[9/29/25] D65 - REGULAR BOARD OF EDUCATION MEETING

001Good evening. Welcome to our regular board meeting today, Monday, September 29th, 2025. Adila, can you please do the roll call? >> Sure. The time is 6:14 p.m. Um, this is Monday, September 29th, a regular board meeting for district 65. Um, roll call. Wilkins >> here. Pinkard >> here. >> Oakdike here. >> Wymer >> here. >> Anderson >> here. Hernandez >> here. Going to go ahead and read the land acknowledgement. We take time to acknowledge that the land we meet on is the tradition traditional homelands of the Council of Three Fires, the Pawatami, Oji Boy, and Odawa. The land also served as an important meeting place for Miami, Pochunk, the Monamin, Inoka, Sack, Fox, Peoria, Arapjo, Cheyenne, and other tribal nations. This land has long been a center for indigenous people to gather, trade, and maintain

002kinship ties. Located at the intersection of several great waterways, the region has become the site of travel and prosperity. We acknowledge Evston. John Evans are tied to the massacre of the Arapjo and Cheyenne for railroads and westward expansion upon which John Evans developed his wealth and founded Evston. This land was violently taken under settler colonialism through genocide and open warfare. And the region that is now Illinois and Chicago land is still home to thousands of native people who are actively struggling for sovereignty, self-determination, and justice. The genocidal acts of settler colonialism extended to peoples of Africa and their enslaved descendants. Despite Illinois eventually prohibiting slavery, slavery was an accepted practice before and after statehood, the vestigages of slavery remain present throughout the United States and directly affect the descendants of enslaved peoples. Descendants who helped

003define the African diaspora, rich and heterogeneous communities descended from African peoples. The genocidal patterns of violence against peoples of African descent and indigenous people have been replic rep replicated to exclude and harm people from many intersecting marginalized identities, religious minoritized disabled and LGBTQ identified peoples, black and indigenous people of color and pockarge in the United States. These patterns of violence demonstrate that the pursuit to end state sanctioned violence against bipac is a daily struggle for liberation from continued social, political and and economic anti-black racism and oppression. Today we acknowledge that we are living, breathing, loving, grieving, laughing, and sharing space on unseated territory. May we learn to honor the historical and contemporary presence and power of the people and the belief that we must be caretakers of the lands and waters for the livelihood of

004future generation. The land that surrounds us is part of who we are. It reflects our histories. It is within District 65's responsibility as an academic institution to disseminate knowledge about black and indigenous peoples and margin marginalized peoples at large. Consistent with our commitment to equity, we will work towards sharing truth and promoting healing for the sake of our children and families. It is important to understand the long-standing history that has brought us to reside on the land and to seek to understand our place within that history. Land acknowledgers do not exist in the past tense or only in a historical context. Colonialism is a current ongoing process and we need to understand our present participation. We encourage everyone consuming this message to continue expanding their knowledge and reduce their harm through awareness of local mutual

005aid models for survival and engagement with online and local resources such as the Chicago American Indian Community Collaborative and the Shorefront Legacy Center. And I now hand it over to Maya for the approval of the meeting agenda. >> I move that the board of education approve the meeting agenda as presented. >> Second. Wilkins, >> yes. >> Pinker, >> Yes. Wymer, >> yes. >> Anderson, >> yes. Hernandez, >> yes. >> The next item on our agenda is our public hearing for the tentative budget for fiscal year 27. At this time, 6:17 p.m., the District 65 Board of Education will convene a public hearing on the fiscal year 2027, District 65, and Park School budgets pursuant to Illinois code. Each speaker will have three minutes to make their comment. And with that, do we have any speakers

006regarding the public budget public budget hearing? >> No, we do not have any speakers. Did you want to We do have um Tamara. >> All right. Good evening, everyone. So, I have just um a couple of summary slides that detail the uh district 65 budget as well as the park budget for this. So I'll just go ahead and go through that uh for district 65. First the slide is a summary of all funds except capital projects. So we have the expected revenues along with the expected expenditures and then the resulting surplus or deficit in each fund detailed here. Again this is all funds excluding capital projects. So the result of operations is projected to be a deficit of $372,59 across those funds. The next slide has the details of the capital projects fund. This includes

007expenditures and revenues uh that are coming into this fund including expenditures for foster school. There's also a breakout of uh expenditures, district-wide expenditures for capital projects related to um all other sites other than Foster. And so the results of operations are here on this slide as well. And then for Park School, which is the Evston districts 65 and 202 joint agreement as the fiduciary agent of Park School, district 65 is responsible for the budget. And so the revenues and expenditures for this joint agreement balance out. So we have revenues equal to 7,444,612 and then expenditures on the other side of the equation as well equal to 7,444,612. And that's it. >> Thank you so much for that. Tamara, colleagues, any questions or comments on the budget that's being presented? >> I just want to say

008um I really appreciate all the hard work that you did, Tamara. um if anyone was paying attention, you know, the the initial budget had nearly a $6 million deficit and they did a lot of work to trim things up and you know reduce that to what we see here. Um and I know that going forward the board is discussing a balanced budget policy. So we will always see a balanced budget and so I appreciate uh the administration sort of hearing us on that and doing all the work to reduce the budget and I know that it's going to tie a lot closer to um what we've done in the past. So, I just want to acknowledge that and um say thank you. >> Thank you. >> Any other comments, comments? >> No. And we did

009not have anyone sign up to make a public comment on the budget hearing. >> Okay. Uh I'll hand it over to Maria for approval. >> Did you Oh, you just close out the public hearing. >> Okay. Yeah, let me close out of the public hearing. Um so, with no other speakers, I move to conclude this hearing at 6:21 p.m. Can I get a second? >> Second. Wilkins, >> yes. >> Hank, >> yes. >> Oakde, >> yes. >> Wymer, >> yes. >> Anderson, >> yes. >> Hernandez, >> yes. >> Thank you. >> I move that the board of education approve the FY26 District 65 and joint agreement park school final budgets as presented. >> Second. >> There was a second. >> I'll go ahead and take the vote. >> Wilkins, >> yes. >> Pinker, >> yes.

010Yes. >> Wymer. >> Yes. >> Anderson. >> Yes. >> Salem >> Hernandez. >> Yes. >> All right. Uh the next item up is our district update. So colleagues, I I'll ask if you have any comments that you would like to share. >> No comments. We're just excited to say that we've been uh we've had the opportunity to really get in schools and engage in academic learning walks. And so those have been uh really exciting seeing children at their highest potential engaged in learning and just really calibrating um as an academics team really around where do we see patterns and trends um across the district when it comes to the instructional strategies that are being employed and how we can continue to support um staff to ensure that we're providing high quality teaching and learning for

011students. And so just excited and want to, you know, thank the team and thank the schools that we've visited um for their hard work and everything that they do. And we have more schools to visit that are coming up in the coming months and for the rest of the year. And so really excited about that. So thank you. >> Thank you for that. Um I would like to read a statement from our colleague Omar Salem. Uh he says, "Good evening. I would like to extend my sincere apologies for not being able to participate in person for tonight's board meeting. I'm on a trip that had been scheduled in advance before this meeting date was changed. I deeply value this process and appreciate all the work that has gone into it. I'm looking forward to engaging

012with our community around the different scenarios being presented and continuing these important conversations in the days ahead. I know my fellow board members share this commitment and I trust that tonight's discussion will be thoughtful and thorough. This had and will no doubt this has been and will no doubt continue to be a difficult process. The decisions ahead are complex and deeply impactful. Uh my focus will always be on what's best for the students in our schools. They are the reason why we are here and their collective voices and experience must remain at the center of of our conversations. As a reminder, tonight is not about selecting one specific scenario, but rather about asking questions and considering the options holistically. Thank you for your understanding and for your continued engagement. >> Any other comments, colleagues? >>

013Well, again, I just want to echo what um Um Omar shared uh we are going into a a very very difficult process in the history of our of our district. Um and again we've done uh all that we have we can do uh and we continue to do more to engage community uh and and to move along with community through this uh structural deficit reduction plan process. Um after tonight, I know we we're going to continue to um ensure that we're reflecting and asking clarifying questions uh as the presentations happen. Uh again, this is a process that started under previous for under previous boards that continues to be carried on by this board uh who and again this new board I know is really seeking uh to ensure that we have transparency um uh throughout

014this process and that we're engaging effectively with our community members uh and anybody who's impacted. So, I just wanted to start us off with that and and people's thoughts here. >> Should I go first? >> You want to go public? >> Oh, yeah. >> Okay. I I just want to acknowledge and thank the administration and the comm their community advisor committees for the difficult work that has been done thus far. Dr. Turner and her team has led the district through the extremely difficult work of unwinding tens of millions of dollars in wasteful spending and putting in necessary financial controls to ensure what happened under the Horton administration will not happen again. This work is ongoing and will continue until I can confidently say we are operating the most fiscally efficient and responsible district possible. The

015discussion of consolidating schools, addressing our structural deficit, and the enormous backlog of capital needs for our buildings has been ongoing for several years, if not a decade or more. The entire board is committing to is committed to putting our district on the right financial right track financially now by making difficult decisions. The fact is there are many many priorities in front of us that need to be addressed urgently. The most critical being our student achievement. But we cannot fully and efficiently address student achievement until we have strong and resilient financial foundation which means with which means which begins with high utilization rates in our buildings. Today a significant portion of our learning spaces are not utilized efficiency efficiently which means we need to spend money on infrastructure for those spaces instead of directing that capital

016to enhance learning opportunities for all. Closing schools can be impactful for our neighborhoods and communities. We only need to look at the closing of the original foster school in 1979 to see that it can also work out all right as we saw with no noise school, Miller School, and Kingsley School in the 70s. We're committed to neighborhood schools, but in parts of our city where there are fewer children, we just simply need fewer buildings. Today, we are talking about our buildings as K5 schools because that was the directive of this phase of SDRP. Unfortunately, the timeline in this process has not allowed for a creative, innovative envisioning of our district. The community should consider that the buildings that close SK5 schools may be reimagined spaces that deliver services to our students like prek, science centers,

017and other innovative ideas providing financial security. As a board, we need to create this vision for the district so we can direct the administration on the priorities for reimagining district 65 and how we deliver excellent education to all of our students through vibrant full school communities and rebuilt learning spaces. With strong financial foundation, we can envision a district that addresses the challenges that have plagued us and focus on the building the educational practices that will make Evston a destination for families and educational prof professionals. Again, I encourage everyone in our community to engage in this process with an open solutionoriented mindset. This is going to be hard for everyone, most of all the families and school communities impacted. Let's demonstrate our ability to come together as an Evston community for the benefit of our children.

018Thank you. >> Yeah, I also have something. Um I I think that tonight the conversation we're going to have is is overdue. It's overdue many years and the reason it's overdue is because how painful and hard um it is. Um I've watched the process of SDP3 unfold and I've seen our SDRP community committees um have very difficult conversations across lines of difference. Um, I've seen scores of our neighbors working together to try to find a district-wide solution um to the problems facing us, often having to wrestle with points of personal impact of any given scenario or plan. And this has been hopefilled for me and I am taking the scenarios that we have received from these groups through our district leadership headed by Dr. Turner. Thank you, Dr. Turner, very seriously. Um, these scenarios that

019we see tonight reflect thousands of volunteer hours and many diverse viewpoints. And I'm heartened by witnessing that and I hope that we can do the same, working across lines of difference to respect and listen to each other um, in this space and in coming spaces over the next few months. Um, and um, ultimately I I've heard from everyone and I I'm I promise to believe from everyone when you say that your school is special. I believe you. I'm committed to listening and hearing and believing you. Um, but ultimately we have a district-wide problem in front of us that we must grapple with as a collective whole. And this is a lens I'm committed to bring to bear. Um you know um we have to look at the collective whole collective impacts as we look at

020these. We have some difficult and painful decisions ahead but what scenario what decisions can situate us in the best way so that we can really live into every child every day whatever it takes. Thank you, >> Emma. >> I just want to say that I think everyone up here recognizes how hard of a process this is. This is definitely not a conversation or a process that anyone wants to go through. We value our schools. I know that they're more than buildings. I know that there are communities. And so, we don't take this lightly. I take this seriously and know um that this is a really hard process for us to go through, but for us to go through as a community as well. Getting to this point isn't something that happened overnight or even over

021a year. This is something that happened over decades. And unfortunately last year we realized that we were in the place where we either had to make start making some really really tough decisions or those decisions were going to soon be made for us. And at the time, we decided that we really wanted to take the time and make sure we had an opportunity to get input from the community when making these decisions because we know how important it is for your voices to be heard. And because of that, we came up with the SDP3 process. And so, this is not the first step. We went through an initial phase of SDP where we had to make some tough decisions and do a hiring freeze and eliminate vacant positions. Then later last year, we had to

022make even more difficult decisions, cutting 13.2 from our budget, which resulted in a lot of reductions within the central office and within the administration, which were really, really hard to make. And then from there, we wanted to make sure we set up forums and opportunities so that the community would have a chance to provide input to the administration and look at some of the problems that we're grappling with on the facility side, on the budget side, on the programming side, so that we can understand what's important to Evston and Skoi as a community when making these decisions. And so all of that um has been filtered through the administration as they're coming up with the suggestions that they are going to present to us. So this has been a process and again I'll say we

023understand how difficult it is. Don't think we're taking this lightly and we do appreciate hearing all of your voices and how everyone has participated in this process up to this point. I don't want to belabor the point because I know people want to get to their public comments, >> but um as a new board member um it has been a challenge to digest what's happening in front of us. Um it it's something that started with the closure of foster school. That's when the process started and so now we are reimagining that we are going to have to consolidate and close but we are opening a new school a state-of-the-art school so there's a big plus that goes along with this um at this time I just want to encourage the community to see itself as

024one we are all district 65 there are individual schools but we are really here for all of the children in the Evston Skoi area. I want you to try and stretch yourselves to believe that and to work with that mindset because that is how the board is working. We are looking at it as a total school district. Um, today is just the start. I'm glad to see everyone here and I hope you keep coming and using your voice in this arena and at the community opportunities that you'll have. So, thank you. >> So, since you said don't be labor, I'll I'll cut 80% of what I was going to say and just get to the punch line. No. Um, actually, because I think we agree on so much. So, my hope is just really that

025we move forward without the winners versus losers mindset. The question before is not just which school closes, but how we design a system of learning spaces that ensures every child in Evston has access to highquality, walkable learning opportunities. And that might mean a school might be rep a school to a K5 school today might tomorrow be a child center science hub or even part a park a part of our community infrastructure. So closure doesn't mean mothball closure might mean the beginning of thinking about uh something else. And I think that is the task and I actually think the opportunity um and the commitment that I think we all bring to this process and working together with you. >> Thank you board colleagues and again um for your comments. U we're going to move into our

026public comment section. Uh members of the public are welcome and invited to address the board during open public meetings. Speakers are discouraged from using the public comment period to hear specific concerns about staff members, being mindful that the public comment period is not a suitable form for factf finding or resolution of disputes. Rather, we encourage members of the public who have concerns about specific district employees to follow district communication guidelines found in the student handbook. Please remember to state your name and that you have three minutes to address the board. Also note that it is not customary for the board to respond to public comments. The best way to correspond with members of the board is by emailing schoolboard district.net. net. And with that, I know we have a very long list. I'm going to

027be asking the public to please stay within the three minutes. Um, but >> okay, I'll start by calling the first three people. Um, and we'll try out a new system with the timer. >> Uh, Kelly Post, Natalie Copper, Claudine Holloway, Don, can you turn up the volume? Good evening. My name is Kelly Post. I stand before you as a lifelong Evanstonian educator in the district for over 30 years and president of DEC district 65 educators council representing over 700 educators. While DEC is the largest of the five unions in our district, the unions work closely together and support each other and our students. As we wait anxiously to hear about school closing proposals, it is important to remember that every school community across the district will feel the impact. The ripple effect of closing even

028one building extends beyond students. It affects educators, office staff, support staff, and custodians, all of whom will lose their homeschool along with the children and families they serve. When the great shuffling begins, many in our community will feel displaced while all children will ultimately be placed in a school. The same cannot be said for the backbone of District 65. When buildings close to balance the budget, livelihoods and stability will be lost for many dedicated adults who have committed years of service to this district. We are here to support our students and families through this challenging time. But we also need to know that we are being equipped for success. This would include follow the contract with fidelity and accelerate timelines wherever possible so that educators and building leaders have the time they need to plan.

