Thank you so much for your detailed reporting. I am just sad watching this unfold. When we look at what is MOST important it should be the education of our children. When I see educational scores lagging of any population of kids, I would have hoped that instead of a new school, that creative, and potentially individualized attention could have been given to those that are struggling. The pandemic offered additional opportunities for educators to identify that some children might thrive with non-traditional learning milieus. Combining some of those teaching techniques with more traditional methods might have been a possibility to boost performance. Perhaps even reaching out directly to families to help them overcome any impediments that may originate in the home that would spill over in the learning environment. Instead we are left with a school that is less than ideal, supplanting limited vital green space and uprooting mature trees in an already very congested area. A school whose construction and continued maintenance is supported only by extraordinary pressure on operating expenses that can only be addressed by cuts to staff, unique and special learning programs, and services. This was a school that any sensible person would not have pursued, especially considering the declining enrollment and deteriorating infrastructure throughout the system. I also worry that this shiny new school would become a beacon with unintended consequences, including the acceleration of city-wide tax increases and gentrification, both of which impact the affordability of that section of the 5th Ward.
Stay tuned - I'm working on a piece about equity, which will probably go out on a weekend. I firmly believe the best way to achieve equitable outcomes is the hardest solution:
1) The best teachers in front of the kids who need it most, which requires compensating those teachers accordingly and;
2) Track those kids like a hawk from preschool to 12th grade and;
3) Spend $$$$ resources on supports for those kids, especially reading and mental health;
Too often the solution to the achievement gap in this town is just one shot in the dark after another: more consultants! mental health apps! trendy curriculum! peace and restorative practices! shaming parents!
All of this is a way to avoid having to tackle the genuinely hard problem of recruiting, retaining and training the A+ best educators in the business.
Hi Tom, you mentioned the reading curriculum in a previous post in a cultural context, but you might want to dive a bit into science of reading vs balanced literacy issue. This has a huge effect on equitable outcomes and test scores. I am not quite sure where the district stands on this issue. From what I can tell they are now using more phonics based curriculum but used balanced literacy in the past.
Yes, they finally changed to a phonics-based curriculum this year and (at least for 2nd grade) it is far superior to the previous. Or maybe that's because my daughter's teacher is a reading specialist. She no longer gets to act in that capacity (man this district is crazy) but at least one class gained an amazing teacher.
When my older son was learning to read with the old curriculum I couldn't understand why he kept looking at the picture to try to figure out what a word was. When I found out that "check the picture" was literally one of three steps they learned in class for figuring out a tricky word, I was flabbergasted. Another step in the previous curriculum was something along the lines of "take a guess at what the word might be and see if it makes sense." Incredible. I can't remember the third step but I'm guessing it was equally unhelpful.
Tom Hayden For D65 Board President! Your letter really nails what is wrong currently and what is needed to fix the gap and what forms of ‘equity’ would actually have major impact! The things you could could be described as ‘fundamentals’ I think, vs. what’s been done at D65, which would be more of following education trends and fads and performative solutions.
Also development projects should refer to all project costs not just construction. Those costs are incurred in a similar time frame as the construction cost and often include big line items like interest, architect and construction management fees as well as all the equipment and furniture in the building. The fact that they haven’t evidenced funds to pay for this is a huge red flag. I think the project is under budgeted by over $10 million including this. Inflation alone easily adding 5% to their already stale estimates.
Well, they did include those costs, but I didn't copy paste the full thing because I was only talking about construction costs, since the lease certificate can *only* be used on construction and general funds can *only* be used on not-construction.
With that said, I think its bullshit that the interpretation of the statute is that the voters have to approve construction, which only means physical building structures and not all the stuff that goes along with that. It seems like a pedantic loophole.
I think the fact they haven’t presented you a full budget speaks volumes about their incompetency. Zero clue. The fact there is literally no one at the district with a smidge of experience in this is like handing over the keys to vault of cash and saying have fun. Your expectation of oversight can’t be third parties. But then again that’s what the district has always done - hire consultants. This time the stakes are really high.
Where does the additional $6 million of building furniture and improvements come from? Clearly it would need to be paid for sooner than after a year of transportation savings? $500 a foot for a public school is insanity.
They are going to have to pay these soft costs (deposits and fees) as soon as construction starts so timing on BR is too late. They’ll steal from referendum reserves. Just watch…
Also, with that said .. I debated you a bit in the comments a while ago, I thought they could pull this off. I figured they could grind out $44m in the lease cert fund via interest plus the sale of some properties, they'd be able to squeak it out. I still think it's the case they'll squeak it out but I'm not sure I should *want* them to anymore, because it means ultra low budget everything while also trashing the District finances. "Hey fifth ward, here's you're new school and oh yeah, there are no doorknobs"
Oh I am in agreement with you - BR is at least a few years out from sale, even if it closed tomorrow (its still open next year), it's going to take time for a property like that to sell. Who the hell wants to buy a mid-century school building that is in need of repairs?
