D65 Hires New CFO, Former ETHS Superintendent Witherspoon as Interim Superintendent
And a thank you to Dr. Turner
Two announcements from D65 during tonight’s meeting:
Interim Superintendent Announcement - Former ETHS Superintendent Dr. Eric Witherspoon will be the interim D65 superintendent through the end of 2026. (I would argue that this is now a great time to consider consolidation with ETHS)
Welcoming our new CFO, Eric Miller! - D65 announced the new CFO, Eric Miller. He’s a graduate of Evanston schools and comes to the district from Glenview School District 34. He replaces CFO Tamara Mitchell, who is leaving District 65.
Tonight’s meeting covered a variety of other topics, including the separation agreement with current Superintendent Turner. The agreement will be posted by end-of-day tomorrow.
Dr. Turner got a lot of heat and I’ve been critical of her at times, but she navigated the District through a genuinely very difficult time, including:
Actually finishing the Foster School - Recall the Horton administration took out the lease certificate funds in May 2022 and then made no progress on construction. It wasn’t until after Dr. Turner came clean to the Board in October 2023 that they were able to move forward. The school is going to finish close to the original budget, which for a public works project in Chicagoland, is impressive.
Hiring Dr. Grossi and CFO Mitchell and pulling the District away from the fiscal cliff, including coming in $12 million under budget in 2025.
Managing the SDRP process, which was a politically stressful process for everyone involved.
Dealing with Cook County’s tax collection crisis, the PowerSchool hack, the 2025 ICE invasion, 2024 teachers union negotiations, and a hundred other things I haven’t listed here.
Things could’ve gone much worse — in 2024 it looked like state takeover was a real possibility and we’ve moved away from the brink. She stepped into a hard and probably impossible situation and, I think, deserves our thanks.