Evanston District 65 board authorizes staff reductions after heated public hearing over middle-school counselor cuts

The Evanston District 65 Committee of the Whole on April 13 held a public hearing on a proposed reduction in force tied to a multi-year sustainability plan and heard hours of testimony from students, parents, teachers and school counselors who said cutting middle-school counselors would damage student safety and learning.

Dozens of speakers used their allotted three minutes to describe counselorsclinical qualifications and everyday roles. "School counselors are not an extra service. They are not a luxury," said Jacob Delay, a middle-school counselor and department chair, urging the board to preserve positions that he said provide crisis response, targeted interventions and continuity for students.

The hearing came as administrators laid out a fiscal plan in which phase three of the Structural Deficit Reduction Plan (SDRP) identifies roughly $5.9 million in proposed reductions for FY27, including about $3.8 million in personnel savings and $2.1 million in non-personnel cuts. Administrators told the board…