I think they've already dipped into referendum reserves and this will just go deeper. Technically even the $3.25m per year comes out of the reserves in a way - when they end the year -$3.25m in the red, that difference is made up with reserves. Last year, they took ~$6m from the reserves fund due to operating loss.
The lease obligation was entered into when interest rates were much lower than the rates today therefore there should be value in these agreements - the question is how does 65 take advantage of this
At the very end of the last Board meeting during the back and forth between Omar Salem and the other Board members about keeping Bessie Rhodes open another year, Sergio Hernandez made the following comment "...people criticize why hasn't the 5th Ward School broken ground?" He and other Board members noted it's taking a long time because of community engagement, the "financial issue," transitions in leadership, and "doing their due diligence." He goes on to slam "folks in the media out there" for their criticism of how long this has taken.
Given the "financial issue" is a direct result of their lack of due diligence around bus savings, I think this is a poor response. On the other hand, Omar Salem made some very reasonable points about the issues surrounding school closers, uncertainty etc., in this discussion. I hope some people on the Board listen to him on this subject.
He can say whatever he wants but the facts speak for themselves. Consider the timeline in Skokie, for a much larger school at 124k square feet.
- January 14, 2020 - D69 signs lease certificate
- April 2020 (+3 months) - Construction begins on new school, including demolition of old school
- October 2021 (+21 months) - School finished and is open for students
Here we are in Evanston:
- March 2022 - D65 signs lease certificate
- May 2024 (+26 months) - Still haven't even put things out for bid
Skokie had the similar community and financial issues as we do and this school is literally like 2 miles west of Evanston's borders, so it's not like they're dealing with any technical differences in architects, contractors, soil conditions, etc.
The board can blame the administration all the want, but ultimately *THEY* are the ones in charge here. Sergio himself ran his re-election campaign literally on this very issue. The board should be absolutely GRILLING Cordogan-Clark at these meetings but instead just let them off the hook. In April 2024, the only update was "looks like permits are good to go" - like .. that's it? That's all they did during the whole month at the beginning of construction season is make a few calls to city hall? I really do not understand this board's aversion to actually standing up for the people they care about.
The whole community engagement and due dilligence bit is so farcical. Horton said in some interview that the first thing the board president asked him to do was to bring a new school to the fifth ward.
This was just a few years after the community rejected it. The whole community engagement effort was a farce since the end goal was already determined.
One reason the building hasn’t even been started is that they keep on hiring inexperienced folks. Neither Horton nor the new person had ever run a school district before.
One wonders why the board is so bad at hiring. Any number of public searches show there are lots of experienced candidates out there.
Yet the Board unanimously voted to hold secret searches. I can think of no good reason to do this other than as a reflection of their contempt for the public.
Totally agree. Omar Salem seemed willing to discuss alternative options in a public meeting, not sure about the rest of the board. I don't understand why the school closures can't be looked at simultaneously, instead of staggered plan. If SAP 3 is the key to these decisions, why hasn't it begun already? Joey Hailpern specifically said that the next steps haven't been defined yet, let's define it then!
The fact they aren't doing it all at once is rooted in politics, optics, etc. as opposed to what actually makes sense. The fact they haven't stated which North Evanston school(s) is going to be closed is going to hurt new Kindergartener enrollment, if it hasn't already. Word is finally starting to hit parents of young kids who aren't in D65 yet that closures are coming. I've heard comments from parents who are now considering putting their non elementary school aged kid in private school when they reach Kindergarten because they don't want to run the risk of starting them somewhere where they will have to move in a year or two.
So frustrating and impractical. No parent wants their school closed, and transition is going to be difficult on so many levels, but I know I'd prefer as much planning time as possible to decide what makes sense for my family. Omar and Joey have both been vocal that the board has to tackle the necessary work now to avoid these uncertainties. Maybe having younger children in the district helps with the sense of urgency? But they seem outnumbered by the other members.
