Evanston District 65 board narrows school‑closure options, asks staff to model King Arts as neighborhood K–5

Evanston — District 65 administrators presented a range of school‑closure and consolidation scenarios on Monday as part of Phase 3 of the district's Structural Deficit Reduction Plan, and the school board instructed staff to narrow the work to three‑school scenarios and to model King Arts as a neighborhood K–5 option.

Administrators led the board and the public through the modeling framework the district used to generate more than 30 draft scenarios. Dr. Beardsley and Tamara, the district's finance lead, said the modeling relied on five equally weighted categories and subcriteria — equity, geography, building functionality, potential property income and building costs — and baseline scorecards that incorporate projected enrollments, utilization and program placement. "We needed to take responsibility now to put this district on the track to financial sustainability," Dr. Turner said as she introduced the Phase 3 presentation.

The scenarios range from no additional school closures to packages that close one, two, three or four K–5 schools. In the single‑school proposals, administrators modeled closing Kingsley or Lincolnwood; two‑school and three‑school combinations focus on pairs or clusters in different feeder patterns. The district's demography report and modeling show long‑term enrollment declines tied to decreasing birthrates and an aging population, and administrators said districtwide utilization would average roughly 58% when the new Foster School opens and Bessie Rhodes closes.

Board members spent much of the meeting pressing administration for clarifications on program impacts. Members asked how proposed closures would affect specialized offerings — including the African‑centered curriculum (ACC) at Oakton, two‑way immersion strands (TWI/TWE), RISE and STEP — and the capacity of receiving schools to provide clinical pull‑out space used by speech‑language pathologists and other specialists. "A lack of small group intervention space has a strong potential to affect the quality of service delivery," Julie Irons, co‑chair of the district speech department, told the board during public comment.

Several public speakers urged the board to slow the timetable, to preserve neighborhood schools and to ensure that decisions protect families who rely on walkable access to elementary schools, child care and public transportation. Parents and staff repeatedly asked for clearer data about how program placement, classroom sizes and special services would be affected by each scenario.

After extended questioning and discussion, board members signaled consensus on the following directives to administration:

- Narrow the options under active consideration to the three‑school scenarios the administration modeled and return with more refined boundary maps and utilization tuning for those three scenarios; - Model an alternate version that closes King Arts as a K–8 magnet and either reopens the building as a neighborhood K–5 (with program placement options) or closes the King Arts program and redistributes RISE/STEP students to nearby sites; the board asked specifically for models that treat King Arts as a K–5 neighborhood school for comparison; and - Firm up program‑placement assumptions in the packets (including modeling Foster with ACC in place) and show transportation and hazard‑crossing impacts and the operational steps needed to hold program fidelity.

Administrators said they would run the requested models, tune boundaries to address utilization imbalances (with specific attention to Willard and Orrington), and publish revised scenario data packets online in advance of public engagement sessions. The district scheduled four in‑person stakeholder sessions and posted an online survey; the board will revisit scenarios Oct. 27 and Nov. 3.

The board did not take a final vote on closures at Monday's meeting. Instead the meeting produced a clear next step: narrow the scenarios, return detailed and tuned data to the board, and solicit broader community feedback before any formal closure decisions or public hearings.

What's next: administrators will post refined scenario packets and boundary maps on the district website and run additional modeling requested by the board; community engagement is scheduled in October; the board will discuss again Oct. 27 and Nov. 3.