District 65 Abruptly Closes Bessie Rhodes Middle School Classes Ahead of Full Closure
EVANSTON, IL — Families of dozens of middle schoolers in Evanston/Skokie School District 65 learned late Wednesday that their school will be shutting down in less than a month.
Administrators' surprise announcement of the mid-year elimination of the seventh and eighth grade sections of the Dr. Bessie Rhodes School of Global Studies follows the school board's decision in June to shutter the bilingual magnet school at 3701 Davis St., Skokie, at the end of the 2025-26 school year.
Superintendent Angel Turner notified families the 42 seventh and eighth graders at Bessie Rhodes will transfer to their designated neighborhood middle schools starting on Monday, Nov. 18.
"We have put a significant amount of thought into this decision and care to ensure a smooth transition over the next six weeks," Turner said.
Turner said administrators had been having a hard time hiring "several key positions" at the school and decided transferring the students to Chute, Haven and Nichols middle schools — more than a year and a half earlier than planned — would be best for their education.
"With this news, we know that there will likely be a range of emotions for both your child and your family. We recognize the desire to stay at Bessie Rhodes to finish middle school," Turner said.
"However, approximately 20 children per grade level and a limited team of educators do not provide the consistent, well-rounded learning environment that our students need and deserve as they prepare to enter high school," she added.
The announcement came just one day after the District 65 board held a special meeting with two items on the agenda : an update on the construction of Foster School , and a discussion of the request for proposals for consultants to draw up proposals for school closings and layoffs to stave off a potentially crippling structural deficit .
Chief Financial Officer Tamara Mitchell said the district received proposals from six consulting firms. Mitchell said administrators would, by the end of the week, pick three to give presentations to the board on Oct. 28.
The closure of seventh and eighth grade at Bessie Rhodes was not discussed at Tuesday's special meeting.
"I'm sure you are all are getting emails and phone calls and texts like I am about certain schools closing and I continuously reiterate to folks that no decisions have been made there's no inside scoop," board member Omar Salem said at the special meeting. "But I also understand why people are doing that, because they want to know what's happening to their kids."
Salem said district officials had discussed school consolidation for years and it was time for action.
"Obviously, the budget crisis has exacerbated that, but I hope you all agree with me that we really need to start making these things happen faster for our folks, so that people can plan once we know what consolidations are happening," he said.
"I'm glad you mentioned that, Omar, and to be very honest, my team and I would be able to do that if we weren't continually bombarded with unnecessary detours like this coming in the way," Turner said.
The superintendent said she and her team have been clear that the focus is reducing the district's structural deficit and that administrators have been working 24 hours a day and seven days a week.
"If we can get the opportunity to actually do the work and not get bogged down on the extra stuff that comes along and detours us from that, the sooner we can communicate as soon as we work through problems," Turner said.
"But again we know detours keep coming and it derails us from what we need to do, so our goal is to get this board and this community what's needed as soon as we get a hold of that information," she said. "But we ask, slow down with the detours, please, because we can't focus on all of the other work, so I just want to really name that because we are working aggressively."
