Evanston School Board continues SDRP3 consolidation process as parents and special‑education advocates urge delay and preserve King Arts

Evanston/Skokie School District 65’s board and administration on Tuesday continued public review of SDRP3 school-closure scenarios amid intense public comment focused on equity, special-education services, transportation and the future of King Arts magnet school.

Board members and staff presented revised versions of two three-school scenarios (labeled in district materials as revised 3b and 3d) that the board asked administration to refine after public feedback. The revisions re-drew some elementary boundaries to lower overall utilization rates in affected clusters. Administration said the revised scenarios keep all K–5 schools’ overall utilization below 90 percent in the modeled year, while the trade-off increased projected transportation impacts for some students.

“While the process has been data driven and rigorous,” Board Member Maria (last name not specified in the transcript) told the meeting, “we do not have a shared vision of what we are trying to accomplish beyond building utilization and financial sustainability.” Several other board members said they want to pair the facility recommendations with clearer educational goals.

Parents, educators and special-education advocates urged the board to slow the timeline, to incorporate additional programmatic audits and to model alternatives. Speakers repeatedly raised three categories of concern: the effect of closures on Title I (low-income) families and multilingual communities, risks to students with individualized education programs (IEPs), and what commenters called insufficient transparency in the modeling and financial assumptions.

Public commenters cited specific…