029Ensure evaluation systems are accurate and fair as they will play a role in determining future employment. Collaborate with educators at every step, treating our feedback as essential, not as an afterthought. Attend to the details now. The devil is always in the details, so we have clear, well-developed plans for every possible scenario. Dak is committed to supporting our community during these difficult times. Educators rise to every challenge and will continue to ensure that children have a strong and supportive learning environment. No matter what building they are in, it's what we do. Thank you. And then I'm also here on behalf of Natalie Pepper. This is a statement from the Evston Association of Child Care Professionals. Our district is in a financially tough position. Hard decisions will be made that will impact our community. It is through

030these tough times that we must stand together and be united by a shared purpose. doing what is best for our children. We as school employees are not separate from this community. We are this community. Many of us live here, raise our families here, and have children who attend these schools in our wonderful school district. The hard decisions are there to be made. It's not a choice anymore. It needs to be done. And yet, even in these challenging times, we hold on to hope. I'm hopeful that the decisions will keep in mind all students, particularly our most vulnerable. I'm hopeful that the level of excellence will not decrease. I'm hopeful that the district's leadership will continue to communicate with the community. I'm hopeful that programs will continue that assist students in making their school experience a

031more enjoyable, safe, and school-based experience. We are here for our for a continued partnership for the betterment of all stakeholders, especially our students. Respectfully, Natalie Copper, president of the Evston Association of Child Care Professionals. Thank you. My name is Claudine Holloway and I yield my time to Julie Irons. Good evening. My name is Julie Irons and together with Lisa Levine, who can't be here tonight, I am one of the co-chairs of the district's speech department. I'm here tonight to celebrate the incredible work of our speech language pathologists and also to plead with you to remember the students we serve when you make impactful school consolidation decisions. The speech department is 28 members strong, working in every building and program in the district. We support the communication needs of approximately 10,000 students in our schools, including

032some of our most vulnerable children. We are proud of our work and we hope to provide the same high quality of services after school closures. SLPs have served on sit and MTSS teams in their buildings as well as district level committees on educator evaluation, special education, track movement, and curriculum development. Like you, the speech department is fully committed to the district's strategic goals, and we believe we contribute to all five of these. In support of goal one, access, equity, and opportunity practices, we developed a set of racial and educational equity guiding principles for our department. This year's work plan includes creating an equity reflection tool specific to our department, as well as equity focused case study analysis to promote a universal departmentwide system for decision-making. The work of SLPs is firmly grounded in data accountability

033and evidence-based practice. In the spirit of goal two, develop organizational and accountability practices, and in alignment with goal five, strategic resource allocation practices, our department recently completed a multi-year project to refine our IEP eligibility criteria to reflect updates in research evidence and best practice trends. SLPs design and individualize all of our lessons. So, we have devoted significant time to improving our skills related to goal three, access to highquality and culturally relevant curriculum. We have engaged in shared professional learning on neurodiversity affirming practices in speech language pathology and best practices for students who speak African-American English as well as smaller PLC's on stuttering, ethics, augmentative and alternative communication, bilingual service delivery, trauma-informed practice and working with specific populations such as early childhood, middle school, and low incidents. Finally, the routine practices of the speech department aid

034in the success of goal four, recruit, select, develop, and retain highly effective staff. Collectively, we benefit from over 230 years of service to the district within our department. SLPs support each other through team projects, case collaboration, problem solving, and mentorship. We willingly share our resources and time, valuing contributions from both seasoned SLPs and recent graduates. Lisa and I believe that without the support and structure that the speech department provides, SLP educator retention would be much lower. In addition to working in every setting in the district, district 65 SLPs provide a full continuum of speech and language services as mandated by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Some of our students need SLP services in the classroom, such as large group lessons, small group rotations, or individual classroom support. Many other students require therapy in a

035speech office for various reasons, such as needing a highly structured environment tailored to their individual profile, a private space to repeatedly practice skills that other students have mastered, Um, the timer off. >> Oh jeez. >> You can save your opinions for later. Um, or a quiet room to hear their speech sounds. A free and appropriate public education does not look the same for every student. Currently, finding the office space for these necessary pullout sessions can be very challenging. Many SLPs share offices with other clinical service providers and borrow rooms from colleagues, playing a careful game of scheduling Tetris to ensure that students can receive the services and evaluations they require. When we experience school consolidations next year, the overall student population and needs will not change, but their attendance locations will. Increasing the number of

036students in a building will inevitably increase the number of service minutes and therefore service providers required in each building, and the Tetris game will become increasingly challenging. A lack of small group intervention space has a strong potential to affect the quality of service delivery. Within our current number of buildings, we already experience the challenges of sharing rooms, using alternate or unconventional spaces, or providing services to multiple groups within the same room. SLP services have been provided in hallways, cafeterias, closets, administrator offices, and conference rooms. These spaces are not conducive to learning and we notice the impact on students ability to pay attention and consistently participate in lessons targeting their IEP goals. Because of this, Lisa and I are concerned that discussions around building capacity define quote teaching spaces only as traditional classrooms rather than contemplating

037the breadth and variety of instructional spaces required for student success. We are urging you to expand the definition of teaching spaces to include the offices where clinicians meet the needs of students who require sessions outside the general education environment. To continue the district's mission of every child every day, whatever it takes, it is imperative that these students unique and special learning needs are valued in the equation of teaching spaces. So, as you consider your options over the coming months, we ask that you remember the students who benefit from consistent access to small groupoup pullout interventions provided by the district's clinical service providers, interventionists, EB teachers, itinerate teachers, and other specialized educators. We hope the board will ensure that small group learning needs and spaces are included in the physical space metrics that are weighed when

038considering school closure scenarios. Our special education students deserve to be a priority in your conversation and we hope that you will continually center them as you analyze the choices in front of you. Thank you. Next we have Megan Thomas, Andrew Ber, Dolores Cologne. Hello, I'm Megan Thomas. Um, I stand before you as an Evston homeowner, District 65 parent and educator. I can no longer remain silent as we prepare to hear the board's scenarios for school closures and consolidations. And I strongly urge you urge you to slow down this process and include teacher voice in these decisions. The plan is to be presented to the community today and voted in November. This is a month and a half turnaround that will impact the entire district 65 community. These closures and consolidations are inevitable. Yet the immediaccy

039of such change is unnecessary. What evidence do you share on your scorecards that demonstrates the impact of staff redistribution on student outcomes? What schools have you been into and discussed these changes with our staff? Where in these plans have you looked at the actual sizes of our classrooms you plan on filling to max capacity? Nowhere in these plans do I see consideration or significant input from us, the educators and staff who love and care for and educate the children of this community. With the exception of Dr. Pinkert, I have not seen any of you in our building talking to us, learning from us, collaborating with us, the people who make this district possible. You are asking me to put my trust in a historically financially mismanaged school district to make these decisions. Each pay period,

040there are Zoom links, emails, and spreadsheets to report paycheck errors. The systems in place in this school district cannot even seem to pay its employees accurately. Yet, you want me to put my faith in this system created to determine school closures and consolidations. According to your website, you're looking at reducing costs by another10 to 15 million. This makes sense. However, at the end of last year, you found $13 million. Who's to say you won't magically find $13 million after you push through school consolidations and closures? Currently, this school district is trying to do too many things. open a muchneeded walkable fifth word school and close or consolidate schools. Making these decisions too quickly without input from all stakeholders like your employees can lead to catastrophic outcomes for students. I keep hearing you say you're putting

041students at the center of these decisions. I see no evidence of that in any of the things that you have shared. I would strongly encourage you to slow down this school closure consolidation consolidation process and include teachers in these decisions. Thank you. Good evening. Uh, my name is Andrew Biliter and I am a former District 65 student and the parent of one current and one future Oakton student. Um, like everyone here, I'm heartbroken at the prospect of even one Evston public school closing, let alone four. Um, as a former teacher of afterchool drama clubs, I've taught or subbed at every single school in District 65. I have been in every one of those buildings at 3:35 when kids spill into the halls laughing and talking, teachers making sure the kids have what they need, that

042they're going home with the person they need to walk home with. And the feeling of community is so strong at that moment. and the reality that we are about to lose some of those communities is a tragedy and an outrage. At the same time, I do commend some of the people tasked with making this impossible decision on the listening they have done, the data they have collected, and the careful analysis that they're doing and some of the transparency that they've shown. Most of all, I thank them for putting equity high on their list of priorities. I say that first of all because foregrounding equity is going to help ensure that we don't repeat history. We don't have to do what happened with previous school closings where Evston's black communities were forced to shoulder the burden

043of busting upheaval and change. But I also say it because the spirit of equity is the thing that is going to get us through this. Um my daughter is a second grader in the ACC. That's the African-Centered curriculum program at Oakton. It's a program that in addition to teaching kids reading and math, infuses the curriculum with the principles of kindness, community, self-determination, cooperation, and responsibility. I love ACC and I can already see the transformative effect that it's having on my daughter and her classmates. I want to see the Oakton ACC program grow. I want to see a new branch of ACC created at the new foster school. And I want those ACC principles, which are rooted in equity, to be infused into the curriculum of every District 65 classroom. Because in the end, some families

044in our community are going to lose their nearest neighborhood school. And when those children show up at their new school, their school needs to meet them with kindness, with unity, and with a willingness to embark on the collective work that it takes to make every child know that they belong. Thank you. Good evening everybody. Um, thank you so much for being here and for taking the time to hear us. My name is Dolores Cologne and I am on my second year of being in Oakton Elementary parent and I am here because of what I'm hearing in the community from people. I am on the PTA. I'm also working with the um ACC parents and there's just a lot of fear out here right now about what's going on about what's going to happen to the

045students about whether they are going to continue to see receive the same services that they've received before and I personally am concerned about the schools that are closing and just ensuring that people who need help will receive help. There are people in this community that cannot afford to bust their children. There are people in this community who rely on public transportation already to get to work. So for those people to have to turn around and figure out how to get their kids to school or, you know, those sort of things, it's it's a lot of pressure on people. And I get that you all feel that you have um stepped into a pile of poo. I get that. and that you are trying to do your best to do what is best for this community.

046I hear you and I understand that. I just need you to know that there is a lot circulating out there and that's creating a lot of fear and uncertainty. So, I think if there's any way that we can just express a little bit more about what's going on, how you're making your dis decisions, giving us some hard data so that um there can just be a little bit more security about what's going on and why it's happening. Now, with that being said, you know, I know everybody loves their community school. I get that. Um but as an Oakton mom, I see the diversity in our school. I see the love in our school. and I see the need to continue to have a school that people can walk to. And with that being said, um

047Oakton is currently the only school that has the ACC program. And while we have been promised that it will be spread, it has not. So, as of right now, I'm very concerned with the child in ACC just even after a year seeing how she's developed and how important it's been for her. I would really hate for her to have to lose that. So, I'm here just stating for Oakton, for our community, for people who just, you know, maybe don't have the same power or the same voice or the same money as others, equity and and kindness and caring and just caring about people who don't have as much is just so important. I just really hope that you hold that in your hearts as you continue to move forward. Thank you. Lindsay White. >> Yep,

048that's me. Hi, I'm Lindsay White. I'm on the Oakton PTA. I have two kids at Oakton, one preschooler um in this building as well who will go to Oakton. Uh we reached out to our Oakton families and I'm going to read um a statement that was submitted um from one of them. Uh tonight I've uh been an Oakton parent for nine years. Two of my kids have gone through the GenEd program. One kid has gone through the African Centered Curriculum Program, ACC. Our experiences have been excellent, especially in the ACC. We have experienced a rich and diverse school experience that has been irreplaceable. The student body of Oakton represents the neighborhoods surrounding the school and includes black, latinx, white families, and other backgrounds, families that own single family homes, families that rent apartments, and families

049that live in multi-generational living arrangements. This diversity has been so important for my kids to witness as they grow up. It gives them empathy for all people and the ways in which they live. The ACC experience in particular gives students a better understanding of racial inequities, our rich history of diverse leaders, and an appreciation for the contributions of African-Americans in our city, state, and nation. Oakton does a wonderful job of celebrating diversity through its twe, ACC, and Gened programs, and the PTA does a great job bringing all these communities together through schoolwide events. We hope to see the vibrant community of Oakton continue on for many years so the local families can enjoy their neighborhood school and invest even more into the unique dynamics of the South Evston community. Um I actually spoke uh last

050board meeting as well. I'm just going to echo a few of the things that I said last time around. Um I know that everyone in this room loves their neighborhood school. That's why everyone's here tonight. No one wants to see schools closed. Um, but what I wanted to say was that what we need to keep in mind moving forward is that there are people in our community who will be disproportionately impacted by their school closing. Uh, those in our community who are lowincome, anyone who speaks English as a second language, anyone who's been historically marginalized, those are the neighbors and families that we should be trying to lift up in this process. We need to remember and insist that we're all in this as a shared community and it takes it's our collective responsibility to

051take care of one another. We need to demand that this school closure plan does the least harm and protects those who are the most vulnerable. Thank you. [Applause] Next we have Beth Brady, Jean uh Clipperton, Andrew Roland. Good evening. My name is Beth Brady and I'm a parent, educator, and community member in District 65. And I'm here to express my appreciation for the values and priorities that were put forth by our community and lifted up by our administration in creating the scenarios that will break our hearts today in facing a problem that none of us created and all of us inherited. I was encouraged by the prioritizing of equity alongside our financial and pragmatic concerns in the painful decisions that we face. Equity means seeking solutions that account for and seek to address existing inequalities.

052This was put forward by our staff and our caregivers. And it speaks to our commitment to hold care and justice as guiding values not just in times of abundance, but also and most importantly when there are painful decisions that need to be made. Closing schools is heartbreaking business, but it is not new to our community. We've been through this before and have among us neighbors, friends, and elders whose experience has informed what we should better consider this time around. I'm grateful for the caregivers that I have heard in many different parts of this community, committing to holding the gravity of this decision collectively and centering those for whom impact would cause disproportionate harm. Caring for those who are faced with the most disruptive changes. When we are most anxious about being personally affected by difficult

053change, we are most at risk for narrowing our lens and falling back into arguments and decision-making processes that would secure our own interests above others and protect us against any personal loss. I'm so heartened by those community members that I have heard who've been speaking up to acknowledge that some students and families have been absorbing the impact of our historical decisions and our present circumstances. and so call us to attend particularly to the way that these choices will fall on them. This is a painful moment of transformation and uncertainty and it will be hard. I'm grateful for our staff as we face this challenge together and I'm grateful for our caregiver community who have solidly insisted that no one be outside our circle of care as we do what must be done and shape the

054way forward together. Thank you. [Applause] Good evening. I'm Jean Clipperton and I'm a D65 parent concerned about the long-term financial stability of the district. I'm wondering if the toll of potential multiple closures has been incorporated in the modeling. Specifically, closing multiple schools can undermine current and future D65's parents confidence in the district, and this can have long-term downstream effects beyond K5 into 68. Aside from the reduced number of students, this can have severe financial repercussions, further exacerbating the financial situation. Additionally, multi-school closures will stress neighboring schools. If schools are forced to accept students over capacity, it will obviously necessitate adjustment in a period of high uncertainty. How will the remaining schools be equipped to handle the situation and meet student learning needs, especially in the face of upheaval and chaos? We've heard tonight from a

055number of educators within the community about how they have not been consulted and incorporated in these planning and these scenarios. While those are important things to consider in terms of numbers and capacity, we only have these as numbers in a table. We don't understand the spaces where these students will be and if they will actually be able to receive the services that they need particularly at a time during a trans during the transition that will feel very vulnerable. Finally, a closure is an as a likely necessary outcome. But what additional measures specifically regarding administrative costs or other potential streams or adaptations of buildings will be taken? It's not clear that this is something that is an emergency that needs to be happening along the timeline that we have set out. Perhaps we need to allow

056ourselves more time to think through more carefully because of the importance of this situation. Closing a school is an important decision that will echo for generations into the future. I trust that you will weigh the scenarios carefully, but I fear we cannot model how shaken our faith in the district can be and how one closure, much less multiple, can further drive down attrition, increasing financial deficits for the district. Thank you. >> Hi there. Uh, I'm Andrew, uh, dad of three in the district. Um, uh, proud husband and dad, and, uh, just thank you for the chance to speak. I have a prop here. Um, so I'm not really here to debate closures or anything. I fully accept that there's going to be probably a lot of schools that close. Uh what I really really care

057about though is that once the changes are made and once we flip the tables and remake the district um that the very very best school leaders and the very best teachers remain and that they continue to choose to remain and are incentivized to remain for decades to come. Um I I just feel there's this really strangely absent topic of student achievement in this whole debate I've heard. I've rarely heard it from from both to be honest the the parent side and and the district side. Um uh with the exception today of Maria. So thank you Maria for bringing that up in your opening comments. Um and I I just I don't know it just seems odd. So I I brought this prop here and it's not actually test scores. That gets really complicated so I

058left it out today. This is just a higher >> this is just a a graph of the housing market versus uh enrollment. And as you can see, the housing market is up compared to almost all Chicago land areas. People want to live here. Uh and yet uh and and I didn't do compared to Wild and neighboring and peer districts, but we are down in enrollment over the last 10 years more than any other peer district um on a comparative bas basis. Um and so it just seems strange, right? It just seems really really strange. Um, didn't it didn't come with a a big enough like prop, I guess. Um, and so families want to live here, but they're not sending our kids to the to the schools. And I mean, they will if the schools

059are equitable and high achieving. Um, the research is is very very clear. Uh, if you hold demographics constant, achievement really just depends on three things. First is money, the second is school leaders, and the third is teachers. Uh money is not an option. We already spend more per pupil than almost any district in the state. We spend more than will met. Um and uh you know, we're all here because of this this deficit, right? So money's not an option. So I just want to know how can we better incentivize school leaders and teachers to stick around and do what they love, which is teach our learners. Um I I've talked to a lot of talented teachers in the district already and they just don't feel recognized as we could tell from uh one of the

060speakers today. They don't feel heard and it just doesn't make any sense. Just invest in good school leaders and invest in uh in good teachers. Um yeah, so I'll just end on I I really believe that uh this is a once in a generation test, but it's also as Miss Dr. Pinkert said an opportunity. So please just keep that northstar of student achievement and let's hear a little bit more about achievement and learning. Thank you. Next we have Terry Shepard. Terry Shepard. Michelle Chelbeck. Barry Doyle. Good evening. To begin with, the gentleman in the talking about the uh the gap. That's all some of us been talking about for 30 years. So, you just need to hang around a little more. We've all been concerned with the lack of achievement of black and brown students

061in this district. And that's why a lot of us have been coming. Okay. Good evening. All right. Superintendent Turner, members of the board, the administration, the faculty, and staff. My name is Terry Shepard. First, I want to give kudos to the Oakland parent last week that came. She had on her little Oakton shirt, and it made me feel really good because I'd never seen that before. And so, I brought you a OG Oakton shirt. This is This one's about 20ome years old. No, it's old because there's no dog hair on it. Okay. Um, so, um, I want, uh, y'all to remember what she said that there's many people that aren't here just because of their work schedules. Understand that that's where not why they're not here. It's not because they don't care. Okay. Secondly, I

062want everyone to know that the work underpaken by the SDP committees was not taken lightly. By far this was the most difficult task I have undertaken in my 30 years at district 65. I was on the program committee. We started with approximately 24 meeting two hours every other week. Then we were told we can't get it done. You got to come every hour for two hours. The numbers dropped to about seven. We went from 24 to seven. This work was grueling. It was not fun. Of all the projects I've done, this was my least favorite. Um, I was on the out of school program committee. That's before and after school programs includes the Y, books and breakfast, etc. Knowing that many of our families depend upon these services, it was extremely difficult for me to

063discuss cutting or pairing these services. We know how much many of you need these services, but as honest as I can be, the funds are lacking to continue programming as we have in the past. Decisions you will hear tonight were not made life lightly. Trust me. Lastly, I'm here on this evening to express my support for the African Center curriculum at Oakton Elementary School. Wouldn't be me if I didn't. Okay. I I participated on the SAP 2 committee. That was maybe two years ago wherein the ACC was discussed with other curriculums. However, this happened just last spring. However, when our findings were presented to the board and the public, our sentiments were not accurately presented. I corrected this at the subsequent board meeting in writing to the superintendent administration and the board. We recommended two

