollment in kindergarten through eighth grade next year.
According to projections from January 2010, the number of students enrolled in Evanston elementary and middle schools will rise to around 7,000, up from about 6,600 this year and 6,460 the previous year.
The schools, which are already approaching capacity, cannot handle the rising number, District 65 Chief Information Officer Paul Brinson said.
“Projections show we will have a space need in the future,” Brinson said. “We will have to do something to address those needs.”
Only two schools in the district saw their enrollment numbers decline by more than five students between the last school year and this one, according to projections issued last January. Those same numbers predict that four will decrease in the coming school year by more than five students.
On the other hand, the numbers show that Dewey Elementary, Washington Elementary, Willard Elementary and Haven Middle School will increase their enrollment by more than 15 students.
District 65 aims to keep its schools at 80 percent capacity, Brinson said. With the rising numbers, measures must be taken so that schools are not overfilled. These include construction, redistricting or changing class size guidelines, he said.
Construction may mean building a new school, adding to existing schools or leasing space, school board Vice President Andrew Pigozzi said. Willard and Dewey elementary schools are currently undergoing construction to add classroom space.
“A deep level of detail has not been worked out,” he said.
A New School Referendum Committee, chaired by school board President Katie Bailey, was convened last December to discuss the possibility of opening a new school. It will present its findings to the school board in the fall.
The committee has considered building a new school or opening a charter school, Bailey said. She said a new middle school is needed; however, no decision has been reached about what a possible solution will be. Community members have been pushing for a new elementary school in the Fifth Ward, which lost its elementary school in 1979. They say the school is necessary to build a sense of community in the neighborhood.
“Do we want really large middle schools?” Bailey said. “The board’s going to have to look at that. Nothing’s off the table right now.”
Evanston could also be redistricted, which would change the number of students going to each elementary school and move some to an entirely new district, Brinson said.
“That seems to be the one people are least interested in,” he said.
Although redistricting seems least likely for now, Brinson stressed that nothing has been decided yet. The school district cannot make a decision until the New School Referendum Committee presents its findings, he said. They are expected to finish their research in July, before presenting to the school board in September.
