District 65's Austerity for Student-Facing Services Continues

Who needs literacy or counselors when you have iPads and electric buses?

Thomas HaydenApril 18, 20264 min read

Last week, on April 9th, the District 65 Superintendent informed 9 middle school counselors that they were losing their jobs at the end of the year. Firing these staffers required Board approval and on Monday this week (April 14th) the Board pulled back and removed just two of the positions.

This week, the District 65 Superintendent “reassigned the middle school librarians” - you can read today’s note from the Superintendent.

We do want to share that the difficult decision has been made to reassign middle school librarians. We value the many contributions of the educators who serve in these roles and are grateful they will continue to support students in other educator positions within our schools.

Because these positions are being “reassigned” this won’t require a Board vote and it’s not on the agenda for Monday’s meeting.

America’s Literacy Crisis

Full disclosure: I have a Masters degree from the University of Michigan School of Information - also known as library school. I believe librarians play a huge role in curating access to resources, encouraging literacy, and helping students develop a love of reading.

Nationally we’re in the middle of a literacy crisis.

The Atlantic published a piece, Reading is a Vice, with absolutely staggering national numbers on literacy.

If you read a book in 2025—just one book—you belong to an endangered species. Like honeybees and red wolves, the population of American readers, Lector americanus, has been declining for decades. The most recent Survey of Public Participation in the Arts, from 2022, found that fewer than half of Americans had read a single book in the previous 12 months; only 38 percent had read a novel or short story. A recent study from the University of Florida and University College London found that the number of Americans who engage in daily reading for pleasure fell 3 percenteach year from 2003 to 2023.

Locally, 65% of District 65 students are meeting or exceeding proficiency in reading. We’re behind most neighboring Districts. You can look at the state’s IAR reporting for 2025:

I think it’s fair to wonder if the broad literacy tradition is coming to an end. Between technology crushing attention spans, declining academic standards, and de-investment in support, such as librarians, I don’t think this concern is misplaced. Millennials and Generation Z may be the last fully literate American generation.

SDRP: Where will the money come from?

Given the current financial crisis, savings are going to have to come from somewhere. Let’s review a few ways that the District 65 Board spent money in the last few months:

Speaking of transportation, District 65 had a ribbon cutting ceremony for Positive Connections’ new fleet of electric buses today. According to the District, this is federally funded:

In spring 2024, the US EPA Clean School Bus Program awarded STA (Positive Connections) with $12,187,254 for 32 all electric school buses for five school districts they're serving in Illinois and Wisconsin, including District 65. As part of the grant award, D65 students will be served by 10 electric school buses starting in the 2026-27 school year.

While the federal government purchased the buses for Positive Connections, it’s likely we’re paying for the right to use these buses. The contract with Positive Connections hasn’t been competitively bid since 2015, and was renewed for five years on June 10, 2024 without competitive bidding. In fact, Positive Connections’ contract has had six non-competitive extensions since 2015: March 2018, May 2020, Aug 2022, October 2022, June 2023, and June 2024. In 2024, the District 65 Board accepted a +12% increase in bus rates that "includes the usage of five new electric buses with infrastructure.” No diesel-only option was presented to the Board for comparison.[1]

Busing has come up many times the past few years — the lease certificate for the Foster School claims a seemingly-made-up $3.25M savings from no longer busing fifth ward students (former Board President Sergio Hernandez claimed this number was $5 million in a letter to the ISBE). In 2023, it was revealed that number is actually $750,000. The operating budget would have to make up the difference and the $3.25M annual payments are happening now and for the next 16 years. This is a non-trivial part of the financial crisis — had this been done according to the law, with a referendum, taxpayers would’ve funded Foster School construction separately.

Meanwhile, the District continues to run a large administrative apparatus, still employing more staff than they did when the District had 25% more students.

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Table from Roundtable Article

Yet, austerity has to come from people in the critical path of literacy?

[1] Just to be clear, I’m not against electric buses. I drive an electric car and I’m a huge fan of electric vehicle technology. But these should be competitively bid electric buses and if we have to pick between electric buses and librarians/counselors .. a school district ought to pick the librarians and counselors.