064strands of general general ed be replaced by ACC at Foster. Now, I know I can't finish my notes in 30 minutes, three minutes, so I'm just going to hand them to you and ask that you incorporate them into [Applause] into the board notes. Okay. All right. Thank you. [Applause] >> Good evening, members of the board. My name is Michelle Clebec. I'm a mom of two girls in district 65, one in kindergarten and one in second grade. First, I want to acknowledge the difficult financial realities the district is facing and to thank the facilities committee for the tremendous amount of work that they've done over the past year spending I'm hearing thousands of hours evaluating countless scenarios and objectively weighing the impacts. None of these decisions are easy and I respect the effort being made to

065consider them carefully. That said, I want to share my concerns about closing too many neighborhood schools. I think we can all accept that one or two closures is absolutely necessary, especially when there is a nearby school that families can be reassigned to, but the more schools we close, the more we risk leaving large parts of our community without a neighborhood school, something that would have long-lasting consequences for families. When the board approved the foster school, the central promise was that every child would have access to a walkable school. Walkability is interest of convenience as a matter of safety, equity, and sustainability and community connection. It was also a top priority identified by Evston residents during the school closure engagement process. Closing too many schools could jeopardize this vision of walkability and could even force us

066to increase busing, a cost that will follow us indefinitely. Before taking such a drastic step, I urge the board to explore all the options for balancing the budget. Could we reduce administrative positions? Could we adjust class sizes or the number of class sections to run the schools more efficiently? Could we find creative ways to repurpose or share space instead of eliminating schools entirely? While these measures may not solve everything, they could reduce the need for such extreme cuts to our neighborhood school system. Let's honor the voices of our community, keep walkability as a central value, and pursue budget solutions that maximize or minimize the school closures. Thank you. [Applause] Hi, my name is Barry Doyle. Um, I've been watching the discussions about facilities for a long time. And in truth, these discussions about facility closures,

067about consolidations really should have been part and parcel of the discussions around building the foster school. And the fact of the matter is is we had leadership at the time and a board that lacked the courage and really the integrity to have those all at once. As a result, we we ended up proceeding with the financing of the foster school. We uh presented as as a building that could be built for $40 million. We had a board that borrowed $40 million without a budget or plans in hand. It was presented that the building could be paid for through transportation savings that were fictional. And as a result, what we have now is we are paying lease certificates to investors to the tune of three and a4 million dollars per year out of operating funds. That's

068money that's gone from the classrooms for to support our children. Um, and the metric that's been used throughout when we talk about school closures now is that each school closure is going to net out savings of $2 million. Which means that the lies that were told around the financing of the foster school is going to require a closure of one two schools depending on how you look at it. Um the story of of how those lies came to be told is something that's been asked about the Evston round table has submitted foyer requests. Tom Hayden did a and it's really become a story that is one that we aren't going to share employed company and it's not just a historical look back because it's a it's impacted the resources available for kids today and it's

069going to uh contribute to the closure of schools going forward. It's time to come clean about the the lies that were told regarding the financing of foster school. The the families, uh, the teachers, the staff that are going to be impacted by that, the people who are going to lose their jobs, the communities that are going to be disrupted deserve that much. Um, separate note, I I certainly hope that the district has learned uh from the experience with Bessie Roads about how the communities are are approached uh when their school is closed. Um, the way that that community has been treated has been uh upsetting and really kind of disgraceful to watch. I I hope that we we've learned to do better. Thank you. Next we have Pamela Staples, Kimberly Rogers, Liz Wins. Members of

070district 65 board, we appreciate the opportunity to address you today regarding a critical amendment to our 202526 D65 IWSC contract. My name is Pamela Staples and I am the uh director of center-based programs at the Infant Welfare Society of Evston and we're talking about serving infants and toddlers. So, these are our youngest learners. In April of 2025, we were made aware of a full initiative payment extension from the Office of Head Start through November of 2025. This means that the Office of Head Start will pay District 65 for every Head Start and Early Head Start slot, including those allocated to our delegate subreient program, IWSC, regardless of whether the slots are fully enrolled. The national initiative was developed postcoid to support programs in achieving full enrollment recognizing the national crisis of in enrollment and teacher

071recruitment that has persisted since 2022. This challenge makes maintaining required childto- staff ratios extremely difficult. IWSC formally requesting in this contract amendment that the districts share the same financial support and leniency that the office of Head Start has granted the district until November of 2025. We ask that the Office of Head Start support be flowed through the delegate agency in full. IWSC remains laser focused on our core mission keeping children safe and maintaining appropriate ratios and ensuring our teachers are well trained and prepared. We are working diligently to recruit families and filled position filled position uh filled vacant slots. We have initiated uh recruitment programs including a partnership with Oakton College to increase early childhood talent pipeline in Evston. Um we are giving precedent to ratios and safety. We move children into classrooms as soon

072as we have adequate staffing. Um we have had to close one classroom representing eight children and we can that we cannot enroll due to persistence persistent staff turnover or lack of interest. We are seeing results as of this week of last week we have hired four new teachers who are scheduled to be in classrooms as of today. Three of those teachers which are early head start staff. The goal of ID, the goal of the office of Head Start full initiative is to stabilize programs so they can successfully reach full capacity. Reducing our delegates agency funding is now counterproductive to the shared goal. >> Hold on. Hold on. >> Hello, I'm Kimberly Rogers. I yield to Miss Pamela. Um, I'm going to talk a little bit about the um um Okay, so based on our current

073enrollment, a reduction of approximately 15 children leads to an estimated of $19,000 reduction in our monthly payment to district 65 for the four months covered by the Office of Head Start Extension August through November. This represent a potential reduction of approximately $79,000. For a small nonprofit like IWSC, the loss is highly significant and directly impairs our ability to address the recruitment crisis. Substantially overhead costs such as utilities, rent, core, administrative staff must be covered regardless of enrollment numbers or payment reduction. We face substantial monthly costs for essential teacher recruitment platforms like Indeed. We are currently, we currently pay $1712 for an inter uh level staff, which makes it difficult to compete with local big box stores. Programs like childcare careers, which is an early childhood substitute entity, can be three to four times more costly

074than regular staff cost. This is a vicious cycle. So reducing funding from IWSC does not assist us in enrolling more children or recruiting family families. It only causes more financial strain. This directly undermines our ability to hire staff required to reopen remaining classrooms closed and enrolled the children currently on our weight list. The intention of the office of Head Start full enrollment initiative is clear to assist programs in stabilizing and reaching full enrollment not to harm them. We are asking the district to honor the spirit of the office of Head Start grant by flowing through the full funding of uh all of the 55 slots to IWSC for the term of the extension through November. We urge the school board to approve the essential amendment ensuring both district 65 and IWSC are fully equipped to

075overcome current workforce challenges and full share commitment to the early head start children and families of district 65. Thank you. [Applause] Hi, my name is Liz Wens and I'm a proud Lincolnwood mom of a fourth grader, a first grader, and a future Lincolnwood superstar who currently attends preschool in this building. My husband is also a high school special ed teacher in the community. There are many of Lincoln of in the Lincolnwood community watching via Zoom and we want you to know that we have over 30 Lincolnwood representatives in this room um including parents and educ educators. Thank you for all the support from Lincolnwood and all the Evston school systems. Over the last year and a half, my family has learned a very hard lesson that the support that my son receives in this building

076does not necessarily carry forward into our elementary schools. Our special ed programs in elementary schools are already overburdened and children like my son will suffer in an overcrowded school. As I said, I already have two kids or three kids all in the district. My husband is a public school teacher. We don't know where my son will go to kindergarten and that is a very hard decision for us. Um while we support the opening of foster and we are ad um we are advocating that we veer away from excessive closures slow down the process with time to explore creative solutions. Otherwise, we risk making irreversible changes that do not set us up for a bright future, preventing us from supporting every child every day, whatever it takes. Thank you for your time. Next, we have Meredith

077Copelman Aante. Zaki Tazik, Robin Brown, and Liz Rivero. Meredith. Okay. >> Oh, she Oh, she was Oh, okay. Well, if she comes back, we'll come back to her. Saki. Hi everyone. Uh my name is Zoki Tasich and I have three children in Washington Elementary. Uh before I talk about what I came here to talk about today based on everybody's comments and I know this is a very serious issue. One of the things I was thinking about as I heard everybody else speak was something that um Jesus said, which is love your neighbor as yourself. Everyone in this room is my um is my neighbor and everyone in in all of Evston um is my neighbor. Everyone in the world is my neighbor. And I just want and hope that we can all think about that

078as some schools will be closed and there are people who will be seriously affected and we need to be thinking about them. We need to be helping them. We need to be talking. We need to be uh we need to be thoughtful and we need to show them um a lot of love. That's the first thing I wanted to say. Second thing um I'm here to talk about um artificial intelligence. So AI um is a problem that we need to get ahead of. Society is already way behind. Briefly, AI is destroying education. Um, a recent poll found that a quarter of children between the ages of uh 13 and and 17 years old are using chat GPT for uh school work. Second, AI is anti- uh social. A third of US teens have had conversations

079with AI that they describe as being satisfying or more satisfying than human interactions. A third have talked about really serious issues with AI rather than humans. Third, AI as it currently exists is extremely dangerous. There have been numerous reports now about otherwise healthy adults. If I may just finish, I'm almost done. About healthy adults having chat GPT psychosis from having hours and hours long conversations with chat GPT. There are also uh several pending lawsuits that allege that AI coached a child to commit suicide. And last, AI will take the problem of bullying to a whole new level. Um, among other things, it allows children to make to make deep fake videos of other children, teachers, and parents. Some of these generative AI platforms have no guard rails and can be used to make deep fake

080porn. We will be seeing this soon. It's probably already happening of children. So I ask the uh the district to develop uniform policies around AI to educate teachers, to educate students, to educate parents and to put in place appropriate safeguards on schoolisssued devices. Thank you, [Applause] >> Robin Brown. Hello, my name is Robin Brown. Um, this is my 12th consecutive year as a District 65 parent. And there was a lot of things I was going to say that I I'm actually not going to say because I'm quite heartened to hear comments from the board and then comments from a lot of our fellow uh participants about working as a collective. And I I thought I was going to hear a lot more kind of advocating for individual schools and I was going to come here

081and invite us to think differently. We're a lot of us are on the same page. I'm really heartened to hear that we're all looking at this as a whole and not as individual school communities. We've done a lot of work in my 12 years in this district. There's been a lot of work to move us away from the me to the Wii. So, I was really glad to hear that. Uh we all know that the the decision to close schools is not one that any person, administration or community wants to make. I personally have been very impressed with this administration's transparency throughout this process. I had the privilege of participating on the superintendent's caregiver advisory council last year. The focus of the entire year was on presenting accurate data and soliciting feedback. No decisions were

082made. I was impressed month after month with the careful and thoughtful process that we as caregivers got to engage in. District administrators were present, engaged, and genuinely open to feedback in these sessions. And as other folks were talking, I was remembering all the other committees that lots of caregivers have been part of, yearslong process of providing feedback to the district. There have been and continue to be numerous feedback sessions for families to participate in. It is clear that you all are trying to be as transparent as possible to the extent that is legally and logistically feasible. Um, I was very disheartened to hear that information from a structural deficit reduction plan was shared outside of that group. Um, I find that disrespectful to the entire process. So, when you decide which school or schools to

083close, I trust that you will have done so after a thorough and unbiased process. I trust that your goal is the health and well-being of all district 65 students. So, thank you. [Applause] Hi, my name is Liz Rivero and I just wanted to uh echo what Beth just said. A lot of good comments have been shared tonight and are worth thinking about and reviewing. So, I will keep my words brief. Uh I'm a district 65 and 202 alum. I also have two dis uh two children in the district and I love our community. Um I have seen some of the thoughts coming from the board on the pending closures of the school. I haven't picked it apart. Uh but so far what I have seen is in alignment uh with our commitments including equity and

084inclusivity. I appreciate that the children are watching. Um, on the flip side, I have heard that there are groups that are mobilizing to keep their schools open on the basis that they pay more in property taxes, more than other community members. Let me just say that is the exact opposite of what public education stands for. Let me say that again. Individuals and groups believe that their school is more important to rem remain open because they are wealthier. That is the exact opposite of what public education stands for. Public education is for everyone. I believe in our community to do the right thing. Thank you. just make a last call for Meredith in case she need back. If not, that concludes our public comments for tonight. >> Just want to take the time to thank everybody

085who participated in our public comment. Again, you're always welcome to engage with the board here. And as I mentioned, uh, if you didn't get a chance or would like to now after the meeting, please reach out to us at schoolboard at district65.net. Uh, the next item up is the SDRP phase 3 update, the presentation of school closure and consolidation scenarios. Um, we'll be having a board discussion on that, but presentation first. >> Thank you. Good evening. Thank you to everyone for joining us tonight as we walk through the structural deficit reduction plan phase three update school closure consolidation scenarios discussion tonight. In district 65, we know our schools are the heart of our community, and we are proud of the joyful learning, strong academics, and vibrant activities that happen every day in our classrooms and

086school communities. There is no denying that every school in District 65 is special with its own history, relationships, and traditions that contribute to the strength of our district as a whole. It is because of this strength and the integrity, transparency, and accountability that I carry at the core of who I am that we must engage in discussion around a difficult topic tonight. So, let's take a look back at the structural deficit reduction plan, which was a multi-phase process that we have used to address some very real um things that we've been grappling with for the past two years. Our goal is to ensure the long-term strength of our schools and to face tough choices with honesty and compassion. It is imperative to note that our rationale for this process is because we needed to take

087responsibility now to put this district on the track to financial sustainability. So, let's talk a little bit about this graphic. This should be familiar to the community. This graphic you see here is both a historical and future timeline of the structural deficit reduction plan the district has engaged and continue to navigate. So what you see here here are a few facts. The district is facing signific significant longstanding challenges including declining student enrollment, underutilized buildings, and aging facilities. The district has already reduced nearly $20 million from its budget in two years to achieve financial sustainability. While there has been significant work led and engaged by my team, my commitment is to lead with transparency, collaboration, and care, which has resulted in a multi-phase approach to the SDP process that has been and will continue to be

088comprehensive yet pragmatic, balancing data with community voices, equity, and the lived experiences of students and staff. So, SCP phase one, the initial planning began in the spring of 2024 to impact this current fiscal year with the $6.5 million in budgetary reductions in partnership with Illuminate. So, that was actually year one last year, last school year. This also included a reduction of 40 plus full-time personnel. In SCP phase 2 in the fall of 2024, we also initiated a hiring freeze, closed and eliminated vacated positions, reduced purchase services where possible without impacting our student experience, and developed the SC STP framework in partnership with SCES consultants. In the winter of January 2025, this current calendar year, the board voted on phase 2 reductions to go into effect July 1, 2025. Those reductions resulted in over 13.2 million,

089and this also included a reduction of an additional 50 plus full-time personnel. Now, we're in phase three of the structural deficit reduction, which entails planning for FY27 and beyond. with a focus on sustainability. So, please note that within this phase, it will also include more budget reductions with a focus on additional potential reductions of full-time personnel and potential school closings and consolidations. So, what does this all mean? That's a great question. This means that throughout the phases of SDRP phase one and two, as you see here on this slide, we prioritize our schools, programs, and services directly connected to students, as evident here on the screen. You might be asking, why did we make these moves? Our response was based on what we heard from our staff, parents, students, and community members. As a result

090of $20 million in reductions, we largely were able to preserve all that makes our school so special and the robust supports for students. However, due to the magnitude of cuts now as part of phase three, these areas that were once preserved in phases one and two, as evidenced in the previous slide and this one, may be impacted at greater levels depending upon the scenarios approved by the school board. So, now we're going to walk into working toward financial sustainability. I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Beardsley and Tamara, our CFO, to talk about our facilities, our student enrollment trends, and the district's financial position. Thank you, Dr. Turner. There are three primary drivers that have led us to this discussion. To guarantee a bright future, we need to make sure that we are ensuring

091long-term financial sustainability for the school district. Second, many of our buildings are old and are in need of a great deal of maintenance and capital improvements to make them better suited for the 21st century learning. And third, we're experiencing decreasing enrollment and this is resulting in underutilized school buildings. District 65 conducted a master facility plan in 2021. This assessment focused on 18 district 65 school buildings which average 79 years of age. The assessment identified $188 million of needed capital work across these buildings. All of our district 65 buildings were found to have a facility condition index of poor or very poor with the exception of the JH building which we are currently in. Additionally, we still have four buildings that are less than 50 50% ADA accessible. District 65 is also experiencing decreasing enrollment since

092our peak during the 201617 school year. District 65 had a demography report completed in the 2425 school year which forecasts that enrollment will continue to decline over the next eight years with a small increase in year 9 and 10 of the report. The decline of enrollment was accelerated by the pandemic. Yet the underlying causes are decreasing birth rates which are being seen nationally and an aging Evston population. The demography report shared that the median age of an Evston resident and this is Evston Skoi district 65 increases by 3.8 years between 2020 and 2035 from 37.2 years to 41 years. The report forecasts that the district enrollment forecasts the district enrollment to drop by an additional 7.3% by 2030, which is the equivalent of 401 students with an additional 1% drop by 2035, which is an

093additional 55 students. The decrease in enrollment in district 65 has led to lower utilization rates in our school buildings. A utilization rate indicates the numbers of students in the building in comparison to the building's maximum student occupancy. Our current utilization ranges from a low of 48% to a high of 87% and is expected to to decrease to an average of 58% districtwide when Foster opens next year and Vessie Roads is closed. Decreasing enrollments have been most notable in the Haven and Nichols feeder patterns. This slide is a snapshot of our structural deficit reality. As we know, a structural deficit occurs when expense growth outpaces revenue growth. And that is our reality here at District 65. As Dr. Turner mentioned previously, work has already been done to address the structural deficit, and that work has resulted

094in $20 million in operational reductions. But our reality is we need to reduce between 10 million and 15 million more for the next fiscal year. Those reductions will allow us to address our structural deficit and focus the work. The focus of the work is meant to ensure that every student in district 65 has access to highquality robust programming and that is truly the central focus of the structural deficit reduction work. In summary, to guarantee a strong and vibrant district, we need to take additional steps to attain financial sustainability, address our building deficiencies, and ensure we are using our financial and capital resources in an efficient manner. One action step that can help address these challenges is maximizing the utilization of our school facilities through school consolidations and closures. And now I will turn it back

095over to Dr. Turner. Thank you, Dr. Beersley and uh Tamara. Now I want to ground us in our time together tonight and the goals and outcomes we as a district administrative team are trying to walk away with for a clear understanding of our directives from the school board moving forward. Goal one really for us tonight is to build community understanding around the process the district administration use to engage in the development of the school scenarios that will be presented in a few minutes. Goal two really is to narrow which sets of scenarios to move forward for further revision. And goal three is to get direction from the board as to the number of schools to further refine as it relates to potential school closings and guidance on how to move forward, how to move forward

