Tom, thanks for all the work you have done on this blog. I echo Nick Beem's sentiments. The environment for any simple questioning about board and district governance has been made so toxic by the current board and its allies, I appreciate your putting your neck out.
This is not for Tom necessarily, but it would be really useful to have some sort of anonymous forum to discuss issues related to the Board. The Facebook group is truly awful and dominated by a few radical reactionaries. I appreciate how the comments on Tom's posts have generally been civil.
Here is a link to an anonymous D65 discussion board that requires no registration to post and comment. We have used the platform for clients to get anonymous feedback. Maybe it can take the place of Tom's substack once it goes away:
Managing the comment section was the hardest part. There's a lot of stuff I deleted or people I yelled at in order to keep it civil. This is one of the reasons I don't like substack - they never really did anything to improve the tools for this. I do think that both Evanston Now and Evanston Roundtable have a hard time with this too.
Noooooo! Say it isn’t so! In all seriousness, Tom, a heart felt thanks. I wish you could keep going...not enough of this town is awake from its apathetic slumber....and things are only destined to get worse. The stories about the BOE show us only the tip of the clown show iceberg that it is. Still....I get needing to step away...know that you have an audience though if you find yourself needing to make an appearance every once in a while!!! Be well!
It was good to have a neighbor who cared about our middle school management as much as you did. Not a big fan of substack myself (too complicated for me). Hopefully we’ll find each other elsewhere. I find it strange to be regularly subscribing and letter writing to European and east coast newspapers for daily reading and avoiding reading subscriptions to Evanston and Chicago papers delivered daily. Guess it’s old age.
Tom, thanks for all the work you have done on this blog. I echo Nick Beem's sentiments. The environment for any simple questioning about board and district governance has been made so toxic by the current board and its allies, I appreciate your putting your neck out.
This is not for Tom necessarily, but it would be really useful to have some sort of anonymous forum to discuss issues related to the Board. The Facebook group is truly awful and dominated by a few radical reactionaries. I appreciate how the comments on Tom's posts have generally been civil.
Here is a link to an anonymous D65 discussion board that requires no registration to post and comment. We have used the platform for clients to get anonymous feedback. Maybe it can take the place of Tom's substack once it goes away:
https://xoyondo.com/mb/fj5bu9awf0tje7h
Managing the comment section was the hardest part. There's a lot of stuff I deleted or people I yelled at in order to keep it civil. This is one of the reasons I don't like substack - they never really did anything to improve the tools for this. I do think that both Evanston Now and Evanston Roundtable have a hard time with this too.
Tom, you did great work. Hopefully you set a good example for The Roundtable, and they can take up the investigative mission you have started!
Thanks for everything you did Tom. We have some decent journalists in Evanston - hopefully your example will inspire them to do better.
I would have liked to see you stay to the next school board election. Thanks for the good reporting.
Thank you for all the time and energy you put into revealing the truth!!
Noooooo! Say it isn’t so! In all seriousness, Tom, a heart felt thanks. I wish you could keep going...not enough of this town is awake from its apathetic slumber....and things are only destined to get worse. The stories about the BOE show us only the tip of the clown show iceberg that it is. Still....I get needing to step away...know that you have an audience though if you find yourself needing to make an appearance every once in a while!!! Be well!
It was good to have a neighbor who cared about our middle school management as much as you did. Not a big fan of substack myself (too complicated for me). Hopefully we’ll find each other elsewhere. I find it strange to be regularly subscribing and letter writing to European and east coast newspapers for daily reading and avoiding reading subscriptions to Evanston and Chicago papers delivered daily. Guess it’s old age.
Thank you for all your brave work covering these much-needed topics. I imagine the psychological cost has not been insignificant.
It wasn't so bad! It was more fun than it was psychological stress to be honest.
I will be sad to see you go!