District 65 Officially Suspends Superintendent Residency Requirement

And more non-tenured teacher "Reductions in Force" (RIF)

Yesterday, District 65 held a surprise 8 minute board meeting - I say surprise because I refresh the agenda page almost every day and this was not listed last week. Because of travel for the eclipse and other activities, I had no idea this meeting even occurred until this morning.

This is the second recent minute public meeting they’ve scheduled in the statutorily required minimum amount of time. Two weeks ago, they removed the sustainability coordinator position on a Friday at 3pm before Spring Break. Given the late scheduling and the solar activity, it is no surprise that there were not public comments.

More frequently, this Board is using the pre-scheduled public meetings to give good news and last minute scheduled meetings for the bad news. That is completely contrary to the spirit of transparency and good governance!

Residency Requirement Suspended 5-0

I complained in a prior post that the District violated in the Open Meetings Act, and in fact, attempted to circumvent the Act altogether. I filed a complaint with the OMA two weeks ago and in fact, I now believe that they certainly violated section 2(a) of the Act.

As evidence, I transcribed the comments from the meeting below (video link here)

Ms. Lindsay-Ryan: Can I, before we vote, can I just—I want to be on record that we’re voting today. But this is a discussion that has been happening since last June/July about what we are looking for in that process, and how, what are the challenges of being a superintendent living in our district. And so, while this is, this is a work in progress, there are several public meetings where you can hear many of us weigh in about our concerns, and reasoning why we think it is important to let people chose where they live, to be able to do this job fully, and be able to have their time away, and regroup, and everything else. In case anybody’s seeing this and saying, where did this come from, it’s been a part of a long conversation all year.

Hernandez: Right. We’ve discussed—And thank you for pointing that out. We have been discussing this, even before the onset. Just as we started planning our superintendent’s search process, I think it was something that the board was interested in discussing and as we planned for that. So, we will go ahead and—

Kim¹: I think I want to add on, we talked about, there is definitely value in having an Evanston-Skokie resident. However, there is also a lot more value in someone who is going to be connected to the community, which we’ve definitely have seen Dr. Turner do going into our school, going into our community, and putting forth that intentional effort. And I think creating those partnerships is more important than that residency piece.

A couple of thoughts.

First, as far as I’m aware the only public discussion in which the Superintendent’s residency was discussed was in May 2023.² If this has been a “long conversation all year” — where can we find that conversation? If those discussions were held in closed session or in private, that would be absolutely be a violation of section 2(a) of the Open Meetings Act. Almost the entire Superintendent process was done in closed session and having discussions about changes to Board Policy in closed session is deliberately circumventing the Act.

Second, the purpose of public hearings is not just so the public can “hear many of us weigh in about our concerns, and reasoning” - the point of public hearings are so the public can have the opportunity to comment on important issues. This is why there are pre-scheduled meetings with agendas - so the public can have the opportunity to organize and make an argument to the Board. As far as I am aware, this subject was never on any meeting Agenda until Saturday, for the Monday meeting on 4/8.³

Third, Ms. Lindsay-Ryan has expressed this idea in the past (at the one meeting where this was discussed in May 2023) that the people of Evanston are a menace to the Superintendent;

I think to have someone be able to do their best work, they need to go home and be able to turn off so they can recharge and return, and not get stopped at the Valli and not get stopped at their kid’s soccer game, or whatever else.

She essentially expressed this idea again. I would argue, it is not unreasonable or menacing to ask our leaders to have skin in the game.⁴ And none of this is a statement on Dr. Turner, she might be fully engaged with the community, but if she makes cuts and hurts Evanston families, it will have absolutely no impact on her family. And this is all OK because we are concerned that parents might say hello to her at a soccer game?

Lastly, the logic that “there is also a lot more value in someone who is going to be connected to the community” doesn’t make any sense. Living in the community gives you that connection for free. I don’t doubt that Dr. Turner is trying her best to stay after hours to meet with folks, but you can only do so much when you have a commute that is an hour and a half (on an average traffic day).

The policy suspension passed 5-0 (Hailpern and Wilkins were not present) with no opposition.

Reduction in Force

The District also passed an additional reduction in force for non-tenured teachers. I don’t have the list yet (I FOIA’ed a copy) but when I do, I will update my spreadsheet. After the last set of layoffs, I was made aware that additional non-tenured staff were laid off but were not on the list. I asked to the District about this and they told me to wait until April. So this may contain those additional people or not. I’ll make a post when I have this data, it might take up to a week.

There was no discussion on this item and it passed 5-0 (Hailpern and Wilkins were not present). More to come on this.

1. I am not 100% positive this is Ms. Kim - she’s actually off screen in the recording but I think it is her commenting here. Please correct me if I’m wrong.

2. From the May 23 meeting minutes:

• Residency requirements need to be revisited - Supt. needs to do the work but peacefully go home. Limits potential pool

• Do see some value in have some experience about the residency and understanding the culture of the community that they are serving.

I couldn’t find any other public meeting minutes where this is a topic discussed.

3. Correct me if I’m wrong here, I can only read so many documents a day but I’ve gone through every set of Board Minutes since May 2023, and that’s the only meeting where residency was discussed in the minutes.

4. This goes for the City of Evanston too. At the bare minimum, we should require our City Manager to live here, yet he resides in Libertyville!