096with the scenarios. So let's talk about the SDP decisionmaking process for a second. The administration was charged with making SD STP related recommendations to the board for for consideration. So that is what we were charged with. All school closure and consolidation decisions are that of the school board. There was an open application process for SDRP subcommittees. The administration selected about 60 parents and caregivers, staff and community members to be thought partners. The committee gave feedback. The committee feedback was one of numerous resources that the administration used in formulating the administration recommendations to the school board tonight. All aspects was rooted in stakeholder voice. So again, I want to just acknowledge that the committees were thought partners with the administration. They did not drive the administration's recommendations. So when we talk about phase three and the

097road map and really how did we get to this point? Um the administration brought forward categories and criteria that was informed by the facility subcommittee and community engagement. the criteria or the scenarios were not developed in isolation. Looking ahead, the stakeholder input on scenarios is scheduled for midocctober and through an online survey and more details are at the end of this presentation and on the SDP website for everyone's review. In November, the board decision on the scenarios will come forth. If the board votes to close additional schools, those public hearings will be held in December. Then approved scenarios will go into effect for the 2026 2027 school year. Now I'm going to turn it back over to Dr. Beersley who will discuss the categories and criteria. Thanks Dr. Turner. So as we move forward at

098this point in the presentation, we are trying to both fill make sure that folks that maybe are newer to this conversation are getting background context. So as we move through this and move into scenarios, we'll be adding some clarification and background. Everything that's referred to going forward in the scenarios is also going to be made available via the district website and so people will have the opportunity to look at very similar things to what we're referring to this evening. All right. So as Dr. Turner shared above, district administration began an extensive process in March to engage the community and work deeply with subcommittees to bring forward scenarios tonight for potential school closure. Um, I'm going to echo the thanks um that was been shared previously. We had a total of 59 committee members for their

099deep commitment to this challenging work and the process. The committee represented 16 schools from all nine wards and Skoi. One area where the subcommittee provided critical feedback to the district administration was in the development of categories and criteria which we used for the school report cards. Administration and committee reviewed a large volume of data sources as well as input from community and district committee uh committees. Ultimately, the categories and criteria represent the focus of SDRP, a focus on financial sustainability and the values from the community that we heard in those engagement sessions. The committee's feedback helped the administration to bring forward the categories and criteria that we see here. We have five categories. Equity, geography, building functionality, and financial impact is split into two categories. Potential building income and building costs. Each category consists of

100equally weighted criteria that make up the category. If we use geography as an example, the big idea of geography is making school access safe and practical. Geography consists of four criteria. In the case of geography, geographic proximity is the one criteria that was not scenario dependent and is included in the baseline school scorecards on the scenario specific scorecard. And this will make sense as you begin to see them in a minute. On the scenario specific scorecard, you will see all four criteria, walkability, safe routes to school, transportation, and geographic proximity. And the criteria are weighted at 25% each to make up the overall category score. Moving on to the waiting. Once the categories and criteria were generated, weights were developed for each category. You can see the weights represented on the slide. The categories and

101criteria were brought to the school board in June and were shared with the community through community engagement sessions and district communications. Feedback was gathered through these sessions and a survey. This feedback led to some refinement of the criteria and clarification of the calculation methods. Additionally, district administration engaged with a data scientist at a local university with questions about the scorecard generation. The data science encourage scientists encouraged us to test the sensitivity of the calculations and weightings. This sensitivity testing showed us that the order in the baseline scorecards was fairly consistent with a greater degree of consistency among the lower end of the scorecard which are the schools identified as least impactful to close and could be thought of as more likely to close. Once the categories and criteria were finalized, the district administration developed the

102baseline school scorecards and engaged in scenario development and testing. The facility subcommittee was a vital partner in providing feedback on scenarios and considerations in this process. The committee consists of 25 this within this the facility subcommittee in itself consisted of 21 community members representing 12 of our 19 schools. During the process, the group reggrounded regularly in the p purpose of STRP, moving the district to financial sustainability and revisited, putting our individual interest to the side for the broader district needs. Entering into this phase of our work, the middle schools, park, rice, and early childhood were removed from the scorecard. Removing the middle schools from closure consideration was brought as a recommendation to the school board in the June meeting. Several factors contributed to this recommendation, including high utilization rates, the geographic proximity of the schools,

103programmatic features of the building themselves that support the middle school curriculum, and due to utilization rates, if there was to be a closure of a middle school, we would potentially need to change grade bands to a K6 and a 78 model. And that proves to be challenging for curricular and teacher endorsement reasons. In the case of Park, Rice, and JH, these are specialized programs that the district is committed to providing for our students. Their educational model and facility needs are significantly different than our standard district 65 schools. As a result, we shifted to thinking about these programs separate from their buildings. In some scenarios, programs were considered for movement. However, any movement of these programs would need to be at least one to two years into the future and would be independ would be dependent

104on availability of capital funds to ensure the receiving facility fully meets the needs of these programs. All right, before we're getting there, folks, before we dive into the scenarios, all right, come on. Before we dive into the scenarios, I'm sharing a few assumptions that are important when accessing and making sense of the scenario data packets that are available on the school board that are available to the scoreboard and publicly on the district 65 website following this meeting. As I've stated above, the baseline scorecards were used to inform where to start in our modeling. The administration generated over 30 different scenarios with the support of a university partner and our research accountability assessment and data department. The facilities subcommittee provided feedback on the scenarios. The feedback was used by administration as consideration for which scenarios should

105be brought forward to the schoolboard tonight. Each of these scenarios is run with the same baseline data set and assumptions. These scenarios are initial drafts and have strengths and challenges. Should the board be interested in further investigating the specified scenarios, the administration will continue to refine the specified scenarios until a final decision is made later this fall. These scenarios should be considered a draft. The data packet starts with zero school closure, the baseline data set. The data set is reflective of the board approved boundaries for the next school year. If no action is taken by the school board, district 65 has new boundaries for the next school year with Foster opening and Bessie roads closing at the end of the school year. It is important to use these boundaries as the baseline since they are

106forward- facing and board approved. On the slide up front, we have our current boundaries and then the already board approved boundaries for next year for 2627. All right, couple more assumptions. Um so a few additional assumptions for modeling include one all students are reflected by where they live with the exception of students are in who are in park rice and King Arts programs unless the scenario involved a King Arts closure. There is a table in the appendices that shares the district-wide enrollment numbers with King Arts students by their neighborhood school for additional information. The scenarios include program placement. When a program is placed, the total number of seats available to the monolingual or neighborhood stu students is decreased. When the tables refer to neighborhood, this is the traditional district 65 academic program. We also refer

107to this as our monilingual program since there is one language of instruction which is English. For those that know our schools well, when you review the scenario scorecards, questions about the equity score may arise. In the scenario specific scorecards, the equity score reflects all K5 students who are assigned to a new school in the scenario with the exception of the four school closure scenario. And in that case, I'll add that caveat a little bit later. In regards to the district property, the scorecard includes information on the cost of operating the buildings, cost of repairs based on our master facility assessment, and income potential for a property. This process does not determine what the district will ultimately do with any school property that may be closed. That is ultimately a schoolboard decision that will follow this

108process. All right, we're on to the score to the baseline scorecards. On our screen, we have the baseline scorecards for the schools. On the screen, okay, so that were developed using the categories and criteria. >> I'll pause for a minute. >> All right, I'm gonna move on and So on the screen is the baseline scorecard developed using the categories and criteria. The overview view of the baseline scorecard values and individual school scorecards are available in the board packet and again will be available online. The baseline scorecard includes criteria and category values looking left to right. The scorecard starts with the equity category which includes the number of students impacted if the specific school closes based on the board approved boundaries for next year. The second criteria captures who's impacted and counts any student within the

109impacted group that has an IEP e classification or that qualifies for free and reduced lunch. These two criteria scores count evenly to ultimately determine the equity category which from before is 22%. The scorecard contains similar data for geography, building functionality, income and cost categories. The weighted category score are then used to determine the overall school score. The key for understanding the scorecard is that one represents the least impactful to close and a five is considered most impactful to close based on the weighted categories and criteria which were developed to represent the goals of STRP3 and reflect the values of the broader community. Schools that sorted to the top of the scorecard, Walker, Orington, and Lincoln, tend to be the ones that are more geographically removed from other schools. This reflects geography's heavier waiting. As a

110reminder, when we did our sensitivity analysis, order, particularly towards the bottom of the scorecard, proved to be fairly consistent. The baseline scorecard assisted administration in determining again where to begin in our modeling. All right. Um, as we move into scenarios for single school closures, you can see the current footprint print of the school district for next year. This slide captures the 2627 board approved schools, theater patterns, and assumed program placements for scenario modeling. The utilization rates for the middle schools in this baseline scenario are 70% for shoot, 93% for Nicholls, Haven 71%. The utilization rate generally for middle schools would be 80 to 85%. The master facility assessment was modeled for 80%. The average utilization rates for the K5 schools in each of the feeder patterns is projected to be the following. Shute 73% so

111that would consist of Dolls Walker and Oakton. Nicholls 68% which consists of Dwey, Lincoln and Washington. and Haven 42% which consists of Foster, Willard, Lincolnwood, Kingsley and Orington. So that would be with no changes. All right. So now we will move into the scenarios for one school closure. For single school closures, five different schools were modeled. When a scenario is modeled, an attendance boundary is developed and data tables reflecting the new attendance boundaries are created. The data tables include utilization rates, demographics, transportation, and socioeconomic data for a single school closure. The scenarios the administration is bringing forward for consideration are scenario 1A, the closure of Kingsley School, and scenario 1B, the closure of Lincolnwood School. A key element to understand for these recommendations is the utilization rate for these school once Foster School opens. The

112projected baseline enrollments and utilization rates based on where families live and the 2627 board of approved boundaries are as follows. Kingsley 167 students with a 39% utilization rate. And I know you can't see this so I'm reading this part to you. Lincolnwood 181 students with 42% utilization. Warrington 226 students with a 52% utilization. And Willard with 193 students and a 34% utilization. So that is a big contributor to what led to the one school closure recommendations. For those on the board or the community, these numbers are aligned to the demography report, but slightly different for a few reasons. In our baseline calculations, we've drawn from our actual enrollment as of October 1, 2024 count date for enrollment and feeder schools. Additionally, for scenarios, the capacities are driven by teaching spaces and deck guidelines. Again you

113will see alignment but some differences in numbers. All right with each recommendations we just have a very brief strengths and challenges. The board packet again will have greater depth. Um so as we move into the highle analysis of scenarios I want to reiterate that this is a difficult process. The administration and the subcommittees have engaged in this process with the goal of ensuring that district 65 is strong and vital for the students of today and tomorrow. To do this, the district needs to move to a financially sustainable position, and we need to begin to make improvements on our school buildings. These decisions are not judgments on individual schools or communities. The goal is to find a way to support you, the school board, in making a difficult decision in the best possible manner. We value

114our school communities and we also believe that should we close schools in the future re the future receiving schools will build vital supportive and positive environments that will serve our students in district 65 and become beloved school communities. I'll briefly provide some of the strengths and challenges for each scenario. The board packet has been made publicly available and includes additional detail. In the case of one school closures, the rationale for Kingsley and Lincolnwood is similar. In both cases, walkability stays high due to close proximity to adjacent schools. Utilization rates increase but stay low. The school that is closed is sent to one of two neighboring adjacent schools and the boundaries are similar to the board approved boundaries for next year. The challenge for one school closures is that our average utilization rates stay low and

115utilization rates continue to be higher at our title one schools which are schools that serve higher percentages of low-income students. One differentiator called out here is that Kingsley has greater income potential and uh should the district opt to close the school. There are other differentiators in the scenario data packets should the discussion move forward with one school closures. Moving on to two school closures. Administration fully modeled nine two school closure scenarios. Scenarios were developed, considered, and then potentially move forward for modeling. School pairs that show up more than once were run with different program placements. The scenarios that are being shared tonight for two school closures are scenario 2F, the closure of Lincolnwood and Kingsley, and scenario 2D, the closure of Kingsley and Willard. As you can see on the scorecard, or maybe not. I'm

116sorry, folks. Um, when you look at the scorecards on the district website, um, there were several scenarios that scored in the range of 2.7 to 2.8. The decision to move the Kingsley and Willard scenario forward was grounded in utilization rates and in limiting academic and specialized program movement. You may have also noted in the one school and two school closure scenarios, the twe strand at Willard School is closed. The decision to close the Willard twe is a part of all the scenarios being presented tonight. While we understand that it is a valued program and an important part of the Willard community decision was made to shift to seven TWE strands based on student program numbers. Additionally, administration is operating on program guidance that focuses on placing TWE programs in the areas where native Spanish speakers

117live to support walkability and doubling up strands when feasible based on facility and utilization parameters. Items that are true of both of these two school closure scenarios are closing two schools in the Haven feeder pattern balances out the feeder pattern with three schools feeding into each of the middle schools. There are minimal shifts with the board approved boundaries districtwide and both scenarios will require additional refinement and adjustment to adjust utilization rates on the high and low side. This can be done by adjusting boundaries. Yet this may increase hazards um and or transportation needs. Unique to scenario 2F which is the closure of Lincolnwood and Kingsley, the number of students who must cross hazards or be bus continues to stay very low. The schools impacted by the scenario are adjacent to each other which was a

118concern that came up in conversation. Unique to scenario 2D, which is Kingsley and Willard closures, a significant number of students live beyond a hazard, and this district would potentially close the largest of the Haven elementary schools, which had significant renovations in 2001 and 2006, as well as being fully ADA accessible. Before I move on to the next slide, you'll note next to the closed King Kingsley and Lincolnwood, we've got a number. Those are essentially our average district-wide utilization rates for each of those scenarios. And you'll see that consistently across all the slides. All right, moving on to three school closures. The district generated over 20 possible scenarios and fully modeled 13 scenarios. Scenario 3W is separated in the chart because it would be a multi-year change since it involves moving the early childhood program and

119Park School and repurposes Daws. As is mentioned in the memo, any scenario involving Park Rice or early childhood would be a multi-year timeline and require additional capital to renovate the facilities to meet the needs of the programs. The scenar scenarios brought forward today are 3D close Lincolnwood, Kingsley and Washington or 3B close Lincolnwood, Kingsley and Daws. Significant conversation was had about bringing forward scenarios that had two of the three schools the same. Ultimately, the decision was made to bring forward these scenarios due to the fact that when we ran other combinations and other combination the other combinations consistently scored higher or more impactful for closure on the school scorecard. Thank you. Um when we talk about scenario 3D, this involves closing a tweet section as Willard. I'm not going to read that anymore. That's assumed

120and covered. uh step moves from Lincolnwood to Willard. Dwey becomes a double strand and the bilingual step which is at Washington moves to Daws. And so there's program impacts the overall utilization of this scenario. The um the scenario honors the scorecard and the equity score for this scenario indicates it is less impactful than the other three school closure scenarios. And this is specifically 3D which is Lincolnwood, Kingsley and Washington. Um, this is one of those points that may feel counterintuitive for the board or community members. The equity score includes all K5 students who are assigned in a new to a new school due to school closures or boundary changes. Challenges for this scenario include an increase in students crossing hazards specifically in the case of dempster and this is in addition to students crossing Emerson

121which is in each scenario. Utilization rates will also need to be adjusted further. In this scenario, 18% of our K8 students would have a new school assignment. Moving on to scenario 3B. Um, essentially you can now see also the program shifts there. So, I'm going to leave that on the slide. The largest difference between 3B and 3D is that in this scenario, the previous one um from sorry the largest difference between this scenario in the previous one is that it changes the middle school feeder pattern. When Oakdton or DAWS is closed in the chute feeder pattern, it becomes necessary to shift Walker to the Nichols feeder pattern and Lincoln to the chute feeder pattern. This is needed to manage utilization rates and to honor program placement guidance which includes um ensuring that twe program is

122placed near native Spanish speakers in proximity of where they live. In this scenario the utilization rates are 68% for chute 93% for nickels making this scenario less balanced than 3D. This is after adding Lincoln to the chute feeder pattern um which did help to increase that capacity or decrease the difference. The combination of the higher utilization rate and a program placement uh with lens for walkability pushes the need for boundary changes. As a result, this scenario has approximately 28% of the district's K8 students having a new school assignment. All right, four school closures. As we move into the four school closure scenarios, I'd be remiss if I did not mention that these scenarios were the most difficult for the facility subcommittee to process and provide feedback on. As we move into four school closures, the

123impact is significant. We did discuss that you, the school board, have a difficult challenge of needing to weigh the impact of school closures with the need for financial savings and other possible cuts and reductions. With that in mind, the administration recommends scenario 4F from the six that were fully modeled. Scenario 4F closes Lincolnwood, Kingsley, King Arts, and Washington. In this closure, the district closes the King Arts magnet program and closes the K8 choice option. Additional program changes are listed on the slide in front of us. The strength of this scenario, the strengths of this scenario are that it is the most walkable of the four school closures and utilization rates are fairly balanced across the schools. The challenges include an increase in students crossing hazards. While overall utilization rates are solid, the utilization rates in

124our monolingual or neighborhood programs are over 100% in four cases. These would boundaries would need to be adjusted should we pursue the four school scenarios further. Additionally, this model removes the magnet choice K8 option from the district. Families could still apply for permissive transfers or for TWE or ACC program if they're seeking something different than their neighborhood school option. Yet, these are contingent on space availability. 28% of district students uh district K8 students would have a new school assignment in this scenario. I am now passing off to Tamara. >> All right. Thank you, Dr. Beersley. I know we've had lots of numbers on the screen as Dr. Beardsley was presenting and so we have a few more numbers um on the next slides that are all about the dollars. So the numbers on this slide

125that uh you see on the screen right now provide detail of the uh estimated financial impact that you saw presented for each scenario. The non-s salary and benefit savings, which is number one up there, represents things like building insurance, utilities, copier leases, custodial supplies, and other facility related expenditures. Uh they're on number two, line two, salary and benefit savings. While we recognize that many staffing impacts must be bargained, the staffing savings shown here reflect positions based in buildings that may not need to be transferred to another site if a school is closed. Avoided capital cost is the annual amount that the district would have set aside for building maintenance for a closed facility. Uh line four, number four there, the foster school net savings. That estimate reflects the increased efficiency, energy efficiency of the foster

