The Evanston/Skokie School District 65 Board of Education heard updates related to its Structural Deficit Reduction Plan at its Committee of the Whole meeting Monday.

The board also unanimously approved a $56,000 contract for Student-Centered Services — the group that consulted on Phase 2 of the SDRP — to advise the district on Phase 3 of its plan. 

District 65 conducted a demography study in 2024 to look at post-pandemic enrollment and the district’s new school boundaries, which will take effect when the Foster School opens in the 2026-27 school year. 

Enrollment is expected to decrease by 401 students from fiscal year 2025 to fiscal year 2030, according to the report. 

Stacy Beardsley, assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction, said the decrease can be attributed to low housing turnover and the increasing median age of Evanston residents. She added that there are fewer K-8 aged children to fill district classrooms. 

By the 2029-30 school year, enrollment numbers will stabilize around 5,400 students, according to the report. Board member Soo La Kim said this is helpful to plan ahead in regards to the SDRP and beyond. 

“As we have to make some really hard decisions, having the most accurate data and understanding the platform of where we are is going to be hugely important,” Superintendent Angel Turner said. 

The district’s current enrollment levels for each grade range from about 69% to 83% of possible students. Beardsley said eighth grade has the lowest enrollment because the district didn’t recover from losing about 10% of those students during the pandemic. 

The report also showed that District 65 has the most schools — 16 of them — compared to nearby K-8 districts with similar enrollment numbers. Crystal Lake Community Consolidated School District 47, which has about 750 more students than District 65, has 12 schools. 

Donna Cross, executive director of research, accountability, assessment and data, presented on the district’s equity progress indicators. 

Student belongingness for grades 5 to 8 increased from 51% in the 2023-24 school year to 58% in the 2024-25 school year.

For grades 3 and 4, engagement levels decreased from 58% to 48%, which Cross called “a bit of a shock.” Twenty-one percent of Black students in these grades also said they felt like they barely or did not belong in the district — the largest percentage of all the racial groups measured, Cross said. 

Academically, fewer seventh and eighth grade students are below the 25th percentile in English Language Arts. Compared to last winter, however, the percentage of students meeting the “Expected Growth” benchmark decreased from 69% to 49% in math and 62% to 53% in ELA.

Board member Joey Hailpern said there needs to be expectations set for the district to help improve these numbers.  

“This is all about an experience that’s supposed to change the trajectory of kids upward,” he said. “It all comes back to expectation and execution, and a lot of that is communication.”

At the early childhood level, students are evaluated using Cognitive ToyBox, a five minute game that measures knowledge including vocabulary, reading comprehension and identification of upper and lowercase letters, said Narishea Parham, director of the Early Childhood Center. 

64% of students meet or exceed age-level expectations overall. Twenty-two percent of students are doing the same for reading comprehension, an 11% increase compared to the beginning of the school year. 

Parham said based on this data, teachers are asking students more “Wh” — who, what, where, when and why — questions. 

“(We) have them begin to truly explain, when we’re reading in our stories, the setting, what does that mean? Basic character analysis and things of that nature to help see if the students truly understand reading comprehension,” Parham said. 

The board also chose to revisit a conversation about continuing to have the Infant Welfare Society of Evanston as a subrecipient of the district’s Early Head Start funding. Under-enrollment in both the district and IWSE could jeopardize the district’s funding, Charmekia McCoy, a member of the district’s Student Assignment Planning III Committee said. 

Several board members want to keep funding the IWSE, but the question is for how long. 

Hailpern said that when the district is in a better financial state, early childhood education — including the collaboration with IWSE — could expand. Right now though, it is crucial for the district to serve the families who are currently part of the district and utilize IWSE programming, he added. 

Board president Sergio Hernandez emphasized applying teaching methods that are working to all classrooms so that students’ academics aren’t lost as they transition to different grade levels and schools.

“Those are places that as a system, we should always try to be cognizant of, particularly for our most marginalized students,” Hernandez said. “That is where we tend to lose ground.” 

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