Editor’s Note: This story is part of a series of candidate profiles for the District 65 board election.
Lifelong Evanston resident Christopher DeNardo is running for one of four open seats on the Evanston/Skokie School District 65 Board of Education.
With a background as a personal trainer and as a former substitute teacher, DeNardo holds a master’s degree in education from the University of Illinois. He believes his experience working “where policy meets reality” makes him uniquely qualified to serve on the board.
DeNardo considers his most important role over the past decade to be that of a stay-at-home dad to his two children, both of whom currently attend the Dr. Bessie Rhodes School of Global Studies, which is scheduled to close after the 2025-26 school year.
DeNardo spoke with The Daily about his goals for the district if elected.
This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
The Daily: What went into your decision to run for the school board?
DeNardo: Both of my kids go to Bessie Rhodes, so the first school board meetings that I went to were as part of the parent protest group.
Learning about how the board was operating around the closure of the school and seeing them walk back on their plan, or not having a plan at all, made me think: “Well, maybe we should get a couple of new board members out of this anyway.”
I wanted to put my money where my mouth was and throw my hat in the ring.
The Daily: What would your first goal be as a board member?
DeNardo: My short-term goal would obviously be to get the district’s finances under control.
That’s going to have to happen collaboratively with other board members, and I think, as a community, we’re lucky to have a lot of board member candidates with a lot of financial management experience.
I think what I bring to the table that’s a little unique is a perspective of being on the ground and seeing what the limits of certain policies are. When you’re deciding on a program to cut, the question isn’t: “Do you like it or not?” It’s: “Does the program work or not?”
A lot of that is going to come down to surveying teachers, which will be difficult because, over the last 10 years, there’s been a real climate of distrust between the educators of District 65 and the administrators and board.
The Daily: Phase 3 of District 65’s Structural Deficit Reduction Plan includes school consolidations. How would you approach these consolidations and Phase 3 of the plan as a whole?
DeNardo: When I look at school consolidations, I am looking at current and projected student enrollment, population density around the school and the maintenance cost of the school buildings.
I’m trying to lay the groundwork as comprehensively as possible to communicate to our community what our decision-making process will be for closing schools. Having been in the middle of a school closure discussion over the last three years, I witnessed firsthand the shortcomings of the district’s approach to school closing and school construction.
The Daily: During the discussions to close Bessie Rhodes, several community members said there wasn’t a lot of communication or transparency from the board. As a board member, how would you address that gap?
DeNardo: I think this is a tough question because a lack of transparency implies that the administration and the board know something that the community does not. I’m not sure that’s entirely true anymore.
I think the board and administration, kind of scarily, don’t have significantly more information than the community and staff members at Bessie Rhodes have.
In a district where there’s already such a climate of distrust between educators and the board, between families and the administration, any delay in communication makes it look like someone is hiding something.
The Daily: You mentioned that the first school board meetings you attended were as part of a protest group. Has your perception of the board changed at all since you started running to fill one of its seats?
DeNardo: Yes, my attitude towards current and previous iterations of the board has changed. I have a lot more sympathy for the board, which is given the monumental task of trying to solve all of Evanston’s problems using the school system.
I guess my criticism has shifted to thinking that it is kind of arrogant of a school board to think that they would be capable of solving all of those problems in the first place.
I think a school board, in general, has powers that are very limited. You have bus schedules, hiring and firing teachers, and maintaining school buildings — I think that is a fairly limited toolset if the mission you’ve given yourself is to solve a century’s worth of educational reparations.
Email: audreypachuta2027@u.northwestern.edu
Related Stories:
— Q&A: D65 candidate Brandon Utter shares Two-Way Immersion visions
— Q&A: D65 candidate Nichole Pinkard talks collaboration, Foster School
— Q&A: D65 candidate Lionel Gentle talks transparency, support for teachers