126building compared to Bessie roads. And on n line five there, the transportation increase is an estimated cost that could result from students needing to be transported to a new site. as we land on a scenario and develop firmer details around those scenarios, these numbers will be updated to align with those details. So, as Dr. Beersley mentioned, uh these are drafts and we will continue to uh firm those numbers up. The lease of closed facilities is a conservative estimate of what we may see as income if there is a decision to lease the facilities in the scenario. This number does not take into account annual building maintenance costs. And lastly, the final line there, the closed section savings. Those are based on an estimated four sections per closure being realized. And again, we will update this

127line item once the scenarios are narrowed and refined. Next, we have some financial model estimations. And so as we approach our financial modeling to attain financial sustainability, this slide outlines various combinations of revenue and expenditure levers that achieve a total reduction of 11.8 million in operating expenditures needed to align to those parameters. Each scenario assumes that projections are modeled through the year 2030 as well as maintaining 90 days of cash on hand. The amount listed in row one under the financial model summary ties back to each school closing scenario. Row two represents uh a 2 $7 million annual investment, but that would be offset in facility right sizing if a facility is taken offline. And then lines three to four are consistent for each scenario and represent additional financial levers to offset the structural deficit

128reduction of 11.8 million. So those uh three to four is down in the the bottom section of that the financial model summary. Lastly, line five provides the remaining reductions needed in a scenario to attain a total 11.8 million needed to achieve financial sustainability. The baseline scenario with no school closures requires the largest programmatic reductions at just over $8 million. As the number of facility closures increases, the amount of reductions needed for programmatic for programming decreases as reflected in the figures shown on this slide. And this is a summary um of the financial impacts across all scenarios presented tonight. So just a quick at a glance summary of those financial impacts along with the revised utilization uh that would result in each scenario. All right. So thank you. Um that pretty much concludes the presentation of

129the scenarios and the administration specific recommendations to the school board. At this time, I'm going to turn it over to board leadership to just engage um in a discussion. Thank you so much, Dr. Turner and Dr. Beardsley and Tamara and all of your team as well as all the uh committees who again put on those long hours as was shared in public comment uh to get us these recommendations. uh now is the time for us to have that conversation and and um maybe come to consensus on um what we can share in regards to what what are our financial uh deficit reduction targets as we look at the financial outlook. Um we also want to make sure that we discuss this range of scenarios uh presented for rightsiz in the district and arrive at a

130consensus for that target number of closures and consolidation. So I'll open it up uh for folks who maybe want to jump in. I think can we start I think one with some clarifying uh questions on the on some of what was presented. Um one with respect to um so I think I've said previously last week and this week what really matters to me is that all everything's on the table. All things are seen. um we um own the implications of them and that there's no surprises. Um, so one scenario that isn't I know we've talked about it but when I look at the closings particularly on the number of threes um and King Arts is is only considered a Magnus school or a closed school but it is a building that isn't considered a neighborhood

131school. And so just the question um and I think it's explained there so I'm actually just sort of asking it to be raised up a little bit because I know as we talk about walkable schools then a magnet school for many isn't viewed as a walkable school. So if the Magnus school is is not in closure scenarios I think that is something that needs to be raised up and explained as to um as to as to why. Um, so can we say just a little more clearly as to not clearly but just call out cuz if you read it, it's in there. Um, why the why we aren't u modeling it as a as a neighborhood school. [Applause] >> So I'll speak to that in a few different ways. Um, so when it came to

132King Arts, the guidance that we received from the school board earlier this month was to introduce school King Arts into modeling kind of based upon the scorecard. So King Arts came into modeling further into the process as we got into three school closures or four school closures. Specifically, when we looked at King Arts, we considered both programmatic and building elements of King Arts. And so we said kind of needed to walk through if we close King Arts, we need to address the programming that's there. We need to decide what we're doing with that programming, if we're moving that programming, and then ultimately the determination of the school itself. Um, when we're talking three or four school closures, essentially reserving additional classroom spaces in schools as utilization rates are already getting full did not prove to

133be feasible to say, let's take K5 arts magnet and put it in a program elsewhere in another building. Those utilization rates became difficult. we push those neighborhood utilizations even further over. And additionally, part of our understanding and this was through engagement also with King Arts is that part of the strength of the we are a magnet school of America now. And part of that strength is the K8 continuity and the fact that students start with band and orchestra and second or third grade and can follow that all the way through eighth grade. And so then we considered could we if we could find the utilization rates could you enhance some of the arts electives in middle school but we kept running into utilization rate problems in trying to preserve the program in a neighborhood school.

134So take maybe a four section school and say two sections remain as a K5 King arts with some extra arts electives in middle school that would also um my understanding no longer qualify as a magnet school of America. So that magnet designation, the official magnet designation would no longer apply. Um, so when we ran into utilization challenges, we had to say, all right, so this isn't working. And then we considered the idea of like, could it be a c neighborhood? But I think fundamentally, um, there's a commitment that we ran into a challenge and the board would have to tell us otherwise. Our feeling was that the default school that a family gets based upon their neighborhood address should have a similar structure. We couldn't reconcile the idea of based on my address I have

135a K5 as opposed to a K8 and I have no other choice if I decide that's I want my child to have a large middle school experience or I don't want my child to have a large middle school experience. So that came off the table. Then the last thing was considering if we were going to close the King Arts magnet. Um, and I haven't spoken to Riseze yet either. Um, would we model keeping King Arts as a neighborhood school? And certainly again like this conversation will be about giving additional guidance. The concern around King Arts as a neighborhood school is when we talk about schools in slightly difficult geographic positions, King Arts backs up against the canal. It has Emerson as a hazard, Dempster as a hazard. And so if we model, we're going to

136have a significant number of students, you know, so we did the initial modeling with that scenario. We have a very high percentage of kids that need to cross hazards to get to the school or the boundary goes to the lake and we start exceeding the 1.5 miles. And so it's a it's a scenario that could be modeled. Our initial indications are that the numbers of students crossing hazards or requiring transportation would become significantly higher than keeping one of our other more central schools open. >> I have a question. Um, so we are trying to get to 10 to 15 million in cuts in order to >> we're trying to get to 10 to 15 million in cuts in order to eliminate the structural deficit. Um, these scenarios um, except for perhaps the four school model

137don't quite get us there. And so for each of the scenarios, we would have to make additional cuts. Um, and it seems like as we go from one to two and two to three, it's about $2 million as we go up each level. What I'm trying to understand is how I put into context that $2 million in terms of what it does for a school district. And I know that there's a lot more information and analysis that would need to be done before we knew what the cuts would be. But can you just help me put into perspective what is 2 billion? What is the tradeoff? Does that mean, you know, additional teacher and staff cuts? Does that mean programs are in jeopardy? I'm just trying to put into context as we move up um

138on this continuum what that means for our district in terms of other hard decisions we'll have to make. Um yes, as we look at closing that $10 to $15 million, whatever savings are not realized from any school closure consolidation would definitely um we would have to look at programs. Um continue to look at things like the way that we uh use purchase services, the way that we deliver transportation in the district. Um we've been having conversations about crossing guards and how we provide those services to our community. Um so looking at all of those various aspects of where we're spending our dollars and try to get closer to closing that gap that way. >> So okay. So it does it it sounds like you know transportation would be one >> um school crossings and hazards

139that would be another one. when you say programs, can you just put that like in in layman's terms? What are we talking about when we say like programs? >> So, we had the um and I'll let my colleagues chime in as well. This and as far as the program subcommittee, for instance, they evaluated um a myriad of programs within the district. So, um they were not looking at those programs in terms of closing programs. they were looking at the programs in terms of how those programs would fit within a newly configured district. Um, but it definitely would involve program review and the cost associated with each program as well. >> So, I have a question about uh King Arts back to kind of tag along with Nicole here. Um, so um so Dr. Basley, you

140mentioned the K through8 continuum and that's a benefit of a K through8 model. Um, but what other benefits exist for a magnet school of choice and particularly within our realities? Obviously, we have realities we're facing right now, but also realities that a lot has changed in the district. We have fairly equitable experiences across our schools and leadership and teaching etc. Um, can you explain to me the benefit of a K through8 model apart from that continuum? >> Sure. Um, and again, anybody can sound into, but I think the benefits that are most commonly associated with the K8, you there are absolutely families that opt for a K8 because they want that continuity and they want that smaller setting for their students when they hit middle school. And so there is that relational continuity over a

141period of nine years and there is the smaller setting for middle school um that it can be very developmentally appropriate. Second, um we have some wonderful schools, yet not every school works for every child or every family. And so at some points there are families that are in schools that say like this one, this is not working for me right now. And opting to try a King Arts experience can create a different peer group. It can create a different environment. It can create a different set of adult relationships that may better fit that student or that family in their particular time or with their particular set of needs. Now, that could be accomplished through permissive transfers or administrative transfers, but this provides another option and you know for families. The arts focus also attracts families

142that have a very specific interest and kids who have a specific interest. Um, and then more from the kind of bureaucratic technical side over times when enrollment has been tighter in like 2016 2017, King Arts has also operated at points somewhat as a pressure relief for schools that may be close to utilization rates. And I'm thinking back and I think it was probably 161 17 or right in that window. We were very tight on enrollment at Lincoln. In fact, we were overenrolled with link Lincoln kindergarten one year and those families were given the option to go to King Arts or to move to an F feeder pattern school and a number of the families opted to go to King Arts and have that experience. I think there was a similar tension at Dwey and either

143the year before that or year after. And so it does also somewhat operate as creating some pressure relief or enrollment relief if certain pockets of a district get tight where you don't need to change boundaries immediately. You can try to ride out a potential bump within a particular school. Uh Stacy, one of the uh criteria that are mentioned are under the equity category is who is impacted and I know in the scenarios the specific uh programs for student with special needs are listed but is there any consideration for the students who receive individual education services outside of those programs in terms of of how they would also have to move and be serviced in a new school setting. >> The I'm going to answer and then if I haven't answered your question exactly, let me

144know. Okay. Um so in the who is impacted, we're including students that have IEPs that are qualify for EL services, English language learner services, or are free and reduced lunch. Now, we also have students that have IEPs that require more extensive services that are in step rise. And I'm going to hold those because they're not they're in those programs are included with other with our general education programs and our general in those schools. Those students are reflected where they live. And so I think one thing that could be within your comment is it's we don't have a system to like to qualify the fact that the movement of that program might potentially be more impactful than impact of moving a student with a traditional IEP or it could be less because I'm going with my

145teachers and my group. I don't know how to differentiate that because it is an individualized education plan in many ways. Um, so we are accounting for the who is impacted for students with IEPs with each scenario and then we're working to place the programs using the guidance that was given to us from the academics department which had input from the programs committee which was to try to minimize program movement if we could and if so at least kind of try to honor the feeder patterns. Um, we also tried to take a look at where the students live and particularly in the case of the STEP program, they actually are disproportionately in the schools where the programs are right now. So, and but they are district-wide programs. So, yes, but probably it's difficult to do it

146I think in perfectly well. My concern is something that was mentioned earlier and since it's something I have experience with is servicing students in a building where the utilization rate is very high and finding space and staff and equipment to do that. So that I just want to put that out on the table. >> Yeah. And I think that becomes a question of you know as the board comes to you know I think one of the things that the administration can do as we get kind of closer to what we want to be you know if we can narrow down what we're modeling we can get more precise with individual schools have you know more specific conversations about what appropriate utilization rates might be for a district that has 18% students with IEPs things along

147those lines. Thank you. >> I just wanted to ask a question about um when we think about the footprint of our district and how we will accomplish the capital improvement needs that we need to do over the next several years. How should the board consider having extra space in a potential other school building to sort of shift school communities from one to another so that some of the repairs could be done on over a 12-month period? >> Yeah. So I think there some really good there's some good opportunity to learn from other districts in this situation. If we there are districts around us that have closed schools and then have used those schools as swing spaces. And essentially a swing space would be, you know, if um work is going to be done at school

148A, the students from school A go to school B for a year. And that allows the district to do more extensive renovations at a better cost because you pay a premium when you're doing the work over the summer. And if you can do it fall, winter to spring, you pay better prices and you can also get it done rather than breaking it up over multiple summers. So, you can do it in a more affordable way. You can get ahead of some of the inflation rates. Um, but it does require moving a school community, increasing transportation, and having an impact on a community, but then the community is able to return to a renovated building and an improved learning environment. And so and a good bit of the work that we need, we can see some

149of the work that needs to be done in our buildings, but a lot of work behind the walls around plumbing and electrical needs to be done. And so that kind of opportunity to really do that work would be valuable. >> Thank you. >> So another another clarifying question as we talk about spaces to model or not model and I think it's trying to understand the um we're obligated to do kindergarten through 8th grade programming. Correct. That's our statutory obligation. PreK 0 to um 0 to three and and prek four and five is not our is not our obligation. we do it. But as we um think about um this reality that we're in, I think it is important for us to have a a conversation about um um maintaining those programs when particularly if there

150are others in the community who have the expertise and have done that. Um if it means in some sense we're cutting um our ability to provide the services that we're obligated to do. And then that of course brings us in some sense talking about JEH. Right now JEH because it does have our zero to three and our preK isn't really a a school or space that's um that's discussed. Um but I just want to it's again in the it's discussed in the documents but it is something that we probably need to um have a position on whether the role what is the role of 0 to 5 programming for us given this budget reality that we're in and also the reality that those um aren't costneutral um it really is a a strong um a

151cost to do that and so I hope as we're talking about programming because those are programming costs um as we know where we are in this administration, not not your administration, the federal administration, those are costs that are um are are um definitely in flux. So, I just want to place that up there that right now we're not if we're thinking of school closings, we're not really modeling JH. Um but that it might be one that we might want to consider, but it comes with implications of what it means for other programs that we do. Last thing and then I'll be quiet as um it was said but I wanna make sure I understand. Can you go to um the baseline zero table um if you can because I want to make sure. Okay. I

152will say screen uh slide four. >> Yeah. That's Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. But I I want to make sure I'm interpreting because in here particularly for foster um there's a number of 502 um young people who live in the community. Um but then when we said King Arts kids are not modeled in their community, they're modeled in the school. So here when it talks about the capacity or when it says the enrolled neighborhood, does this enrolled neighborhood here in Foster include potentially the kids who go to King Arts or is this assuming because there's a lot of kids in the fifth ward who go to King Arts historically because of the structure. I just want to make sure we're all clear in this line. Are the King Arts kids who live in the fifth ward

153included in the foster count or are they included in the King Arts count? >> Chris is going to pick up on your question. >> Thank you. >> Yes. So, the area counts, that 502 number that you're referencing, those would include anybody based on their physical address that lives in the foster boundary. So that would include all King Arts students. It would include Bessie Road students. It would include um your uh JH students. It it includes everybody in the whole district. The in uh enrolled neighborhood count are essentially the traditional monolingual gen ed students that live there. So to answer your question specifically about King Arts and Foster, all the King Arts students are identified as maintaining their enrollment in King Arts. So when I say only 255 traditional monolingual enroll neighborhood 255 for foster that

154includes how how many well I don't how many okay why this is important because they said there's only 288 slots for neighborhood kids in traditional monolingual and foster and so in the last slide there's a list the map of all the kids who go to King Arts and there's a sizable number of kids who go to King Arts who live in foster and I believe um as a person who lives in the uh the foster boundary um part of the reason of going to King Arts is you know the reality not to go to the sixth and seventh ward school. So once Foster was such a beautiful school that y'all can should be u really um it's y'all are doing a phenomenal job of bringing it in. I would not assume that that same percentage

155would stay there. And so wanting to make sure what is accounting for here their opportunity to go to foster or is the assumption that they need to stay away in order to hit this number. >> So in this utilization rate for the baseline the assumption is that all King Art students do go to foster. We as uh as a district we did look at uh students areas and included King Arts in those counts. I think there are about 50 or 51 King Arts students that live in the Foster boundary. And if you assume that all King everybody that lives in the Foster boundary attends Foster as well as uh Bessie Road students that have the choice to attend Foster that do not live in Foster. I think it's about 119 120 students of Bessie Road

156students that do not live in Foster. If you assume that everybody attends Foster that lives there and all Bessie Road students go to Foster as well, the enrollment gets to be uh 554 students. >> And in that particular situation, the utilization for the neighborhood is at 108%. And so we would want to 100% guarantee that if you live in the neighborhood, you have the opportunity to attend Foster. So we would need to take a look at the programming and if we hit a consistency consistent point where we were overutilization we would need to rethink program placement. >> Stacy uh to kind of piggyback on program placement. Um you mentioned that Orington was not a consideration for closure or consolidation based on the geography of the location of the school. So we so we definitely modeled

157Orington in many different scenarios. It consistently scored high on the baseline and the scenario specific scorecards. And so we did not bring forward an Orington scenario tonight. So in that event, could some of the program placements be modified to include Orington that might possibly provide some relief in terms of utilization at the other schools? >> So those are certainly things again as we zero in on fewer scenarios we can model. Mhm. >> I think my transparently my first instinct would be to work with the district with the boundaries of Warrington to increase the utilization. I think one of the values I've heard pretty consistently from the community is to try to keep kids close to home if we can. And in our programs, we specifically have kids that tend that have been historically marginalized or

158higher needs. And when we look at for instance JH or our native Spanish speakers do not live predominantly in that neighborhood. And so I think first pass I would want to try to look at the boundaries and expand to address that utilization um to see if we could find a program placement that might be closer to where students live. But if that's not feasible, that's certainly an alternative. And again, the board has, you know, this the opportunity to give us guidance on what potentially how to refine models and where we want to go from here. >> Yep. >> Um, I lost my question. I I >> um there's been significant talk about kind of the opportunity to kind of change grade configuration and really focus on, you know, maintaining neighborhood schools, but either expanding them

159to be K through eight or potentially doing, you know, some clustering of schools in the K through three or four through six or some some other way of of configuring that you know we obviously haven't seen anything with that specific scenario here. Can you kind of talk to why you eliminated that or or what was the thought process there? >> So there are two aspects when we think about I'm going to answer your grade cluster piece first. Um when we talk about grade level centers possibly like a K2 35 68 model. There's a lot that's potentially positive about that model in the sense that you could concentrate early child education, early childhood educators in a gate two, you know, things along those lines. You could also potentially have instead of three or four sections in

160second grade, you might have six or eight. Um the challenge there is that depending on the number of centers, if you want to do two grades or three grades, you're increasing the number of transitions that kids experience throughout the district. And so currently we have one transition from fifth to 6th and one from 8th to 9th. If we went to a K2 35 68, we're increasing those transitions and kids take time to find their legs in a new environment, find their adults, and those kids that tend to require a little bit more support take a little more time on that. The second piece of this is that it does increase transportation requirements. Glen View is a district that runs a K2 3568 and it's there's very extensive busing when you cut your footprint in half

