The Evanston/Skokie School District 65 Board of Education forgot to vote on one school closure scenario, stalemated on two and rejected a fourth at its Monday meeting.
With former board member Omar Salem’s seat vacant, the board split over whether it should close one or two schools in addition to Dr. Bessie Rhodes School of Global Studies before the 2026-27 school year. Although it unanimously rejected a proposal to close Kingsley and Willard Elementary Schools, scenarios that would close Kingsley and Lincolnwood Elementary School or just Kingsley both tied 3-3.
District administrators had presented those three scenarios and a fourth, which would close Lincolnwood alone, at a Nov. 3 board meeting. A majority of board members in attendance at that meeting — albeit three of five, without board members Maria Opdycke or Salem — indicated a preference for the scenarios that would close two schools.
However, the district’s legal counsel told administrators the informal poll was not enough to eliminate the one-school scenarios from consideration, Superintendent Angel Turner explained Monday.
Still, legal counsel and administrators forgot to include the Lincolnwood-only scenario in the Monday night agenda. Because agenda items must be public for at least 48 hours before a vote, the board will vote on that scenario at a special meeting Thursday, Turner added. According to the district’s legal counsel, District 65 will automatically default to zero additional school closures for the 2026-27 school year if the board does not reach a consensus on any of the four scenarios, Turner said.
“I think it was just an oversight on our end to say that we shouldn’t have had (the Lincolnwood-only scenario) as well,” she said.
Whatever the board decides, it will have to implement its choice next summer alongside its plan to open the new Foster School and close Bessie Rhodes.
The meeting prolonged a chapter that began on Sept. 29, when administrators unveiled scorecards for each elementary school in the district and plans for how the district could shutter up to four schools before the 2026-27 school year. The board began with 33 scenarios, and although the board has revisited old scenarios and some members have proposed new ones, the Monday night meeting was intended to officially choose at least one scenario to advance further.
The closures and program consolidations are part of Phase 3 of the district’s Structural Deficit Reduction Plan, which will involve $10.9 million to $14.85 million in budget cuts before fiscal year 2030. In collaboration with a group of planning subcommittees staffed by community members, the district used five criteria to score scenarios from least to most impactful.
The district’s effort to set a course for long-term financial stability comes as former Superintendent Devon Horton faces a federal criminal trial on 17 counts of embezzlement, wire fraud and tax fraud.
The board will hold closed-door sessions Dec. 2, 4 and 9 to discuss and review candidates to fill Salem’s seat, Board Vice President Nichole Pinkard said. The district published the application for the seat on Nov. 11.
Opdycke asked the rest of the board Monday if it had any criteria to evaluate candidates.
“We have to figure that out together,” Pinkard said.
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