Thank you so much for your detailed reporting. I am just sad watching this unfold. When we look at what is MOST important it should be the education of our children. When I see educational scores lagging of any population of kids, I would have hoped that instead of a new school, that creative, and potentially individualized attention could have been given to those that are struggling. The pandemic offered additional opportunities for educators to identify that some children might thrive with non-traditional learning milieus. Combining some of those teaching techniques with more traditional methods might have been a possibility to boost performance. Perhaps even reaching out directly to families to help them overcome any impediments that may originate in the home that would spill over in the learning environment. Instead we are left with a school that is less than ideal, supplanting limited vital green space and uprooting mature trees in an already very congested area. A school whose construction and continued maintenance is supported only by extraordinary pressure on operating expenses that can only be addressed by cuts to staff, unique and special learning programs, and services. This was a school that any sensible person would not have pursued, especially considering the declining enrollment and deteriorating infrastructure throughout the system. I also worry that this shiny new school would become a beacon with unintended consequences, including the acceleration of city-wide tax increases and gentrification, both of which impact the affordability of that section of the 5th Ward.
Stay tuned - I'm working on a piece about equity, which will probably go out on a weekend. I firmly believe the best way to achieve equitable outcomes is the hardest solution:
1) The best teachers in front of the kids who need it most, which requires compensating those teachers accordingly and;
2) Track those kids like a hawk from preschool to 12th grade and;
3) Spend $$$$ resources on supports for those kids, especially reading and mental health;
Too often the solution to the achievement gap in this town is just one shot in the dark after another: more consultants! mental health apps! trendy curriculum! peace and restorative practices! shaming parents!
All of this is a way to avoid having to tackle the genuinely hard problem of recruiting, retaining and training the A+ best educators in the business.
Hi Tom, you mentioned the reading curriculum in a previous post in a cultural context, but you might want to dive a bit into science of reading vs balanced literacy issue. This has a huge effect on equitable outcomes and test scores. I am not quite sure where the district stands on this issue. From what I can tell they are now using more phonics based curriculum but used balanced literacy in the past.
I don't know anything about either one of those things. I will research.
Yes, they finally changed to a phonics-based curriculum this year and (at least for 2nd grade) it is far superior to the previous. Or maybe that's because my daughter's teacher is a reading specialist. She no longer gets to act in that capacity (man this district is crazy) but at least one class gained an amazing teacher.
When my older son was learning to read with the old curriculum I couldn't understand why he kept looking at the picture to try to figure out what a word was. When I found out that "check the picture" was literally one of three steps they learned in class for figuring out a tricky word, I was flabbergasted. Another step in the previous curriculum was something along the lines of "take a guess at what the word might be and see if it makes sense." Incredible. I can't remember the third step but I'm guessing it was equally unhelpful.
That's a relief! These links will explain what happened and how we got here:
https://www.thefp.com/p/why-65-percent-of-fourth-graders
https://features.apmreports.org/sold-a-story/
Tom Hayden For D65 Board President! Your letter really nails what is wrong currently and what is needed to fix the gap and what forms of ‘equity’ would actually have major impact! The things you could could be described as ‘fundamentals’ I think, vs. what’s been done at D65, which would be more of following education trends and fads and performative solutions.
Could not agree with you more! Thanks, I was thinking I was just wackadoodle!
Also development projects should refer to all project costs not just construction. Those costs are incurred in a similar time frame as the construction cost and often include big line items like interest, architect and construction management fees as well as all the equipment and furniture in the building. The fact that they haven’t evidenced funds to pay for this is a huge red flag. I think the project is under budgeted by over $10 million including this. Inflation alone easily adding 5% to their already stale estimates.
Well, they did include those costs, but I didn't copy paste the full thing because I was only talking about construction costs, since the lease certificate can *only* be used on construction and general funds can *only* be used on not-construction.
With that said, I think its bullshit that the interpretation of the statute is that the voters have to approve construction, which only means physical building structures and not all the stuff that goes along with that. It seems like a pedantic loophole.
I think the fact they haven’t presented you a full budget speaks volumes about their incompetency. Zero clue. The fact there is literally no one at the district with a smidge of experience in this is like handing over the keys to vault of cash and saying have fun. Your expectation of oversight can’t be third parties. But then again that’s what the district has always done - hire consultants. This time the stakes are really high.
Where does the additional $6 million of building furniture and improvements come from? Clearly it would need to be paid for sooner than after a year of transportation savings? $500 a foot for a public school is insanity.
The additional $6m comes from reserves, which can either be Bessie Rhodes sale revenue or just the $30m or so they have put aside.
They are going to have to pay these soft costs (deposits and fees) as soon as construction starts so timing on BR is too late. They’ll steal from referendum reserves. Just watch…
Also, with that said .. I debated you a bit in the comments a while ago, I thought they could pull this off. I figured they could grind out $44m in the lease cert fund via interest plus the sale of some properties, they'd be able to squeak it out. I still think it's the case they'll squeak it out but I'm not sure I should *want* them to anymore, because it means ultra low budget everything while also trashing the District finances. "Hey fifth ward, here's you're new school and oh yeah, there are no doorknobs"
You were right, I was wrong!