161for the number of kids that are serving a K2 or the number of schools serving a 35 and it is much more of an experience of kittens getting bust in having their day and leaving. So I think the district would need to think about the impact we would need to think about the impact of transportation and then also what does that do to those before and after school supports or programs that if the district continues to run things you know how do we if you don't live close to that grade level center do we also run late buses does that add transportation costs things along those lines the this conversation was had in our subcommittees and an additional piece that came up was the group really like their their reality is they're like you know

162when we started meeting that was March okay they're like so you have nine months to make a decision and then you've got six to execute they're like moving closing schools opening a school shifting to grade level centers they're like they very you know got nervous about the volume of change as well >> and so that that conversation kind of went to like unless Unless there's a different directive that feels like a phase two space that right now we need to tackle SDRP right now we need to focus on making the best possible transitions. Something around grade level centers I think could potentially take more time and more engagement to get a sense of appetite from the community. Um and I think the K8 really sat in that same space. Our buildings are not necessarily equipped

163to go K8. um they are very much K5s and some of them are old and we're using you know multi-purpose rooms for cafeterias things along those lines where if you have bigger bodies running them through a cafeteria begins to get to be more and more of a challenge or running them in through a you know they're definitely not having locker rooms but we survive that in CPS so you know like there there are some like programmatic pieces that become an issue >> and would need to be adapted >> thank I will say that um um with with respect to the gray clusters um particularly on the north side if we're talking so closing two schools in any community is you know closing one is one closing two is going to be hard and but I

164want to preface that with what you started with by talking about the occupancy the util you know utilization you know those are real numbers the numbers are 48%. So, and um and I don't know if we said it, 90% is industry average. Even with what we're proposing here, we're still at 70 something%. Right? Our top we're at 81%. So, we're not proposing to get to industry average. So, we know we're going to stay below it, but staying at 60%, you know, isn't necessarily fiscally responsible. But when to me when um a reality of having to think seriously about two school closings in the community, I think that moves us to have to say creatively then how do we think about reimagining the use of schools there. And so um I think that does get to

165the modeling of um looking at the two school modeling for um for the um closing of Willard. I think it was Willard Kingsley or um I'm sorry Willard and >> Kingsley. >> Yeah. And so the and looking at the um the occupancy in that position, we had one where there's 103rd for Willard, 103% for Willard and 50% for Orington. I think Pat where you were going is okay. We understand the uniqueness of location of Orington sort of makes it a protected school, but it also then keeps it a small school because you're not busing in or you're not busing out. So, how do you hold that then? And how do you then try to get to higher utilization, which must be figuring out programs that you're busting in that you're going to that you're going

166to place there? Because if not, then we are saying we're going to keep a small a small school. So, um, or it's the, well, we might have to think about closing Arlington, but then how do you imagine maybe keeping two schools closer together, a Lincolnwood and a Willard that could be a K2 35. So, your transportation is there. So I do think the north is going to require us to be innovative in what we think about happens there because I think it's probably not fulfilling to hear close to then we just collapse two together in your school and I believe that Evston is a community and a um with enough creativity and I actually um know that this cabinet has that creativity and have done it with many of you before that we can um

167make some lemonade out of lemon in that particular case. So, I think um we're going to probably have to put some narratives around the closures and what they mean um and maybe think about um one or two more scenarios so we can say all aspects of this with respect to the north side is we thought about because you know every closure every scenario here is looking at two um to there um but you can't get and but this is really important important to say with all the work is here they couldn't do that at this point that can only happen if we can bring ourselves to figure out the smaller set then we can truly innovate um innovate around but I do think particularly two in a community requires us to work together with the

168community to reimagine what learning uh can look like in that space again going back to a school closing doesn't mean it's mothball right that also can mean those spaces can be used um um for other things I also want to make sure we turn to we talk about the south the we're talking I'm talking a lot about north here but we also heard dogs in Washington and in some sense we need to make sure we attend to those areas as well. I'll just say like when we're talking about structural changes like you know zero to two three to five I think that takes that requires a lot of feedback from the community and input that we you know haven't had the chance to really get yet and I know we're working against a very real

169deadline because you know quite frankly we are running out of money really fast. Um but for those sorts of changes I want to make sure that people had ample opportunity to weigh in. Um, I mean like there are all sorts of unintended consequences. Things as simple as logistics of picking up kids from different schools when you have younger kids that we want to just make sure um parents and families had an opportunity to voice. >> Yeah. And when we're talking about the particularities of neighborhood, I I'm going to take your tip of the hat uh Nicole to consider the southside. I also think when we're talking about marginalized students and we're talking about impacted neighborhoods, we just have to keep in mind when we look at the southside that some of the schools we're talking

170about are in systemically disadvantaged areas. Um, and we have to be weighing that. Um, I I recognize that the the equity factors that we're being presented with are more of an individual headcount, but I also think we need to think as far as neighborhoods um throughout our whole community. Um, so just to flag that for us. Yeah, going back to the programmatic piece, I think um and I think what we have to do at this point given what you just said, Maya, is that again we we are again we've run up against the clock here in regards to how we need to address u structural deficit. Um, and once we narrow what um, choices we're going to want to make and work out of, um, I think it's going to get us to a more

171concrete space where then we can start having a conversation around um, programmatic placement. And I think again, I know that the district is currently under is undertaking um, an audit around our our special education programming. Uh so that'll be helpful in regards to us kind of helping really identify how we can optimize um how we deliver special education services as well as eventually multilingual services and and how we service just our most marginalized student populations. Right? So I I think that that is kind of where I want to start start moving us is okay. So then what I know out of all the scenarios zero and one do not make sense. I mean, I I I I just can't see uh it was presented to us just and the community just to kind of explain

172um you know that that that that's just not feasible um and in regards to us trying to reach our targets in regards to financial stability and right sizing our school district. So that that's out of the question for for me, right? Just having zero any of the zero one options. I would I would co-sign that because if if that were a consideration, it would have a serious impact on programs. Um, and to me that includes um things like child care, summer school, all of those activities. And that would be that would really be devastating. Um, a part of the plan that we're trying to put together is not only to reduce this deficit to but to make sure that we have 90 days of working cash which is going to be critical moving forward. Um,

173and then foster school will come online and we'll have to operate that school as well. So those are some of the considerations and some of the things that are weighing on my mind. But the cuts in programming which would include programming and staff would be a very difficult decision. Just some factors that I'm considering too just financially um that are on my mind. Um you know we've we're projecting out $2.7 million in capital expenses. That's 170% increase over what we're currently budgeting at 1 million. Um, so it's that's something significant that we can celebrate that we're taking a step towards the right. I think we're going to have to raise that. You know, just my personal opinion. Um, as well as I look at some of the the revenue levers at our disposal uh for

174increasing le revenue. Some of those are predictable. Some of those are kind of speculative um and and may happen or may not happen. Um, so I I think what I'm taking away financially is that yes, we may be out of the structural deficit at some point soon hopefully, but we are going to have to maintain constant vigilance. And so that's shaping my thinking then about um what you know what our capacities are and what you know right size looks like for us. I um in looking at the the three to four school model, moving from three to four uh and even in some of the three school models, one of the places that makes me a little bit nervous is how some there there are several there's one school at least or two in each

175of those scenarios where it's over 100% capacity. Um and so closing those in that way and then you've still got high variability. So you've still got one school at 52%, one at 103, one at 64, right? And then we've got a bunch in the middle. And so how do we think about, you know, making sure that we have um enough capacity, right? We know that we've had a lot of, you know, we're at a 79% capture rate, um I think is what we've modeled. But as we look towards the future, kind of if we do our job right, um I would think that potentially in the north there would be additional students that would come back into the system. And how do we think about that? Um you know, because once you close the building,

176it's closed. Um and so moving to four schools makes that really challenging. um you know and so when you're when I'm weighing those scenarios despite what I agree with you Andrew it we do I I think that despite the fact that I think that the the modeling is somewhat conservative there are some things in there that make me wonder um going forward and plus then we haven't modeled out beyond 2030 um you know and I think I just Thank you. >> Uh I just have a hard time thinking like it is so it will be so disruptive for us to do four and there's so much uncertainty and in the same way that there's in the same way that there's a lot of uh questions around grade clustering like being able to execute four school

177closures in one year is really it's going to be tough and I think how we execute this change um is going to affect our enrollment numbers going forward. forward also. So, I want us to make sure it's manageable. >> And one thing I think we as a board I just want to say this because I think we all as a board have have um have said this individually. Um we do recognize that Bessie Rose is closing. Right. So, when we're talking about it's already been voted to close, but when we say three school closings, we also understand next year is also a fourth school closing. That's U. Bessie Rose. And I think it's important to acknowledge that um to just put it out there. Um just wanted to make sure um that that was uh

178that that was said. >> Yeah. The the the four school closing scenario would require a significant portion of the school population to move. Um and that could also drive up transportation costs. and looking at the utilization rates that would come out of that. I'm thinking about what's going to what what is the classroom going to look like for those students. Um because the building that they will move to will still be the same building with the same number of classrooms. So, those are some of the things that are starting to to weigh on my mind in terms of the ask from the community for that many kids to move and change schools within one year. >> Because it it was it will actually be five schools because Bessie those kids will be moving. Yeah, that's

179still a consideration that's happening now >> and we need to pay attention to that because >> that experience will impact the community's perception moving forward. So, it's just, you know, it's it's already happening. So, >> I agree with that. I think like closing four schools it's a lot of change to manage and also it doesn't give us the flexibility to sort of see what happens. I think you know we've got a lot of projections and I'm sure a lot of it is accurate but then things change and you know there are certain things that could come up and we just don't have the flexibility with our utilization that high to sort of make adjustments. So that that does make me nervous as well. >> So a factor that Dr. Beardsley mentioned earlier is our occupancy

180rates are projected to decline. And so that's something I'm looking at in this as well. So I'm I'm generally in agreement that I think the impact of four is too much. Um I just I'm I'm not comfortable with that. Mhm. >> Um I'm also concerned though because our three school scenarios are putting us at 74 and 75% but over the course of seven or eight years we could be down to an uh occupancy rate very close to where we are right now >> um if our demographers to be trusted. So um so so that has me um and I have some other factors um shaping this um but that that still makes the two look untenable for me for the future because if that decline is real and continued at some point I feel I

181I just don't think we have to get this right this time this is our one shot to get this right I don't think we can come back to the community and and in two or three years and say um you know we didn't we didn't rightize. So that's my concern and it has me focusing on three. >> Yeah, I'm I'm with you there. Again, I think two is the two school closures untenable either. I mean I think go I'm sitting on three either either either of the two. Uh again my concern is again there's uh schools with that like you mentioned that have uh historically marginalized communities that are that attend them. So, so that is is is my u kind of what weighs on me. Um, and I' I'd venture to um even even

182think about perhaps imagining a scenario where we again again King Arts I know serves as as a choice here in our community. Uh, and it does some really really special programming uh for for in the step and rise program. Um but again, as as we do our special education audit and and and and figure out a way to really optimize uh programming across um the school district to serve all students with IEPs at whatever level they're at. You know, I think that's a for me that that would be something that we really need to reach for. Um, and while I appreciate the K8 magnet program, um, again, I think, um, you know, some of the research I've I've read around magnets, again, it's inclusive. It does work for some families, for sure. There's some that

183some students really do need the KA continuity, but for other kids, right, um, the transition from a K8 to a high school is very difficult. So, there's studies that talk about that as well. Um so you know again that's that you know so again that's something that I'm I'm considering and that's turning in my mind in regards to maybe swapping out um the schools the the southside schools to to you know maybe with a key arts uh as an option but again that's just something that I'm thinking about >> my own opinion. So, one thing that hasn't been um I mean it's in here, but I don't think we've raised enough when it also relates to number of school closing is the cost of the capital costs that's out there, right? So, every school we

184keep is, you know, 10 to12 million that we have to um have to raise. Uh, and so, um, Maria, I know you've said something previously, I don't think here, but talked about in some sense, do we we might have an understanding of what the number of schools we might need to close. That doesn't mean we close them all now. Um, and or it also might be dependent on our ability to have a referendum. Um, because in some sense, we're responsible for the the fixing of these buildings. And um that includes that assumes that we have trust and relationship with the community to um pass a referendum. If that doesn't if we don't get a referendum passed in some sense, we probably are going to have to think more about um you know closing more schools

185because we have to um we have to um we have to um fix the building. So just wanted to be clear um to those listening all buildings where all of our buildings are in poor condition. Um any building that we keep it is any building has $9 million of work that needs to be put to it. Some have $15 million worth of work uh might be increasing as we get another uh another report. So that is you know reality um that we need to think about but I am um more on the three school um three schools no longer being K5. That doesn't mean that the buildings, that's really important for me to say that that the buildings are a mothball. Um there's ways to think about early childhood moving places and things like that,

186but three fewer K5 schools. >> Yeah. Because um this is just a start. We haven't talked about Park Rice >> and JH >> um because those are our schools and they are part of the constellation of district 65. Um because of the nature of those programs, that conversation's going to have to be separate, especially with Park School because of um the resources that that community needs. Um so we we're going to still have a lot of work to do. Um because when we say every child, they're included in every child. So we gota we have to In my mind, I'm like, "Okay, this is right now and then next we have to do this." So, um, especially for Park School >> because the facility the the the curriculum there requires extensive resources. So, we're going

187to deal with the K5s >> and get that under our belt, find a stable landing place, but then we're still going to have to go back to to look at how we service those student populations with fidelity and excellence. >> I I think that Thanks, Pat. I I appreciate you saying that because I think one of the things that's been a real struggle for me through this is that I'm not seeing kind of I'm not seeing the long-term excellence and education coming my way um or coming our way as a community. And I don't see the sort of long-term vision of we're going to make these sacrifices and then these other good things will happen. And I think that there's there's ideas out there about it, but we can't kind of get to those things

188until we get through this piece. >> Um, you know, and so when we talk about, you know, reinvisioning our district or how we're going to deliver services, um, you know, that aren't our core K through eight, it's very difficult to see beyond what we have right now because we do need to come from a position of financial sustainability and strength. And I think the the piece that that makes me feel like we can get there is if we can, you know, we we've had a lot of success in, you know, cutting so far. I know it hasn't been an easy thing, but it has not affected classrooms as as we've mentioned as much as um as much as it could have. Uh, and I think that there is in looking at in looking at our

189budget definitely areas where we could create some additional efficiencies. I know we have a sped audit coming up or we've hired a director of special services that's going to give us some additional recommendations. I know that we have um you know other other areas that we're looking at in transportation to try and create some some efficiencies uh you know and so I think just extending the work that um that we've been doing since SDRP2 will net us some additional savings um and so I think if we're if we're at the three school um scenarios if we are if we are in alignment there as a board I think finding ing the $4 million of expenses that will create that scenario for long-term sustainability is feasible. So I actually um can we I think we're in

190consens um consensus to I think it's really one of the questions that's been asked that um the team needs is for us to get clarity over what are the the number of scenarios that we want um we want the team to move forward with working out. So I feel everyone well everyone has said three right three is the is the space that we want to begin to focus more of our conversations on is that >> that's where I'm sitting >> I'm at I'm at two three but I think it's it's more of timing like is it two and we wait to see how things shake out for three or is it three >> all together. >> Well, I mean, I think in some sense in the ways in which the threes are right now, there's,

191you know, just there's two north side and then there's one in the way it's been presented as to two or two north side and then one southside. Um, I think I think I would move forward for me move forward in the conversation around three. that can always means you can you can back out of that but you don't want to it would be hard to back up into now let's look at three if we haven't really done uh the due diligence on that but to your point um Maria um I think there's the work now is has been like hey let's understand what is the how do we take an equitable data driven look at this but now the the the context the community the impact act and what this means of who we are

192as a community going forward has to now be to me a little bit wrapped into these conversations. Um but that can only h I think happen if we're talking about three scenarios or four not seven and things like that. So what does it mean for schooling and again as I said what does it mean in north side if you're closing to what does that mean? Um what about um um twe and and other programs cuz dogs and Washington are both um um schools that serve, you know, serve a population that we um that might be viewed as from an equity standpoint. So how do we understand this and begin to really dive into those pieces of this and to see if if there's others that have to be here? I think you've talked about King

193Arts. So, how do we help our how do we help the team move forward? Um and how do we provide more guidance to them about what how to take this and turn it into something that people can you know build from a I don't want to say a narrative um more of a richer scenario of the implications transportation all of this around out of school what does this mean um and I think we also have to bring in the uh the fiscal um we have to say more than we're just going to cut four mill five million we have to begin to say what that 5 million is is because when we cut the third we sort of cut the fat last time. So any other cuts are real services, right? Um school age, child

194care, other what are we looking at if we're trying to say we're going to cut this amount of money and we have to get um you know real with that in a way that people can um because it's going to be lived in uh in uh September. >> Yeah. because with either of the three scenarios or whatever we come up with, there's still going to be we're still going to need five to six more million dollars in cuts. That's the reality of it. So, >> um so I guess this is a part two where I think we have to remember we're a team of eight and um Dr. Turner is um a key part of this. Um we have a process that has brought us here. This has been a sustained rigorous community involved um

195um just substantial process. So my concern is right how do we move forward? Obviously, this is the board's decision. Um, but how do we build on that process and not um um undermine what got us to this place and this part where we are in this conversation? >> So, essentially, I guess, you know, what are we looking for then when we move forward? We want to look at if we've designated that there's some will of the board to look at three school scenarios. We've already heard a mention of adding a scenario that was not considered. So what is our rationale for doing so um when the process didn't bring that? Obviously we have the ability to bring in other external data sets. I just think we have to be really clear so that we're being

196transparent um about about the decisions we're making. Um, >> so I think this is in reference to um um King Arts. Yeah. And so I I said this I am um I do not want I do not want someone to perceive me of saying I want to close King Arts. No, I just believe that everyone everything needs to be modeled in a way particularly if it's particularly this one as a neighborhood school because it sort of shows it doesn't show up in a you know like when you look at the map you see Dwey is all the way across and when you look every place else you see there's two schools that share an area um and so I wonder does that make Daws and Washington more protected right if you right now you can't

