District 65 Administrators Reverse Course On Midyear Grade Closures At Bessie Rhodes
EVANSTON, IL — Three weeks after the surprise announcement of the closure of seventh and eighth grades at Dr. Bessie Rhodes School of Global Studies, officials in Evanston/Skokie School District 65 have reversed their decision.
Following community feedback and a survey of parents, Superintendent Angel Turner announced Friday that the district will keep the grades open through the 2024-2025 school year, addressing the staffing shortage with district office staff who will teach core subjects.
The district's change of plans follows backlash from families and an apology from Turner, who acknowledged "missteps in the rollout" of the news that 42 students had less than a month before they would be transferred from Bessie Rhodes to their neighborhood middle schools starting on Nov. 18.
"We recognize the additional harm to a community that has already been through so much. This was certainly not our intention but an unintended outcome of moving too fast. Our goal was to give families and staff as much notice as possible to prepare for the transition; however, it did not allow for the necessary time for collaboration," Turner said, in an Oct. 24 message to families.
Administrators had cited a staffing shortage as the reason for the move, which was made without prior input from families and teachers.
Bessie Rhodes, a bilingual magnet school that District 65's board had already voted to close permanently by 2026, had struggled to retain teachers, and administrators said keeping the middle school classes running would no longer be possible without major adjustments.
A district survey of Bessie Rhodes families showed strong support for keeping students at Bessie Rhodes, with 21 out of 36 responding families preferring this option, even if it meant using district administrative staff as substitute teachers, the Evanston RoundTable reported. Another 10 families supported moving both grades to King Arts to keep students together in one place.
District officials eventually decided to allow each family choose whether to stay through the end of the 2024-25 school year or to transfer.
According to Turner, 20 of the 42 Bessie Rhodes middle school students will remain there, while 14 have opted to transfer to King Arts and another seven will go to their respective neighborhood middle schools.
The transferring students' last day at Bessie Rhodes will be Nov. 15, though administrative have arranged "shadow days" and a buddy system to help them transition smoothly.
"Taking additional time to come to a decision allowed us to learn from our mistakes, hear from a wide group of stakeholders, and calibrate on the best path for our 7th/8th grade monolingual students," Turner told parents.
District 65 officials are grappling with a mounting financial crisis left in the wake of the administration of former Superintendent Devon Horton.
Board members this week voted to hire a consultancy run by current and former superintendents from other school districts to come up with proposals to cut $12 million from their budget , reduce District 65's structural deficit and close some number of its schools amid declining enrollment and increasing spending.
The district's financial advisors have warned that without substantial adjustments, District 65 risks financial or academic insolvency , which could lead to a state takeover.
On Monday, the board voted to negotiate a contract with a firm called Student-Centered Services, which proposed finding and making budget cuts with minimal impact on students, while renegotiating contracts through the rest of the 2024-25 school year.
That would be followed by implementing those reductions through the end of the 2025-26 school year and then coming up with a " long-term educational plan focused on student needs with a balanced budget " to be put in place by the 2026-27 school year. It has yet to be determined how much money the board will pay for these services.
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