Oh I am in agreement with you - BR is at least a few years out from sale, even if it closed tomorrow (its still open next year), it's going to take time for a property like that to sell. Who the hell wants to buy a mid-century school building that is in need of repairs?
I think they've already dipped into referendum reserves and this will just go deeper. Technically even the $3.25m per year comes out of the reserves in a way - when they end the year -$3.25m in the red, that difference is made up with reserves. Last year, they took ~$6m from the reserves fund due to operating loss.
The lease obligation was entered into when interest rates were much lower than the rates today therefore there should be value in these agreements - the question is how does 65 take advantage of this
They did buy an “arbitrage product” where they make revenue on the difference. Revenue is taxed, though!
Just curious, what is the District’s explanation for the over two year delay in starting construction?
I don’t think there has been an official explanation
At the very end of the last Board meeting during the back and forth between Omar Salem and the other Board members about keeping Bessie Rhodes open another year, Sergio Hernandez made the following comment "...people criticize why hasn't the 5th Ward School broken ground?" He and other Board members noted it's taking a long time because of community engagement, the "financial issue," transitions in leadership, and "doing their due diligence." He goes on to slam "folks in the media out there" for their criticism of how long this has taken.
Given the "financial issue" is a direct result of their lack of due diligence around bus savings, I think this is a poor response. On the other hand, Omar Salem made some very reasonable points about the issues surrounding school closers, uncertainty etc., in this discussion. I hope some people on the Board listen to him on this subject.
He can say whatever he wants but the facts speak for themselves. Consider the timeline in Skokie, for a much larger school at 124k square feet.
- January 14, 2020 - D69 signs lease certificate
- April 2020 (+3 months) - Construction begins on new school, including demolition of old school
- October 2021 (+21 months) - School finished and is open for students
Here we are in Evanston:
- March 2022 - D65 signs lease certificate
- May 2024 (+26 months) - Still haven't even put things out for bid
Skokie had the similar community and financial issues as we do and this school is literally like 2 miles west of Evanston's borders, so it's not like they're dealing with any technical differences in architects, contractors, soil conditions, etc.
The board can blame the administration all the want, but ultimately *THEY* are the ones in charge here. Sergio himself ran his re-election campaign literally on this very issue. The board should be absolutely GRILLING Cordogan-Clark at these meetings but instead just let them off the hook. In April 2024, the only update was "looks like permits are good to go" - like .. that's it? That's all they did during the whole month at the beginning of construction season is make a few calls to city hall? I really do not understand this board's aversion to actually standing up for the people they care about.
The whole community engagement and due dilligence bit is so farcical. Horton said in some interview that the first thing the board president asked him to do was to bring a new school to the fifth ward.
This was just a few years after the community rejected it. The whole community engagement effort was a farce since the end goal was already determined.
One reason the building hasn’t even been started is that they keep on hiring inexperienced folks. Neither Horton nor the new person had ever run a school district before.
One wonders why the board is so bad at hiring. Any number of public searches show there are lots of experienced candidates out there.
Yet the Board unanimously voted to hold secret searches. I can think of no good reason to do this other than as a reflection of their contempt for the public.
Sidebar: Sergio's comment made a reporter in the room giggle. :)
For the record that reporter wasn't me - I wasn't there at that time!!
Affirmative: Tom was not the giggling reporter.
Totally agree. Omar Salem seemed willing to discuss alternative options in a public meeting, not sure about the rest of the board. I don't understand why the school closures can't be looked at simultaneously, instead of staggered plan. If SAP 3 is the key to these decisions, why hasn't it begun already? Joey Hailpern specifically said that the next steps haven't been defined yet, let's define it then!
The fact they aren't doing it all at once is rooted in politics, optics, etc. as opposed to what actually makes sense. The fact they haven't stated which North Evanston school(s) is going to be closed is going to hurt new Kindergartener enrollment, if it hasn't already. Word is finally starting to hit parents of young kids who aren't in D65 yet that closures are coming. I've heard comments from parents who are now considering putting their non elementary school aged kid in private school when they reach Kindergarten because they don't want to run the risk of starting them somewhere where they will have to move in a year or two.
So frustrating and impractical. No parent wants their school closed, and transition is going to be difficult on so many levels, but I know I'd prefer as much planning time as possible to decide what makes sense for my family. Omar and Joey have both been vocal that the board has to tackle the necessary work now to avoid these uncertainties. Maybe having younger children in the district helps with the sense of urgency? But they seem outnumbered by the other members.