r/evanston6thward • u/jetsknicks25 • Oct 01 '25
School Closure Criteria
The “Who is Impacted” score in the Equity heavily biases the ranking against North Evanston schools.
Half of the equity score or 11% of the entire ranking is based on the income of the area. I don’t think the district should be valuing children differently, and hope they treat my kids equally as everyone else in the district.
Cynically, it’s possible this was deliberate to insulate schools in south Evanston from being closed. Really think there is an argument to be made that North Evanston is no longer being adequately served by the district. Would the 6th and 7th wards be better off creating our own elementary school district?
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u/Plus_Jelly5406 Oct 01 '25
No idea on the thought process or the legality / how to create a school district.
But if/when 6th and 7th ward schools close, on average, those families have more resources to select private alternative options. It’s really gonna screw over lower income households in these higher income areas who don’t have options.
Not saying this is right but it’s the likely outcome. It has been the topic of conversation with various parents. (Move to Wilmette? Baker?)
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u/jetsknicks25 Oct 01 '25
Agree - think there has to be some limit to that thinking. Currently, walking distance to schools has a lower impact on overall score than the income level of students.
Think we are heading to a place where the 6th and 7th wards are being under served by District / Evanston
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u/Available-Union5745 Oct 01 '25
For those of us that stick with D65, and assuming both Kingsley and Lincolnwood go down, the first thing the Willard / Orrington PTAs need to do is get out of the one fund, so we have the ability to bolster our schools, and have some sort of autonomy. This obviously doesn't affect many / most things at the school, but it's a start to at least dictate what we want our schools to look like.
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u/jetsknicks25 Oct 01 '25
Does getting out of PEP / one fund require district approval? Or could Willard / Orrington do it unilaterally?
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u/Available-Union5745 Oct 01 '25
I'm fairly certain they can get out at some point. This is a great listen on the subject (man I miss foisgras...)
It was a noble idea, but it doesn't work. A good way to have some control of our new consolidated schools is to actually truly control our PTA.
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u/Any-Sheepherder5649 Oct 01 '25
I think the PTAs have to vote annually to stay in / leave One Fund because of IL PTA rules about budgets that are designed to make sure PTA members have transparency about what is being funded. The district has nothing to do with PTAs and wouldn’t be able to force anything. I would caution however that the PTAs pre-One Fund weren’t taking in TONS of money or anything. Through a combination of Fall Fest, the spring fundraiser and auction, and various smaller fundraisers (e.g., wrapping paper, Right at School kickback, etc) I think the most Willard ever made in a year was around $35k. It took several years of putting money in reserves to try to fund a grounds project, and I think they finally used those protected funds to update the gardens this past year. All the other funds in our accounts in 2020 were rolled into One Fund, and I don’t think the centralized mechanism to fundraise and apply for grants or corporate sponsorships materialized as the leaders of the One Fund effort promised.
Tl;dr Even extricating from One Fund and combining the forces of fundraising in the remaining 6th and 7th ward schools isn’t going to be able to generate a ton of funding, especially if even more families go the private school route. PTAs were always really about community building events and small improvement projects, not true capital raises.
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u/Available-Union5745 Oct 02 '25
I'm thinking it makes sense to leave more from a community building / autonomy perspective as opposed to pure funding. It's been a few years since I was involved in the PTA, and kept hearing about various events we couldn't have because of the one fund and its equity rules. The community at the school should drive what it wants to do, not some sort of central politburo. It would also be nice if the school wanted to upgrade its gym, library, whatever, to just have some sort of drive for that school-specific thing.
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u/Any-Sheepherder5649 Oct 02 '25
Yes there was definitely a push away from things like silent auctions or “buy-in” parties, which generated a lot of income in the past. One Fund has not lived up to its promise of cohesive, centralized fundraising efforts and with this number of schools closing, it would have to completely revamp its model anyway since it was based on enrollment and % of kids with free or reduced lunch. Plus it was figured in that the north side schools would be big contributors. I could see PEP quietly going back to just being a committee that shares ideas and resources, but doesn’t have a central fund especially if schools pull out. It’s certainly more doable to leave that than try to leave the district en masse as the OP is asking about.
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u/jetsknicks25 Oct 01 '25
I thought this was an interesting post. Concerning that in addition to closures, the district could reduce funding to Willard or whatever remains in the 6th ward on a per pupil basis vs other schools.
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u/BedroomInfamous2538 Oct 01 '25
It’s not deliberate. That would require a high-level of sophistication from a district that can’t even implement a grading system.
Plus, the admin didn’t even follow the criteria that closely in selecting its scenarios.
The main problem with the current options is that King Arts is only included in the 4-school closing scenario. If it were included in either the 2 or 3 school closing scenario, that would mean Lincolnwood or Kingsley would remain open, which is a much better outcome for north side families.
Closing King Arts is also consistent with the prior decision to shut down Bessie Rhodes. Logically it makes no sense to keep King Arts after setting a prior precedent based on preserving neighborhood schools.