Evanston/Skokie School District 65 will delay its decision on closing seventh and eighth grade classrooms at the Dr. Bessie Rhodes School of Global Studies until families provide their opinions on alternative plans through an upcoming survey.
The district could send the survey to families in the next two days, said Melissa Messinger, executive chief of strategic communications and project management for District 65, at a meeting with parents and students Tuesday evening.
The district initially announced the closure of seventh and eighth grade Bessie Rhodes classrooms in an Oct. 16 email, citing “difficulty staffing for several key positions.” As the district faces staffing shortages due to certification requirements, school administrators and paraprofessionals have stepped in to teach some classes, Superintendent Angel Turner said.
Turner told families at Tuesday’s meeting that her priority was to ensure seventh and eighth grade students receive a “high-quality education” before moving to Evanston Township High School.
“We’re not here to pull any wool over anybody’s eyes,” Turner said. “We’re not here to try to harm a community that has already historically been harmed.”
The district is considering four options for seventh and eighth graders: Students could return to their attendance-area home school, remain at Bessie Rhodes under a modified staffing plan, move to the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Literary and Fine Arts School together or split up across the schools by grade.
Families and district administrators split into small groups at the meeting to discuss the options. Most Bessie Rhodes families said they preferred the modified staffing plan, which would bring in district-wide content professionals to teach certain classes at Bessie Rhodes — allowing the school to remain open until 2026 for seventh and eighth graders.
Turner confirmed to The Daily that the district is no longer planning to communicate its final decision by the end of the week, as originally scheduled.
K Tyler, who has an eighth grade son at Bessie Rhodes, said she and other parents seated at her table requested the district share survey results with the families after gauging their preferences on different possibilities.
“Our decisions are codependent on each other, and we want to make sure that we can make informed decisions,” she said.
One parent, Jo Ann Flores-Deter, said she struggled to navigate the planned closure with not only her eighth grade son but also his younger siblings, both of whom also attend Bessie Rhodes.
Flores-Deter told The Daily that while the survey was a good idea, the district should have communicated with families about its response to the staffing shortage sooner if leaders were discussing options privately.
“All I could do is hope that the district hears us and works with us individually to make sure that our families are all accounted for,” she said.
The district’s board voted in June to close Bessie Rhodes after the 2025-26 school year because of maintenance needs and declining enrollment numbers.
Families of Bessie Rhodes students have criticized administrators for closing the district’s only school where all K-5 students participate in a bilingual Two-Way Immersion program. After Bessie Rhodes closes in 2026, the district will offer a K-5 TWI program at the forthcoming Foster School and a Dual Language program for sixth through eighth grades at Haven Middle School.
The district plans to expand Dual Language offerings to other middle schools by the 2029-30 school year, the district announced in April.
A small group of eighth grade Bessie Rhodes students at the meeting said they would prefer to transition to King Arts with their seventh grade peers because they would be in a stabler environment with more full-time teachers — all while remaining together.
Bessie Rhodes Principal Charlise Berkel said the school will support students and families through the transition process regardless of the final decision.
“Academics is something that is very strong for me,” Berkel said. “After teaching the children, I am not only their administrator — I know the children on an individual level, so I definitely want the best for both my seventh graders and my eighth graders.”
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— ‘We pick here’: Bessie Rhodes community continues protesting planned 7th, 8th grade closures
— Bessie Rhodes families protest planned closure of 7th, 8th grade classes
