Last updated Jan. 8 at 11:28 a.m.

The Evanston/Skokie School District 65 Board of Education will reconsider beginning the process to close Kingsley Elementary School after the 2025-26 school year at a special board meeting on Jan. 9, Board President Patricia S. Anderson and Board Vice President Nichole Pinkard announced in a Wednesday email to families. 

The board’s new closure resolution includes a vote to begin the process to close Lincolnwood Elementary School at a later date. The possibility will be discussed if the district has not reached a point of financial sustainability by October 2026.

The closures are meant to be cost-cutting measures part of the district’s Structural Deficit Reduction Plan, which aims to help the district reach fiscal sustainability. 

Friday’s meeting will mark the board’s third vote on potential closures, having twice failed to reach a consensus on which schools to close before the 2026-27 school year beyond Dr. Bessie Rhodes School of Global Studies. 

“The Board reached an impasse in December, and we recognize that our statements prior to winter break about not voting on school closures without a full Board may have created a sense of uncertainty for families and staff,” Anderson and Pinkard wrote in the email. 

The board began considering 33 school closure scenarios in September, proposing to shutter between zero and four schools. Through deliberation, board members zeroed in on four closure scenarios: Kingsley and Willard Elementary Schools; Kingsley and Lincolnwood; only Kingsley and only Lincolnwood. Each scenario also included the closure of Willard’s Two-Way Immersion program. 

In two votes on the scenarios involving Kingsley and Lincolnwood, board members split on the number of schools to close or voted against school closures. 

Prior to the board’s second vote, on Dec. 1, several Kingsley parents asked the board to close their school during public comment, but the board still failed to reach a consensus.

The tie votes were made possible by the resignation of former board member Omar Salem in November. Salem announced his resignation in a Nov. 2 letter published in the Evanston RoundTable, citing a “unique opportunity” taking his family out of Evanston for several months. 

Since then, the board has been a six-member body. In a Dec. 3 letter to families, Anderson and Pinkard said if the board could fill its vacant seat in December, the board would move forward with school closures. 

However, at its Dec. 15 meeting, Anderson announced the board could not decide on its seventh member, appearing to briefly eliminate the possibility of school closures ahead of the 2026-27 school year.

Per Illinois School Code, the district’s Illinois State Board of Education liaison now has until Feb. 2 to name a new member. 

Also at the Dec. 15 meeting, the district decided to close Willard’s TWI strand independent of the school closure scenarios. Administrators also proposed a potential reduction of up to 78 jobs.

Wednesday’s announcement came as welcome news to Lincolnwood parent Liz Wolens, who cofounded D65: Invest in Neighborhood Schools, a coalition of parents who previously mobilized against school closures in November, pushing the board to consider alternative cost-cutting measures.

“We are excited to see some forward progress,” she wrote in a statement to The Daily. “We look forward to hearing from the Board how identifying a second school to potentially close is part of a broader strategic plan to increase enrollment, achieve financial sustainability and improve academic performance in District 65.”

The board’s special meeting comes before its first regularly scheduled meeting of the year, slated for Jan. 12. 

“Revisiting this matter, especially at this point in the process, is not something we take lightly,” Anderson and Pinkard wrote Wednesday.

A District 65 spokesperson did not immediately respond to The Daily’s request for comment on the announcement.

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Related Stories: 

— District 65 ends year in stalemate, to close Willard TWI 

— D65 board to vote on closures if vacant seat filled in December 

— D65 board falls short of passing additional school closures before 2026-27 school year