The Evanston/Skokie School District 65 Board of Education indicated at Monday’s board meeting that it was leaning toward closing three elementary schools — Lincolnwood and Kingsley, and either Washington or Dawes — as part of the district’s Structural Deficit Reduction Plan. However, district officials are still considering seven scenarios, including closing up to four schools. One of those could be Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Literary and Fine Arts School.

The Board of Education did not make a final decision to close any schools at its board meeting, but used it to communicate with parents, students and community members the options it is considering to hoist the district out of years of financial deficits that almost took it to the brink of a state takeover last year. A decision could come as early as November.

The four schools are scattered throughout Evanston, with Kingsley and Lincolnwood to the north and Washington and King Arts to the west. The listed schools are almost in line with a leaked school district document that was shared on social media weeks ahead of Monday’s meeting.

Closing four schools could save the district $9.18 million, according to the district’s CFO Tamara Mitchell, and send about 28% of District 65 students to a different school. The average school occupancy district-wide would rise from 58% to 81%.

Administrators also shared scenarios of what it would be like to close one, two or three schools. Kingsley and Lincolnwood repeatedly made it into recommendations by district staff as schools to consider closing.

If the district were to only close Kingsley it would save $1.9 million and if it were to only close Lincolnwood it would save $2.1 million. District-wide school occupancy would rise from 58% to 66% if Kingsley only were to close, and to 67% if Lincolnwood only were to close.

After deliberating, school board members asked district administrators Superintendent Angel Turner, Mitchell and Assistant Superintendent Stacy Beardsley to hone in on closing three schools, which would be Kingsley and Lincolnwood plus either Dawes or Washington.

Closing Lincolnwood, Kingsley and Washington would raise the average school occupancy rate to 75% and save the district $6.3 million. Closing Lincolnwood, Kingsley and Dawes would raise school occupancy rates to 74% and save the district $6.2 million.

The projected savings for school closure do not include revenue if the district were to sell a building. More information on school closures can be found on the district’s website.

At the meeting, the school board approved a $188 million 2025-26 school year budget. In August, D65 financial consultant Rob Grossi told Pioneer Press the district’s deficit will rise again this year due to a new teachers’ contract and aging buildings, and further budget cuts will be necessary.

For two years prior, the district also ran deficits higher than $10 million and ate into its reserve funds. Doing so put the district in a bad place financially, where it might have needed to issue short term borrowing through tax anticipation warrants just to cover daily operational costs, which Mitchell, the CFO, likened to a payday loan. The district never did so, she said, and instead cut millions of dollars of expenses.

Student enrollment at the district has also declined for years, state records show. Illinois Report Card data shows the district has gone through seven years of slumped enrollment. In 2018, the district had 7,943 students; that has fallen to 6,193 students enrolled in 2024, for a 22% decrease in enrollment in the district. That does not include Park School, a special education school that the district shares with Evanston Township High School, and Rice Children’s Center, a residential treatment center and school where the district supplies educational staff and a nonprofit runs the building’s housing function.

Amid the future school closures, the district’s Structural Deficit Reduction Plan calls for additional cuts to transportation, special education and the possible sale of school buildings.

The district is also on track to close K-8 Magnet Dr. Bessie Rhodes School of Global Studies at the end of the school year.

It also plans to re-open the district’s long-closed Foster School as a K-5 school in Evanston’s 5th Ward by the start of the next school year.

The district’s financial consultant at one point urged the school board to reconsider building Foster, but a report from Foster School’s construction manager said that taking a break to allow the district to ask taxpayers for additional funds to build the school would further drive up the costs to build the school.

Parents and community members will get a chance to voice their opinions at three upcoming public meetings. They will be held at Chute Middle School on Oct. 14 at 6 p.m.; at Fleetwood-Jourdain Community Center on Oct. 15 at 9:30 a.m., and at Nichols Middle School on Oct. 15 at 6 p.m.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/09/30/evanston-skokie-d65-leans-toward-closing-schools/