As Evanston/Skokie School District 65 school board’s budget troubles worsen, parents expressed concern over plans to continue with the Foster School construction, while community members urged the board to stick to its promise to return a school to the 5th Ward.
In its September meeting, the board passed the 2025 fiscal year budget with a deficit of $13 million. The budget marks an increase from the $10 million budget deficit District 65 had for both FY23 and FY24.
Margaret Lo, whose sons used to attend Dewey Elementary School, said she has been frustrated with the board’s budget handling since 2021. Lo said this situation would be understandable if the board is unsure about the financial intricacies but that the board has refused to listen to parents’ concerns and hire outside experts for advice.
“It seems to a lot of people in the community that this board has zero ability to manage the financial responsibilities that are part of their job,” Lo said.
In a September memo, District 65 financial consultant Robert Grossi suggested pausing the Foster School construction until the budget crisis stabilized. In the memo, Grossi said “misinformation” has led the district to think it was in better financial condition than reality shows.
If District 65 continues with the construction, Grossi said in the memo the district will lose an additional $6 million of fund balance reserves and will have to commit to annual $3.2 million payments for financing through 2041.
“Now that it’s determined that there is a big problem, nobody seems ready to oblige by Dr. Grossi’s recommendation that construction be put to a halt,” Lo said.
Due to the board’s lack of financial transparency, she wants to collect a group of parents to file a lawsuit against the board, Lo told The Daily. Lo, a retired mortgage attorney, hopes this will pause the construction and force board members to answer community members’ questions about financing.
“It’s clear based on the past three years that nobody is going to listen,” Lo said. “They had an agenda that was not factual and unrelated to physical reality.”
Oliver Ruff, a Foster School alum, has been an outspoken advocate for the school’s rebuild. At the Oct. 15 special Board of Education meeting, Ruff adamantly opposed Grossi’s proposal to pause the construction.
“I was irate, I was angered, I was disturbed,” Ruff said. “I was abhorred by the fact that we were again talking about pausing the school and possibly terminating the direction of the school.”
Ruff said Foster School was his “village” and helped form him into the person he is today. Foster School, Ruff said, is integral to providing educational justice and community to the 5th Ward, which has a significant population of Black students.
After Ruff’s comments at the October meeting, every board member reaffirmed their commitment to continuing with the Foster School construction. Ruff said he is confident the school board will stay true to its word.
“This is the first time in almost six decades we’ve gotten up to this point,” Ruff said. “And I would like to believe that we will come up with some means and measures to create the school regardless of all the other impediments that are occurring right now. I feel that the community still deserves an opportunity for what all of the other wards have been receiving.”
Henry Wilkins, the founder of STEM School Evanston, said he is more skeptical about the board’s commitment. Wilkins said he has spoken to fourth and fifth generation Evanstonians who also express pessimism about Foster School being finished. There have been multiple proposals in the past 20 years to create a new 5th Ward school.
“We’re kind of in a similar situation again, where finance has become a reason why the Black community can’t receive the justice that they deserve,” Wilkins said. “This community has been yearning for a school to return for over six decades.”
Lo said District 65 rationalized the Foster School construction by telling parents it would build educational equity. However, the worsening budget crisis has put strain on other schools, including Dr. Bessie Rhodes School of Global Studies, Lo said.
District 65 announced in October it may close the school’s seventh and eighth grades at the end of the trimester due to staffing shortages. The entire school will close after the 2025-2026 school year, right when Foster School is set to open.
“We’re willing to say, ‘In the name of equity, we’re going to trust your judgment and your movement and try to build the school, which you say to us is better for the community,’” Lo said. “But now you’re hearing about the possible closing of Bessie Rhodes and closing down seventh and eighth grades. That’s not equity — that’s a whole disaster.”
Ruff said Foster School is critical to closing the achievement gap between Black students and other District 65 students. The Illinois State Board of Education’s 2024 Illinois Report Card said the district’s white students performed 44% better than Black students and 33% better than Hispanic students in English Language Arts. On the state level, these gaps are 30% and 24%, respectively.
Natasha Katz, whose children attend Dewey Elementary School and Nichols Middle School, said she questions if people would have still supported the Foster School construction in 2022, knowing the district’s current financial situation.
“Would people have been equally as on board knowing that Bessie Rhodes would close, other schools would potentially close, teachers would work without contracts and we wouldn’t have a balanced budget?” Katz said.
Katz said she wants the board to show greater financial transparency to prevent the budget deficit from worsening. Katz suggested the board release financial documents to the public and form a community member committee that can advise the board’s financial decisions.
Katz said she was skeptical about the financing for Foster School after then-Superintendent Devon Horton’s presentation on the matter in March 2022. Katz said the board claimed the Foster School construction costs would be offset by transportation savings because students in the 5th Ward would not have to take the bus to other District 65 schools.
Katz said when she approached the board with questions about how the costs canceled out, the board assured her that Northwestern professors approved the plan.
“Dr. Horton several times said that this is cost neutral, that building the school doesn’t affect anything else,” Katz said. “It’s just all positives, and I don’t think it looks that way anymore.”
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Related Stories:
— Teacher shortages, “mismanagement” plague Bessie Rhodes, parents say
— District 65 delays decision on closing 7th and 8th grade classes at Bessie Rhodes
— ‘We pick here’: Bessie Rhodes community continues protesting planned 7th, 8th grade closures
