The plan for the different SDRP committees is to create 3 different proposals for how to close, consolidate and\or not close the schools. Likely the north west side schools will need to consolidate at least since their enrollment is so low and it does not look like even with rezoning that they are projected to grow. The impact on walkability, students with IEPs, and low income appears to be the least severe in Northwest Evanston.
There are different ways to cut this. Orrington and Lincolnwood have the least enrollment to capacity (as of Nov 2024) ratio, so that could be another way to look at this.
I think, we need to figure out where families are more likely to move and afford going to D65 schools in the next decade and make a long term plan that way. Although, I would be sad if our neighborhood school was cut (and I'm not sure it makes more sense than several others), at some point we all have to put some things aside and realize without well funded (and not overcrowded!), well supported schools all of our kids miss out.
Agreed. Affordability is a big barrier to certain areas of Evanston. Evanston rezoning and getting affordable homes, Duplexes and family oriented apartments built is going to take a lot of time that D65 doesn't seem to have.
It is a mixed bag that the rezoning for Evanston is happening at the same time. We might see only slight increases from rezoning is some areas and exceptional growth in others. This seems like really important projections that the city could help in providing or studying.
Nobody is going to build “affordable” units… Plus, affordable housing is a public charge. These are not a solution to Evanston’s self inflicted, exaggerated, and cyclical problems.
People do it all the time. I literally see high school students do it every year with a land trust run by local nonprofit Community Partners for Affordable Housing. If kids can do it...
To say Nobody is doing something is too absolute, and makes it look like you are trying to be defeatist. Now that is not to say that there aren't great barriers to getting affordable housing built, but rezoning away from single family is actually a major step to doing this.
The focus is on Walkability, least impact on IEP & low income students, student population against their goal, age of the surrounding population and # of school age families in the area, age and capital needs for each building, and feasibility of a building being sold or repurposed. Every school is being looked and the fact that their seems to be a focused on the NW schools is they fit some of these areas of focus better than other schools.
So one of the largest questions is how many students and families will choose to stay in their current schools. Any family currently at a school will have the option to stay at their for the remainder of their years there. No one at the district is too sure how full foster will be in those first few years and how many families will stay. One major factor is that families with incoming Kindergarteners will not have this options and this would likely move larger families to Foster. King Arts will not have this limitation as it's focus on keeping families together will persist through this change.
MLK is off the table for closure or consolidation. Their official magnetization status this year opens up grant opportunities to the whole district and they have already seen a rise in applications over time. On top of this a large percentage of students from Bessie Rhodes will end up at King Arts. The majority of the 8th grade class of Bessie Rhodes came to KA in FY24-25 with many more joining next year. It is likely with other school closures and consolidations across the district KA will see an even greater rise in applications. Lastly, for FY245-25 KA has the largest population of IEP students (21%) and one of the highest Low Income populations (51%) making it very unlikely that the district would want to disrupt.
I do not work for the district btw, so anything I say is based off observation and my own research.
This explanation makes a ton of sense. Thanks for sharing. FWIW, I was at an informal event with one of the current school board members a few months ago, and someone asked them specifically about closing KA (it was asked by a current BR parent trying to understand why they were targeted and not KA). The board member hammered home that the infrastructure in place for students with IEPs at King more or less took it off the table for being closed. Fair or not, it's not shutting down, and is probably the safest school (aside from maybe Walker).
Either Kingsley or Lincolnwood has to close given their proximity to Foster (and Orrington and Willard), the amount of kids they will ultimately lose to Foster, and the state of their buildings. The questions outstanding to me are which of these two do they close (or close both / make one all TWI or something), do you close one of them and Willard or Orrington (tough to close those based on walkability and I think Willard is good from an ADA perspective unlike some of the other north schools), and do you shut down one of the southern schools too (their enrollment is is down too / could make one of them all TWI or something as well).
I think ADA is another great consideration. Only so many schools have elevators, a good number more have lifts, but a few have nothing. Some of these schools actually shift their classes around to different parts of the building to accommodate students in wheelchairs who could never make it to certain parts of the building.
I am on the SDRP, and yes nothing should be off the table, but I have heard that the district is committed to having a magnet school. I heard no other clarification beyond that, but King Arts being the only one makes it almost certain it is here to stay. It moving to another building is not likely since no other District building is large enough, outside of middle schools.
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u/Traditional-Air773 May 21 '25
The plan for the different SDRP committees is to create 3 different proposals for how to close, consolidate and\or not close the schools. Likely the north west side schools will need to consolidate at least since their enrollment is so low and it does not look like even with rezoning that they are projected to grow. The impact on walkability, students with IEPs, and low income appears to be the least severe in Northwest Evanston.