The Evanston/Skokie School District 65 Board of Education reached a consensus to explore a two-school closure plan and model staggered shutterings at its Monday night meeting.
The board switched course after focusing on a three-school closure plan since district administration first announced closure scenarios at the board’s Sept. 29 meeting. Outlining potential options to reduce the district’s need for $12.1 million in cuts by Fiscal Year 2027, the district’s Structural Deficit Reduction Plan consultant, Susan Harkin, recommended the board close two schools to balance enrollment across the district while maintaining flexibility for the future.
She encouraged the board to continue its commitment to transparency and communication following feedback sessions on the board’s previously preferred three-school scenarios in October. The board is slated to choose one option at its Nov. 17 meeting.
“I have never seen a district engage with its public as much as (District 65) does,” she said. “By providing regular updates on corrective measures and long-term fiscal strategy, the district can cultivate public trust, safeguard its credit rating and safeguard for future opportunities such as a referendum.”
A capital referendum was one of several revenue-raising and cost-cutting options that community members suggested as alternatives to closing three additional schools with Dr. Bessie Rhodes School of Global Studies, which is set to shutter before the 2026-27 school year. Under the newly-founded coalition D65: Invest in Neighborhood Schools, representatives from neighborhood schools across the district pushed the board to close at most one school in protests leading up to the Monday meeting.
The board also received an update to Foster School construction, showing the project on track to return around $3.3 million in savings to the district, according to Kirby Callam, the district’s director of strategic project management. Board Vice President Nichole Pinkard said the board listened to community concerns and acknowledged that the district’s financial outlook has changed since it last discussed a three-school plan at a special Oct. 14 meeting.
“We have to have the courage and humility to say that we might think differently now — but not necessarily view that as kowtowing because some members of the community have raised their voices,” she said.
Opdycke, Salem, Pinkard push for staggered closures
Pinkard and board members Maria Opdycke and Omar Salem argued in favor of closing one school, with plans to potentially close another in the future. Pinkard backed the SDRP as a “strong foundation” and stood behind the district administration’s work.
“Because we say we want to slow down or something doesn’t mean that we don’t respect, trust and build on top of what’s there,” she said. “I can say that and also say I think we, as Evanston, can do more.”
With the extra time provided by staggering a second closure, she suggested working with the city, the Foster School community and other local organizations to build “a collective plan.” Pinkard said she felt comfortable focusing closures in the Haven Middle School feeder pattern because it has the lowest utilization rate — or enrollment as a percentage of total capacity — of any feeder pattern.
The board asked Assistant Superintendent of Performance Management and Accountability Stacy Beardsley to create a staggered model in which Kingsley Elementary School closes before the 2026-27 school year. District administrators will then evaluate all remaining schools in the Haven Middle School feeder pattern — Lincolnwood, Orrington and Willard Elementary Schools — based on the new parameters created by Kingsley’s closure.
Board President Patricia S. Anderson and board members Sergio Hernandez and Mya Wilkins expressed skepticism over staggering school closures. Anderson said a two-school closure plan would provide wiggle room for program placement and student assignments, but phasing closures out would jeopardize teachers’ long-term planning.
“I don’t want to lose the fabulous teachers we have here,” she said. “I also don’t want to move kids twice.”
In its initial scenario creation, district administrators were asked to consider all school closures simultaneously occurring next summer, Pinkard said. Based on scoring criteria created by an SDRP subcommittee, closing Lincolnwood and Kingsley was judged to be the least impactful two-school closure, along with a scenario that would close Kingsley and Willard. District staff recommended both these scenarios to the board at its Sept. 29 meeting.
Beardsley said the administration would refine the two scenarios, as well as one that would close Orrington and Lincolnwood, before the board’s next meeting on Nov. 3. Salem requested the Orrington and Lincolnwood model, which originally received the same score as the Kingsley and Willard plan, because of his concerns about closing two schools in close proximity to each other.
Senior Data and Research Analyst Chris Koutavas said the administration originally didn’t recommend the Orrington and Lincolnwood scenario because of complications with replacing the Orrington neighborhood school zone in the northeast corner of Evanston.
Pinkard emphasized there was space to find a creative solution to the district’s problems, a platform she felt the four newest members of the board, herself included, ran on in April.
“I didn’t run just to say that my choice has to just be exactly what was presented in front of me,” Pinkard said. “It doesn’t have to just be school closings.”
New direction puts Haven feeder pattern under microscope
As the board moved to a two-school closure plan, schools like Washington Elementary School, Dawes Elementary School and the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. School of Literary and Fine Arts largely dropped out of consideration. Parents affiliated with those schools made up the bulk — but not all — of opposition to the district’s scenarios.
Parents represented Willard’s Two-Way Immersion program, which would close under every scenario recommended by the administration, at both of the protests leading up to the Monday meeting. Bevin Seifert, a parent of a third grader in the Willard TWI strand, said at the Sunday protest that she did not want to switch her child’s school for just two years.
“It’s a real shame because we’ve invested in the program. It’s one strand, but we’re all really close,” she said. “Everybody wants to stay that I’ve talked to, but some people will make the choice to follow it to Foster if that’s the only option.”
The district has not clearly communicated with Willard TWI parents about transportation to Foster, Seifert added.
Per the district’s transportation policy, Spanish-speaking students in TWI can be bused to the nearest TWI program for no cost while English-speaking students can pay up to $600 for busing. Foster would take on TWI programming currently at Bessie Rhodes and become the closest option to the Willard neighborhood zone.
Lincolnwood Structured Teaching Education Program teacher Diana Arreguin underscored the STEP program’s need for administrative support, especially as the board considers closing Lincolnwood, one of three District 65 schools with the specialized programming. New STEP teachers receive insufficient training, and almost nine weeks into the school year, new educators in the program still haven’t received curriculum and classroom materials, she added.
“Right now, we’re asking new staff to figure it out as they go, and they’re doing their absolute best, but that is not a sustainable or fair system,” she said. “As we talk about potential school closures, we need to make sure programs like STEP aren’t an afterthought.”
Harkin projects additional financial levers
Harkin also suggested three methods for reducing the amount the district has to cut in fiscal year 2027: selling the Bessie Rhodes property, financing the new Foster School through lease certificates and investing $1 million or $2.7 million per year on capital expenditures.
Harkin said the suggestion to sell the Bessie Rhodes property came from an SDRP Facilities Committee member and was an option she had “forgotten all about.” Harkin projected 13 combinations of the three methods, showing the corresponding amounts the board would have to cut in each of the next five years.
Lower reductions in Fiscal Year 2027 would force the board to cut more overall, Harkin cautioned — at an extreme, one combination that would cut $4.8 million for 2027 would result in $14.85 million in cuts by 2030.
Multiple board members said they were not comfortable with the district issuing lease certificates, which would allow investors to receive interest in return for partially financing Foster School construction. Temporarily reducing capital expenditures, on the other hand, would model discipline from the board, board member Andrew Wymer said.
“There’s a number of folk who will vote on a referendum who don’t have children in our district, for whom seeing that financial discipline will be a very important sign that we’ve changed the board culture here in the district,” he said.
Wymer added that he felt it was very important to name the second school on the chopping block before the board chooses a school closure scenario at its Nov. 17 meeting.
Harkin stressed that the board’s lack of clear “line-item” goals — as it stalls over big-picture decisions — makes it difficult for herself and district administrators to provide concrete recommendations.
“Part of why we don’t have specific data is because the net is really wide right now,” she said. “I feel very confident in modeling estimates, but again, if you change drastically what the parameters around that (are), I can’t do that for you.”
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