197close Dwey because it's the only thing in the mid region, right? So that forces you down to Dolls Oakton or uh Washington, right? If you have King Arts as a school. Um but I but I really respect what Stacy said around the is um I live right there, right? It's it's blocked. Uh one good thing supposedly they're putting the underpass uh somewhere at Church Street because of the high school. >> They there is a plan to complete an underpass going underneath >> Dempster Dempster. Mhm. >> I think it's still about 18 months out. >> But yes, there is. >> So that might be so that gives you I just feel from a fairness everything is like oh okay this is possible but it doesn't make sense and then you then you just move on but

198I wouldn't want someone saying well that wasn't put on the table and because it wasn't put on the table it was protected in that sense. So that's for my King Ars folks. That's what I mean by just making it visible and so then we can say it doesn't make sense and you wouldn't do it. >> So can I ask a point of clarification then? So, are you asking that we model in a three school scenario um the shifting of King Arts to a K through five neighborhood school? Or are you saying you asking that we're modeling in that scenario the uh in a three school scenario the closure of King Arts as a K through8 magnet school? a K3A magnet doesn't impact because in some sense if you're a magnet your numbers aren't you know

199it's hard to understand what the impact of closing a magnet is because where do you place those kids to me it's whether it's a whether it's modeled as a king as a neighborhood school because then it captures a body it captures a body of kids if you don't um if you close it to and if you close it as a magnet then all those kids go back to their neighborhoods the school, right? That's is that going to change? I don't know if that's going to change here. Yeah. The waiting. You know, I don't know if if it's Do you have what I'm asking for? Does it have to be modeled as a neighborhood or just clos You've already closed it as model closing it as a you already modeled it here. Closing it as a

200as a school. >> Close it outright. We closed the program and the building. So we could run a scenario that essentially closes the King Arts Magnet program, reopens the building as a K5 and closes three different schools, >> you know. So you know, essentially that would, you know, the closure might look like a Lincolnwood, Kingsley, Dwey or you know, something else. But what happens is we close King Arts Magnet, reopen it as a K5 neighborhood. So you have the same number of neighborhood schools that you might hear, just a different composition. >> Yeah. In essence, it makes the reality. It makes Dwey it puts Dwey on the table. The reality if you if you if you model King Arts as a as a neighborhood school, Dwey becomes plausible. without it, Dwey cannot close because it

201is it it captures the entire s middle of the middle of the middle of it. Um >> my only concern with that is that like I we're trying to get to a place where you well I guess reducing the actual number of schools results in more savings. So I don't know >> I was just saying that the dolls area so the the dolls and the occupancy rate the dolls dolls the shootute was at high was at high occupancy was at 80 something% or something I thought it was high >> I think it's nickels that is high in that situation when we start closing in the shootute feeder pattern because some of those schools are smaller >> by just physical footprint you've got some problems >> are there any construction costs that we would need to

202consider with moving King Arts to a K through five. >> No. Um, you would have some space that you would not could not use the way it is currently equipped, >> you know. So, you know, in that time, you know, like middle school locker rooms and weight rooms and things like that. And so, you would remove that equipment. You might leave those spaces as is and not use them for a while until you know you're settled. and then you might repurpose those spaces. King Arts is a large building. It was originally built to be a middle school. It's got a large gym. It's got locker, you know, those kind of things. And so, you know, it certainly could function as a K5. We probably wouldn't be taking advantage of all of its physical attributes, but

203it can certainly function as a K5. >> Let me reframe that K5 with a fine arts magnet. Keep the sixth through 8th grade magnet. But the because a lot of King Arth's neighborhood school like a large percentage of King Arth's neighborhood kids aren't there. I mean, if you look at the map, there's a large that are coming from the King Arts area. So, I'm just curious if you look at it as a K5 school magnet. Sixth, seven, 8th grade that allows you to keep Rice would be able to stay there. Um, and you still have a >> So, it would be a K5 neighborhood school with a small choice-based middle school. I you know it would no longer be a magnet like magnet schools of America would no longer have that designation but you're saying

204have the district define a small choice-based middle school option. >> Is there any revenue or any reason that that magnet distinction is important? >> It's more programmatically important because there are requirements that they have met to really to show the strength and fidelity of the program. It's an acade academic designation. Yes. >> And I'm sorry if it's just as an exercise and maybe my uh desire to make I just want the middle section central which is where I live to have a to be in the conversation of having something close. So, what I hear, and I don't know, and maybe it's just running both of these, is running a essentially a K5 with a small choice-based middle school that is a neighborhood school with the exception of a small >> middle school. That is choice

205and then potentially just running it as a K5 neighborhood. >> Yeah. Just so I'm clear, like what is the benefit of >> six? Amen. >> Yeah, that's what I'm trying. No, I was just saying it's a big uh well, but the reason I say that is your your middle schools are full I mean anything your middle schools are at a larger capacity and I said if you have the space and interesting to find we have great fine arts in other places. So if we're saying that you really want young people to have a lot of fine arts being able to choose to do that in the middle grades. The main thing for me is how to have a choice. Um how to just make the um how to just fully think of King Arts so

206that we can say we embrace it as a magnet school and we want that and we're going to keep it there, but we've thought about all uh permutations of it, >> I guess. >> Yeah. But but do do I guess do we really embrace that as a magnet school is the question, right? If if we're trying to the magnet gives gives choice >> is is that really is is that what we're trying to really accomplish I guess is is the question >> for me like when we're looking at closures and I and that's I'm looking thinking of the south and as I think of wow given closing dolls um as I think of you have your two schools that are right there south. Those schools are like, "Wow, to close is really is a is

207I feel like I have to look at all options to say let's close Daws." Um, for me particularly, >> yeah, I let me let me add to what I think I'm asking because if we make we have three middle schools now and we bring on a middle school that is choice, we set we we bring on another school that sets apart itself from the other three middle schools like like like like >> you need >> what what message does what what message is that sending in our middle school space, right? Like it it it it makes me feel a little bit uncomfortable to do that. Um >> don't we do that today though? >> That's what King Art does. So that's I mean so either way >> I'm talking specifically for middle school with the

208with the I mean we do that now and I'm not saying that's something I want to continue to do is is my point and I don't want to I don't know if that's something I would want to continue to want to do at the middle school level of bringing that level of um because you put you put this one middle school it almost give me almost like a selective enrollment kind of perspective for this particular one middle school that the the other three middle schools don't have. That's what it feels like for me in this space of just talking and and kind of bringing this idea to the table right now. That's what it feels like for me. And I just want to name >> that feels a little weird, >> right? And not to

209say that it shouldn't be considered, but just to consider it as as a as a middle school. Like I could see it being if you going to open it up as a six as another middle school potentially for that 68, then open it up as a middle school. Well, why do you have to put the choice on it with >> Yeah, I was trying to respect the rise that the the the importance of keeping K8 grades in that building such that the rise program which needs a K8 context. So how to in that sense it's like how to keep rise how to respect the rise program but also um honor the the you know saying we talk completely through the walkability >> you know how how are we to me there's scenarios we're walkable we're

210saying all schools are walkable you don't have a magnet school or you say all schools are walkable but we really value a magnet and so we're going to have a choice magnet and I think we as a board have to say about yeah like where does the board stand on on magnet because again h having having King Arts as a magnet school right now and and just having to accomplish Magnet Schools of America designation is is is huge. It's it's it's a great opportunity, right? And so I really don't know how that would look if you if you take it away from it being in its K8 realization and then you go to it just being middle school. Like I'm I'm just Yeah. I I don't know how that would look >> is what I'm

211saying. >> I think my question is with with a middle school magnet program, I think one of the benefits of having a big group of middle schoolers is that you are able to offer them more programming. And so, you know, like if you're interested in fine arts and you've got a lot of kids at the school, then you can have, you know, you can have band, you can have art, you can have all of those programs because you have enough students to support it. But if you narrow it down and you only have, you know, like a small number of middle schoolers, it almost feels like you're giving them less opportunity instead of more. So, I'm just >> Yeah. and the and the rice students participate in the full stream of the magnet experience. So

212that that would take that away from them as well. >> The King Arts was recently designated as a magnet school of America. There are with that some potential opportunities for grants or funding. We haven't been able to determine whether we can fully realize that or whether that will become a reality, but that is one of the things that they put out there as being a a positive aspect of that designation. >> And so then we as a board just I mean I think that's one of those whether we keep a magnet school is one we just have to say we want to keep the magnet school or we have to say we want walkable schools. I don't there's no you know that's a that's >> um >> that's open to um so I'm sort of

213in the middle uh Dr. Pigard um I'm open to the modeling of it as a K through five >> but I I think I I feel like we're starting to go backwards um in trying to reduce the problem to simplify and move towards it feels too much to do the six through eight as a magnet. How many six through do we know how many six through eight students go to? >> I bring it up pretty quickly. I don't have that one memorized. Give me a minute. I'll get back to you in about >> Is it two sections? >> Um, it is two sections of two of the grades and I think three in the third. So, it's approximately probably 180 to 200. Chris, am I about right? >> It's okay. I'll look, too. But >>

214that's good enough. I'm just wondering what's it going to do to >> start with that and if I'm wrong I'll correct myself. >> I'm just wondering because if those kids like what happens if they have to revert back to a neighborhood school if they're going to place >> so we have modeled absorbing them back into the three larger feeder patterns and we can do it but again like when the board gives us more direction that's when we can begin to work with some of the boundaries more specifically to try to balance some utilizations. Nicholls does stay larger. Um Nicole is right like the population there largely second ward down you know this area Oakton area and fifth ward and so there's not much. Yeah. So it actually the impact distributes itself. >> So what direction

215are we giving? >> 178. Hey, >> that would include some of the rise students. Any rise students that are in sixth, seventh, eth would be included there and we have the a number of rise students in the memo with that particular program >> and they are fully integrated into the magnet, right? >> What's that? >> They are fully integrated into the magnet program. they are in so depending on their particular IEPs they're included where their their you know their IEP indicates they should be but they're present in a lot of the experiences for sure. >> Can I just ask a question for Dr. Beardsley um just uh help me understand what comes after this uh in the sense of so say it's the will of board to to focus in on three uh say that

216it's the will of the board to model um an additional scenario with uh or with King Arts as a K through five. Um what can we expect to see sort of different as these continue to be refined apart from any nudging we give to you? Um what can we expect to see different at our next meeting? >> Yeah. So um I'm going to probably ask the question back to you a little bit. So we have you know essentially we modeled a lot of different options with three school scenarios. We brought forward a couple for you. You know, Nicole said, "Hey, I want to see something else." If there was something else that the board's like, "Hey, those two were fine, but we want you to put this up also this in play." We could do

217that. Our next steps with these two and anything else would be then to further refine them. You know, we've been running 30 plus models. And so, we would go back in. What the community hasn't seen unless they've hit the website while we're talking is that we have the attendance boundary maps, we have the utilization tables, all of those things. We would want to go back in and begin to tune those boundaries more specifically to address concerns around the utilization rates. Revisit any of the program placement based on feedback we get. You know, if the board's like, we like that, but we're concerned about these aspects of the programs or anything like that. We would begin to further model to say, okay, is this are we addressing the concerns we hear and continue to address some

218of those boundaries. Um, so that's that's where we would go. Additionally, we've got community engagement sessions coming up. >> We'll hear from the community. We'll hear from the board as well. So, we take that and we try to adjust the scenarios to make them um we know it's difficult, but try to make them as good as they can be. And in that sense we would definitely be locking in on our program placement so that we will get so for instance foster we would get clarity around the role of ACC at foster right so okay because I think every everything becomes if those things aren't clear then then nothing's set because then it begins to change okay >> program placement can very significantly impact utilization so we would you know that getting that firmed up earlier

219in the process is is very helpful. So can you then speak to the when we talked about the zero to five and we say we want to hold it the is there any so park is the one school that are there any constraints we have to under we have to work with with respect to park if we were to make the decision of closures and then a year from now say we want to move park to another building are there are there are all are all of our considerations right now for the most part places that could provide a place that could be the home of park. >> So, I'm going to name a couple things, but then I would also very specifically want, you know, I've engaged with park the park leadership and some

220of the park community, but would also want to double check it to make sure that what I say here is complete because it probably will not be entirely complete. Um, number one, the thing that would make the absolute most sense in the world is that it is a fully ADA accessible building already. Um, and we have some that are ADA accessible but not up to current code. So fully ADA accessible to current code since we would need to do some significant renovations and we would probably need to get it to code would be ideal. Um number two, programmatically since um part of the education experience is life skills, it is preferred if the school is close to some form of businesses and transportation so that students can have that experience. It's possible to do that

221if it's not super adjacent, but it's better if it is adjacent because we're focusing on building independence. Um, and then three would really be making sure, and our current park site doesn't do this great, but that it's appropriate for the transportation needs of the community. Four would be significant investment went into building a fully ADA accessible playground that also worked appropriately for the age range of students. And so that would ultimately need to be addressed what with whatever site we consider. And so those are critical. When we did the walkth through recently with an architect to just kind of get a sense of park, there are also significant storage needs because of the types of equipment. And so either it's a building that has more square footage or classrooms to allow for that storage space

222or we have specific storage um you know we build out spaces to support the storage needs. So can that >> that's that's a good starting place to probably the park staff might elevate a couple other things. The other piece around funding and I believe we've covered this but not tonight is in order to be receive the funding for a therapeutic school it needs to be a standalone facility. >> It can't share with another school. >> Can it share with offices? >> We believe yes but we need to find like triple verify that. Is that fair, Tamara? >> Brent, >> by next by the by the next time we meet, we could we could know >> in all our scenarios, this school can be schools we're considering closing what other what possibility what other roles could

223they play such as park early childhood or something like that or offices. That would be good for us to know as we get to the final. Not that we're making that decision, but just knowing what's possible. Yeah. Okay. So what I'm hearing is that again we I think there's consensus around the uh three school closures and then some possible modeling around uh King Arts being a K5 school. I I'd like to see a model of of just the closure just the clo the a complete closure of of King Arts along with um the two other schools. I'm okay with the ones that are here as well. I mean but again I would prefer to to see all of that modeling Um any anything else? >> Can you >> modeling of closing closing clean arts or

224modeling as a K5? >> Both. Yeah, >> I think that's is that here? Is that the 3B one? >> We did do where uh we closed King Arts out >> Lincoln with Kingsley and King Arts. >> So >> we did the four 3B. Okay. >> 3B as in Victor. Um, but I think for the board to understand the ones towards the bottom of the scorecard do cluster pretty closely together. >> There are a variety of 28s and two nines. We shared our rationale for what we brought forward, >> but there are a number of them that score very closely to each other. >> Yeah. And if the closure of King Arts's model, >> we'll have to determine the placement of the rice program because then it will be split. >> So that model when we

225ran it originally moved the RI moved Rice to Lincoln and to shoot and that was based Lincoln is fully ad like fully ADA accessible. It would require the movement of the step program then from Lincoln to another site. >> Okay. Now we did run a second version of this which we did not have an opportunity to fully score. Um it will come in very similar but in that scenario we put we modeled rise at Willard and then going to Haven. And what we're trying to pay attention to there are fully ADA accessible and then in the middle schools reliable elevators which in either case at some point we will probably need to do some improvement work. Um but Chute and Haven >> are the better of the three. >> Okay. >> For the U three,

226um I know we talked about the two Kingsley, Willard, Lincoln with Kingsley. Can you make sure to to work on that? Um utilization of the Willard Orington. I'm sorry. Yeah. Because of the >> Yep. >> Okay. And then the the Willard if the if the choice was because there's Willard it's the what is it the if Orington is it's the Orington Kingsley I'm sorry I'm not it's too manyus uh too many of those but right now we have a we have options on on two schools that have two different options in the um north side but then when we get to the the three schools Um, we don't and I can you I know there's a good reason for that. Can you because you you said that to me once, but I think that's important

227to say >> back what I think. Are you asking why we don't have a scenario that does not have the north side doubled up? >> Is that what you're asking? >> Well, no. I'm saying that in the two school closures, you put forth two options. Yes. And so if we say, "Oh, we like the other option that's not Lincolnwood Kingsley." when we get to the three school closures, that isn't uh is that an option or that would be three R. >> You know what I mean? That other option isn't there. >> It's getting late. I'm trying to follow, but I'm I'm >> Okay, I'll say it. I'll say it right here. I'll look at it. >> So, what I'm going to say is like, so if we look at what's been run, and it's tiny

228and all that, and luckily I can see better out there than right in front of my face. Um, we ran Lincolnwood, Lincolnwood, and Kingsley options. We ran Kingsley and Willard, um, Orington and Lincolnwood, and then we ran one that had a school from each of the three feeder patterns, which was the Kingsley, Willard, Washington. >> Um, consistently the Lincolnwood, Kingsley combinations fell to the bottom of the scorecard for the reason. So, if you want us to further explore one that's further up the scorecard, that's fine. I would just want the direction on what you would want me to explore. I think the goal here is to is to weight the utilization. No. >> And that right I'm asking >> correct. >> Yeah. >> Um so that we don't have you know 103% balance northwest and

22952% in the northeast. >> Nope. Um, >> so I think the so anything is possible >> but it's the values that come to play >> like balancing out can mean more students that are beyond that 1.5 or are crossing halfway and so maybe what we bring and part of this is like hey here's the scenario and here are a couple different ways this could look >> this is balanced utilization and this is what the transportation numbers look like and this is something that is maybe in between where we are and there and that's what that can look like. >> You know, I guess where where I'm where I'm kind of landing is um you know, Warrington was sort of boosted because of its geography. >> But there's but there's some other reasons why it's a

230complicated site. >> Yes. And so I guess the question to my colleagues here is are we going to go strictly by scorecard values or are we going to explore kind of what things look like outside of that? So for example if it was a you know swapping Kingsley and Orington for example because we know that you know is a small space it has basement classrooms there's a lot of you know um it has low utilization those kinds of things. I don't know how I feel about it, but I'd love to hear your thoughts about that. >> My my concern with swapping >> is that it may meet one goal, but it may impact financially the the financial impact may be very negative in terms of cost. >> And I I'm I just want us to

231my my commitment in all of these variables. I'm open to seeing them, but I'm I'm not open to changing our waiting or our criteria. >> Yeah. >> So, as long as we're not talking about that, >> then I'm I'm open-minded. >> Okay. >> What is that? So, say what that I understand what you >> you want me to go back. I understand what you mean, but do you mean you're not willing to accept a a combination that has the total score that's different or you're not >> No, the actual waiting that that created the individual scorecards that created the scenario scorecards and all that. I think we have to stay consistent and just own that that reflects a certain degree of of community will as well as administrative leadership that brought it to us and

232we have to work within that frame. >> Yeah, I think that the one with me on on or on the Willard one, it's the the 101 and 50%. So, it's like it hits the number, but I look at that and go, well, how does that work? How do you then say, you know, there's one school is over capacity, another school is half there. And I think just to the point, you know, like as we ran these scenarios, like we wanted to bring to you like, you know, as we said, these are draft. And so I think that is the kind of feedback to say like work on this. If we had tuned every scenario, we never would have gotten here tonight. >> It's too many. It's too many. And y'all are just just I just

233really want to acknowledge the work y'all have done and and Chris the silent person that no one knows the just the phen I was fortunate to sit in on some of those facilities conversations and it's just uh yman's work and so part of our job is to help reduce that so that y'all can you know bring these forward that's you know stitching together all the stuff that's already here. So, just really want to commend y'all on that work and thank y'all for it. >> Thank you. >> Though I don't know if we're reducing work here. >> No, reducing the space. No, no, no. They have another month of uh they have another month. >> Okay. Do you have clarity from us, Stacy, or do you >> I'm going to say back what I think I

234heard. So, we'll go from there. Uh focus on three school closures. Um the we need to model King Arts as a neighborhood school. And in those models, what I heard was and I so I probably don't have full clarity right now. My notes say model as closing a K8 magnet and reopening as a neighborhood school with a K5. And then I also have model as closing the K8 magnet and reopening as a neighborhood K5 with a choice-based middle school. I feel like we had challenge to that. And did we take that off the table? >> No, that's what the board's request was. I think I I stated where my perspective is. If that was the board, >> I think there were still >> We never did a We never did a straw poll to see.

