After her son’s seventh grade math class at Dr. Bessie Rhodes School of Global Studies operated most of the 2023-24 school year without a full-time teacher, K. Tyler found herself asking, “What is going on?”

Then, it happened again this year.

Her son, now an eighth grader, began the academic year seeing “Not Assigned” for every class on his schedule except language arts. The school’s principal, Charlise Berkel, now teaches his math class. The assistant principal teaches his Spanish class. The volleyball coach teaches his science class.

“How come we haven’t had any communication?” Tyler said. “Can you imagine it if four out of your five core curriculum teachers, you have a teacher, and then you go into the school year with no teachers? Can you imagine the parents’ outrage?”

Tyler is just one of many parents concerned about Evanston/Skokie School District 65’s recent message about possibly closing down the seventh and eighth grade cohorts at Bessie Rhodes — a decision that Superintendent Angel Turner initially announced in an Oct. 16 email and linked to “difficulty staffing for several key positions.”

After that initial announcement, Tyler said she felt “fury.” 

The district announced Tuesday that it will make a final decision about the seventh and eighth grade students’ school assignments after sending an upcoming survey to the parents. 

When Tyler initially moved her son to the school two years ago, she said she was “assured” that any teacher movement was stable and teachers were staying through the transition, the school’s upcoming closure at the end of the 2025-26 academic year. She received the “opposite” of what she was promised, she said.

There are currently 19 seventh grade students and 23 eighth grade students. The teacher retention rate for fiscal year 2024 for Bessie Rhodes is 69.5%, compared to 81.4% in 2022. The district average is 87.4% this year, according to the 2024 Illinois Report Card.

“We got a school now, with all the teachers leaving because they’re unsure about their job stability, so it’s just mismanagement, just terrible mismanagement,” Tyler said. 

There are currently four open educator positions, according to district slideshows presented at Monday’s board meeting and Tuesday’s parent meeting.

Berkel told parents Tuesday that the school struggles to staff some middle school teaching jobs that require additional certifications. Some people taking substitute positions in the district have requested other schools over Bessie Rhodes, Berkel added.

According to a packet presented to parents, one paraprofessional and various educators are filling in most of those vacancies.

“I have to staff around the certifications of the teachers that we actually have,” Berkel said.

Berkel added that she would not be able to sustain teaching multiple classes while serving as principal.

One of the three options that Bessie Rhodes offered parents included bringing in district-wide professionals to teach certain classes, allowing the school to remain open for seventh and eighth graders until 2026.

The district’s slideshow caveated this option with the fact that content directors would serve like “college professors,” coming in to teach then leaving to work on their district-based duties. 

“For them to tell us there is nobody to apply, but then for them to fire people from middle schools or other middle schools, which could fill in the gaps,” said Juana Vazquez, another parent. “We talk about the shortage a lot, and we just don’t get a response. ” 

Vazquez also spoke with Corina Herrera, assistant superintendent of student specialized services and supports, about insufficient support for her daughter’s Individualized Education Plan.

Vazquez said Herrera told her the missing support was “due to the school” — a premise Vazquez rejected.

“It’s due to your district funding; it’s due to you guys,” Vazquez said. “By law, I’m entitled to have that aide for my son. And regardless of where you get that aide, that aide should fulfill that position. And you guys are telling me it’s due to the school?” 

The school board approved District 65’s budget — and its accompanying $13 million deficit — for the 2025 fiscal year at its Sept. 16 meeting. Turner also introduced a deficit reduction plan that would include additional staff cuts, among other cost-saving measures.

Tyler said the seventh and eighth grade possible closures show a “complete disregard” for the well-being of their students. 

“All their giant problems in terms of budgets, new schools … they just wanted to cross this problem off their list,” Tyler said. “And they, you know, they took the path of least resistance.”

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Twitter: @shreyasrin

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Twitter: @edwardsimoncruz

Related Stories: 

— District 65 delays decision on closing 7th and 8th grade classes at Bessie Rhodes

— District 65 board discusses meeting with Bessie Rhodes parents, proposals for deficit reduction plan

— ‘We pick here’: Bessie Rhodes community continues protesting planned 7th, 8th grade closures