I am 41 years old.

No.

I have lived have lived in the attendance boundaries for District 65 for over 5 years, part of this time I lived in Evanston and I currently live in Skokie.

I moved here in 2020 from Denver, Colorado. My partner was born and raised in Evanston and graduated from D65 and D202. Proximity to family is what brought us back here.

I have three children.

My 8 yr old is a 3 rd grader at Bessie Rhodes and my 6 yr old is a kindergartener at Bessie Rhodes. I also have a 3 year old future D65 student.

I am a pharmacist specializing in mental health. I work for the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Bessie Rhodes PTA – currently serving as secretary, participant in the District 65 Advocacy Network, also involved in the Bessie Rhodes Families and Caregivers group.

The current budget crisis was caused by both District Administration (recent past and present) and the Board. In recent years, multiple key pieces of information were not well communicated from the District to the Board with respect to budgets. For example, transportation costs have been steadily rising due to issues around how contracts are awarded and the district limiting ‘in-house’ services for students who receive special education services. Regarding the funding of the 5th Ward school, projected transportation savings were inaccurate, leading to the Board’s approval of a lease certificate repayment plan under false pretenses. These issues combined with post-pandemic federal funding changes and declining enrollment, contributing to the budget crisis. As a board member, I will ensure that information coming from the District is accurate and clear. We can only make high quality decisions with high quality information. This will require changes in the way the district interprets and delivers information to the Board. The balance of the District’s enrollment and their checkbook need to happen soon and are closely tied to one another. In addition to improvement in the data flow, general good governance practices will lead to stronger Board decisions. The current cuts of the deficit reduction plan are realistic and the timeline is achievable, though several decisions should have been made years ago. The proposals are a good first step to financial solvency. With the district at approximately 69% enrolled capacity while the target is 80-85%, some schools likely need to be consolidated to balance overhead costs. I would not advocate for selling properties as a first option, though I am open to it. I am also open to creative ways to repurpose leftover spaces to generate revenue for D65.

I disagree with the Board’s decision to close Bessie Rhodes. The Bessie Rhodes building was originally to be closed upon the opening of the Foster school, where the K-8 Two-Way Immersion (TWI) program would exist as a ‘school within a school.’ However, when the Board and District found that they were unable to fund a new school of this capacity, they downsized the construction to a K-5. This violated a debt covenant of the lease certificates and required Bessie Rhodes to be split. The middle school portion of a TWI education is of vital importance and keeping it a contiguous K-8 is a strong, evidence-based design. The District’s plans in fact downgrade the TWI program. The linkage of Bessie Rhodes to the Foster school should have been abandoned when the K-5 decision was made. Spanish speaking families remain the fastest growing population in D65 and the need for a K-8 TWI program will grow. While I don’t think that advocating for the present Bessie Rhodes building to stay open is best for the community at this point, I think we should be open to creative school consolidations that preserve strong and unique programs and build community, rather than dissolving it.

The district has attempted to address gaps, but also has engaged in practices that could worsen the gap such as laying off reading specialists, changing math programming, limiting higher-achieving math programs, and limiting programs such as STEM and TWI. In education, you can spend resources in many ways, some of which will result in higher quality education and subsequent improved outcomes. Evidence based resournces  on narrowing education/achievement gaps state that many of the top 10 highest impact educational strategies are interventionist mediated. The district needs more interventionists to implement these programs. I would also personally like to see a committee including teachers, supportive staff, and curriculum administrators work together to form plans for the district to address the gaps in different subject areas. Utilization of high impact factor interventions and having appropriate staff to do so will narrow the gap for those who need additional resources to succeed. We should not ever lose focus on the whole picture and provision of programs and services that promote excellence with all students, including advanced and accelerated math and other programs.

The school board will hire the superintendent and serve a supervisory role for the superintendent position, ensure fiscal stability of the district through approval of spending, and continually review and ensure the strategic plan is reflective of our community values and that the district is adherent to the strategic plan. In addition to these primary roles, I believe the board should engage the community and ensure that they are listening to involve the community in Board decisions. I think the Board could and should do a better job of holding administration accountable. The Board knows that they were given inaccurate information by which to base funding decisions of the 5th Ward school construction, and yet continued to accept this low quality information from the district without correcting the delivery of it. Further, the Board has not formally acknowledged this. The Board and District both need to acknowledge this, apologize to the community, investigate how this happened, and do what is necessary to prevent it from happening again. Objective assessment of the superintendent at regular intervals should be incorporated into their contract.

For this problem, I would start by collecting information from the math teachers in middle school. What do they think is the reason for this? Is it a specific curricular change or other factors such as staffing, eLearning, or pandemic-related? I would also ask the teachers at the high school their thoughts on causes. The D65/D202 committee needs to discuss these issues and bring all this information back to the whole Board and the District for regular follow-up. Curriculum changes can occur if needed, but I am generally not in favor of purchasing the newest and “shiniest” curriculum in attempts to solve problems like this one. Math is not a new subject and we have had systems in place that have worked well in the past. We need to work with the teachers, curricular administrators and the D65/D202 committee to develop and implement data-informed math curricula with clear expectations for graduating 8th graders. Additional resources should be available for those who need extra instruction and challenging methods should be used to raise the bar at all levels.