235>> I don't see how that would work or how that would benefit us. >> I'm I'm more in favor of modeling King Arts as a K5 neighborhood school. Okay. >> Yeah. >> And then for the K8 modeling you have if there is any additional detail for that one too >> for the K. So if we close King Arts >> there's no K. >> Are you asking if there would be a different page? >> Oh would it just >> they would go to they would go to their >> I mean but I think >> they would go to Nickels. The problem you're going to find potentially, I don't know if you will or not, but the utilization rate of that school will go way down. >> So, I mean, if we have the 6 through eight

236in there, I think the the the benefits of having a six through eight in there are it provides a closer school to the northwest and west of our city, right? So, people that don't want to go like th those that are in the Walker and and area that that may not want to travel all the way. Um, and then obviously there's the arts piece. Um it does provide considering that we have high utilization in our middle schools. It provides some flexible space. Um should we grow and become you know over capacity in one area we could offer that. So that's the benefit of keeping the six through eight there. I mean in terms of what the programming is. >> I don't know. I think we have to think about that in in collaboration with >>

237with you and with our educators and with community or what you know what that uh what that might be if it even makes sense as a uh makes sense as an option. >> So do we need to do a straw poll on this so that we have clarity about where the board stands about the 6 to8 >> magnet portion. >> Yeah. >> What's the straw word? I I'm not interested in the K six through eight magnet option, but I do want to see the modeling of the K5 neighborhood school. >> I'm I I'm with you there as well. >> Yeah, I agree with that. >> So, this a K5. >> Okay, that's fair. And then what else I heard was um to work on balancing out some of the utilization rates. with a specific focus

238on Willard Orington. Um, and then to verify program requirements from park and what they ultimately would need in a different building if there's a kind of a second order change for park. Um, so we can definitely take care of that. Um, the we talked briefly about any different program placements, but I didn't hear anything specific on that, so I don't know if that's a followup. >> A question. Um um this is from Omar. Um with Rise moving if King Ars is not a K8, Rise would then move will be moving to Lincoln and Chute means Rise >> Lincoln and Chute or Willard and Haven would be the likely places the benefit to Willard and Haven. Uh and again that would mean step isn't there so we're trading some things in and out would be that

239you're keeping the kids in the same feeder pattern. we didn't like about Lincoln and shoot was they're crossing feeder patterns which is hard relationally. >> Okay. So the rise there's a there's a there could be a solution where rise families stay in the same feeder p. Okay. Okay. That was question. You know, one one thing I'd like to ask to as part of the analysis is just looking at the progress of the two-way immersion. I know we're we're of course all of these scenarios uh pull out a strand of of twe from Willard. Um and just getting an update on what that that the impact is on just this three three school closure scenario on on twowi immersion um balance and at least fidelity of the program. So if we So I think there are

240a couple pieces there. Each of the scenarios has the two-way immersion utilization rate by school. We also do include numbers for potential dual language in the middle school. Those tend to be the lower percentages there. Um but each of them has the percentage scenarios. Usually you know as we're up in this area the utilization rates are pretty strong. like I think when I was looking at a running answering a couple but they're in kind of the 80s and we have to remember that the state of Illinois recommendation for EEL and for this particular program would be 90% of the gened population. So that puts us in a pretty good place. Um, specifically on that Willard decision, when we look at where TWWS students live, there's a very low concentration that live in the northwest corner

241of Evston, which and the density of that where the native Spanish speakers are coming from for Willer right now really is the fifth ward. Now, balance 5050 is going to be a direct implication of the decisions that families make about staying in the program or attending the program wherever it is placed because in a couple cases we do, you know, there are we are moving programs should we move forward with three school closures. >> Yeah. The other piece of it is numbers wise um you know met with multilingual we are currently eight strands in first through eighth grade with seven strands in kindergarten. Um we also are very low enrollment or lower enrollment in the fourth and fifth because that's was starting during the pandemic which wasn't you know which was tough. Um, so going

242to seven strands was supported by the multilingual department and we would just continue to monitor our our commitment is to say what does the demand tell us about program placement and the number of sections per grade and that'll be something that >> creates more flexibility. >> Yeah. No, that makes sense and I think I get that. Yeah, that that's a conversation as well that once once we've narrowed down these pieces, right, then we really that monitoring piece is going to be really critical for all, you know, any program that serves our our most marginalized students is making sure that we're keeping track on on the impact and the effectiveness of of program delivery and continuity as well, right, which is what I've been hearing in regards to at least for the STEP program, RISE program

243and all that good stuff. >> It would help me as well so to understand Uh for instance, Washington and Daw have come up. Washington has two strands of twe do has one strand of twee where do those students live >> the those students. So we mapped the and I don't have the tables up here. It looked like I was going to do something. >> I got excited. >> Can't do that. It's in the board packet. But the board packet represents the numbers of students by where the students live. And so when we look at those particular scenarios, if you see that the occ the utilization rate for twe is 81% at Oakdton and actually I'll pull up a I'll pull up the board packet for a second. Um that reflects the twees and the TWWS's

244that live in those boundaries. >> Got it. Okay. Thank you. >> And so right now we are modeling based on where families live. that could have a programmatic impact for some kids. So, and this becomes something the board is going to have to grapple with as we move forward with this is do all changes take effect automatically going into next school year. And that could mean reshuffleling the constitution of those tweet classrooms because I might live in the DAW boundary but be going to Walker. And if I can now move you back to Daws, >> we put do we put you in dots? >> Part of that has to do with transportation too, right? >> The So it would put kids more kids into their home schools. >> Okay. And so that's the way that

245is modeled right now. So should we um as we're talking about programming and I just um we should um we should assume that program placement for all programs that are on those diagrams are not fixed. Is that correct? So in particular looking at the program placement at Foster >> the if so we are modeling based on the numbers that we see today. And basically and so when we look at the numbers of TWWS's and we assume hey if this percent comes from Bessie roads that you know um so that's what we're modeling again we said we will honor and make sure that we make room for neighborhood school students. So if we that it's where we're going to have to figure out the decision- making communication process. If we know everybody's coming then we have

246to make a decision about whether that second strand can be there. um we'd have to model it to kind of the 70 I think it's 6733 that multilingual said hey that would still work for fidelity of the program if we can run to TWWSTBWE with 6333 6733 we might be good we might be good with one strand if we're overcrowded then we make a decision we honor neighborhood and we move the program to somewhere adjacent that can serve students as close as possible >> I would be remiss if I wouldn't say that given the the effort to get Foster back, the um the not being explicit to see that it has twe in the in the heart of the design, which I actually um just in and in in all my conversations with Dr. Turner

247believe that that is um um the mission to do that. But just I know as people is watching this just want to say that that is not what you see on the what you see there is allocation of what's in foster is not set in stone as what the foster representation is going to be. Just want to just want to call that out and just get confirmation of that such that over between now and this next conversation there isn't the assumption that that's fixed and that that is the composition of the programming there um is still being developed but that there's a strong uh hopefully that there's a strong focus on making sure that ACC is in the core of what's at foster. I think what I would say back to just on an action

248step is you want us to make sure that we're modeling with an allin assumption. >> Yes. But I'm also saying I'm hoping that we're making sure that we're modeling with ACC in Foster. >> Yeah, I was holding the technical side of it. >> I support that as well for the ACC. Yeah, modeling ACC is part of it. Anything else that you need from us? Uh, >> team, >> I think that's enough for me. >> Anything on finance? >> Just as we wrap up. >> Anything on finance? >> Do you need anything on Okay, good. >> So, as we wrap up, can we just revisit timeline or is that coming later? >> Okay. That's why we trying to get you wrapped up here so we can continue with our presentation. >> Okay. >> Oh, there we

249go. >> Go ahead, Hannah. >> Okay. >> Um, so we we hope that anyone who's still watching can tell a friend um that we hope that you'll share feedback with us at our upcoming in-person engagement opportunities or through our online survey which is available now on our website. Um on the website you'll also find the feeder patterns, the boundary maps, the scenario, the baseline scorecards, data tables, and financial impact. Um and the board is slated to next discuss the school closure scenarios at the October 27th regular board meeting and then again on November 3rd. And then here are the details for the four upcoming stakeholder engagement sessions. Um we intentionally scheduled these four inerson meetings. um for later in October to allow as much processing time as possible as we know that this is a

250considerable amount of information to digest. So tell a neighbor, tell a colleague. Um we want to hear from as many voices as possible. So we really hope that you'll you'll come out >> who has me. I apologize. >> All right. So, as we wrap up, I hope we have made it clear that there are some hard decisions ahead. But despite it all, my team and I are optimistic because we will continue to commit to making sure the students remain the center of our work. District 65 has a strong history of providing an outstanding education to the students of this community. And this is due to the commitment of our educators, our staff, our students, and our families. Even as we go through difficult financial times and personnel cuts, our schools will continue to provide warm

251and welcoming places for students to grow socially, emotionally, and academically. And last, but not least, our goal, regardless of the outcome of these discussions about potential school closures and consolidations, is to ultimately ensure a bright future for current and future generations of District 65 learners. And so for that, I just want to thank everybody for tuning in tonight. um and for really leaning into a very difficult um conversation. I want to thank the board for giving us direction on next steps so that we can further narrow narrow uh down what your asks are so we can get you the information um to make an informed decision around what the future holds uh for the schools in district 65. So again, just thank you. Well, I I want to extend uh on behalf of the board,

252thank you to you and your team for um again uh creating and and working with SCS. I want we want to thank them as well and all the community members who have participated in the subcommittees up to this point to formulate these recommendations to us uh and these scenarios. Uh it is it has been extra extra hard work and I know I know we still got some work ahead. Uh but again, I think this is the goal of the board is to really make sure that um we're we're engaging with community. We're doing this together with you in a transparent way. Um, and we will do whatever we can to leave no stone unturned in regards to engagement uh with you as we continue in this process. Uh, with that said, I I do want

253to move ahead with our agenda. Our next item is number 10. It's proposed action item. So, I'll hand it over to Andrew. Dr. Wymer. >> I move that the board of education approve the following items outlined as part of the consent agenda. Personnel appointments, leaves, and separations, gift to Orington, August 2025 board of education meeting minutes, September 2025 bills payable, and the September 2025 contracts above 25,000. >> Second >> Wilkins, >> yes. >> Pinker, >> yes. >> Updike, >> yes. >> Wymer, >> yes. >> Anderson, >> yes. >> Hernandez, >> yes. >> The next item up is our resolution abating the working cash fund of the district. I move that the board of education adopt the proposed resolution abating the working cash fund of community c consolidated school district number 65 Cook County Illinois >>

254second >> Wilkins >> yes >> Wymer >> yes >> Hernandez >> yes the next item up is the resolution authorizing the issue issuance of tax warrants. >> Sorry. Um I move that the board of education adopt the resolution authorizing the issue of tax warrants not to exceed $25 million taxable 2024 tax anticipation warrants in anticipation of the collection of taxes levied for the year 2024 by the board of education of the district for educational purposes and authorized the sale of said warrants to the purchaser thereof. Um, I just want to make sure everybody's clear on what this is. >> Um, >> were you gonna ask a question, Andrew? >> Essentially, we the property Well, Tamara, you just explained it so eloquently. >> Can you just do it? >> So, the second installment of the property

255tax bills has not been released yet by Cook County, and they have not even released a date of when they expect to send those bills out. So, typically when the bills are released, they're due within 30 days. Um, at this point, we are not expecting those bills to be released for money to start flowing in in time. So, uh, the district will be below 8 weeks cash on hand, and we need to be able to pay our employees, our vendors, etc. So, that's what this, uh, issuance of tax anticipation warrants is about. Also, if by um some unexpected stroke of luck, the county is able to send those bills out and we get notice of that prior to November 3rd, the sale can be cancelled. The district will be charged no money at all. So,

256we are only charged fees. Once that sale actually moves through, moves through. So we have our attorneys working to get documentations in order. Our municipal adviserss, they will do all the work behind the scenes, but if the bills happen to come out, then we just go ahead and tell them not to move forward with the sale. And then we don't pay any fees for that. If the bills um if we don't receive notice that the bills are coming out, then we absolutely will have to have the money to get us through the end of this calendar year to be able to meet our obligations. >> Thank you. I I thought I'd read November 15th in the memo, but it is November 3rd is the deadline to determine. >> So, November 3rd is when um the

257sale would be set. So, >> got it. Okay. >> Yeah, I believe. Let me pull it up. But I thought I heard you say with the November 3rd date that if we receive it before November 3rd, the district won't get penalized >> for right >> what we're asking to borrow. >> Right. And that's what the November 3rd >> That's what the November is. We got like Right. So like it won't be no any charges. >> Okay. Second. >> A second. >> Wilkins, >> yes. >> Harder, >> yes. >> Update, >> yes. >> Wymer, >> yes. >> Anderson, >> yes. >> Hernandez, >> yes. >> Next item on our agenda is the approval of the ID dohazard 2025 2026. >> Motion for approved. I >> move that the board approve the 2025 2026 I do. Hazard

258presented. They're the same as previously. Thank you. >> Second Wilkins. >> Yes. >> Hanker, >> yes. >> Updike, >> yes. Wymer, >> yep. >> Anderson, >> yes. >> Hernandez, >> yes. >> Next item up is the FY2526 Infant Wiler Society of Evston contract. Pat, >> are there any questions? >> This is what we talked about at the committee of the whole meeting last time, right? The same thing. So, we have to decide if we want to edit or maintain. >> I I'll just put myself out there. I'm comfortable if we edit it as long as we're not at risk of having to um come up with any lost lines. And it sounds like we're not. We're just passing on basically the waiver we're getting. So, I'm fine with that. So to to um the edit

259means that the um IWSC will be paid for funded enrollment regardless of actual enrollment during FY2526, >> right? >> Okay. >> But we're not losing out on any grant money, right? Like that's what I understood from last time. Like we won't get penalized for it and so we're just passing that along. >> Correct. And this is only through November, right, of this year. >> That's what their request is. >> I don't know if anyone else has. >> And the amount is approximately $80,000, >> right? >> How much? >> 80,000. 80,000. >> If we don't pay it, what happens to that money? >> It stays on our books. Well, my understanding is that they're also in the middle of of elevating the program, of staffing the program, and of uh enrolling students as as we speak

260based on the information provided. >> Yes. So if that money was not provided through November of this year, it could impact that process. based on the information that they provided. The current um reimbursement process for the grant is that the agency pays for everything upfront and then the district reimbures them for that for any allowable expenses. >> Okay. >> And the question just to get clarify regardless we're going to pay them for what they should get reimbured. The question is whether we just pay them the full contract or or we we only we whether we pay them for what they spend or we pay them the full contract. So the question for me is we're getting the full contract. What happens to the a what happens if we don't if we don't pay it? Does

261that m stay in our books? >> Can you repeat the question? >> If we don't pay it, does the money stay in our books? Do we stay if we decide we don't give it to them? Do do we keep the money? >> Yes. So if we don't give it to them, we're not we're not >> we're their fiduciary agent, >> right? But we're only right now we're obligated to pay you with anyone. We're obligated to pay for what is spent. Correct. >> We would be giving money that hasn't actually been spent correct >> by the organization. So that's the that's the distinction between the two. Correct. But in my view, >> okay, >> not giving the money that's not been spent will significantly impact the processes that they are undertaking to attempt to achieve full

262enrollment. >> So that's that's my concern. >> And they're asking for this up they're asking for this level of support up to November 2025. >> Right. >> Yes. >> So it's we're in October. >> Right. So do and they just presented and publicly and said they just hired four new staff members. They have increased their enrollment. So like if if we work in collaboration with our community partners in this case because they are making >> strides and there's no impact significant for us right now. We're helping that community partner. >> Yeah. >> My thought process is that we support them. >> Yes. knowing that potentially whatever direction we go, this this level of support might not be able to be provided in the future, but for right now, as a good community partner, >> okay,

263>> it it seems like it makes the most sense. >> Okay, >> again, they have had a history, just to let you know, of under enrollment for quite a few years. So, that's been a challenge that the previous board had talked about. But again given that this is you know just a short term like a November again to be good community partners I really agree that this is something that we should move forward with. So >> all right then I move that the board of education edit that would be the correct the FY2526 infant welfare society of Evston contract. >> Second >> Wilkins. >> Yes. Pinker. >> Yes. Yes. Wymer, >> yes. >> Anderson, >> yes. >> Hernandez, >> yes. Thanks for sticking out with us. >> Next item up on our agenda is the

264approval of the master health and life and safety plan consultants. >> I move that the board of education approve a contract with Studio GC for the combined health life safety and master facility assessment project. >> Second. Wilkins, yes. Pinker, >> yes. >> Updike, >> yes. Wymer, >> yes. >> Anderson, >> yes. Hernandez, >> yes. Um, is there any other business that the board would like to discuss tonight or a future meeting that has not already been identified? >> All right. With no further business, I find this meeting adjourned at 10:10 p.m. Thank you so much. I hope everybody has a great rest of the week. >> Thank you.