Skip To Main Content

District Home

Schools

Translate

Community Conversation - Fleetwood-Jourdain

Thank you to all of the individuals who invested the time to engage in our Community Conversation sessions regarding the Structural Deficit Reduction Plan.

Meeting summaries were created to provide increased transparency across the community and to provide insight as to the perspectives and thoughts across various stakeholders.

The total number of participants does not include district facilitators.

Meeting details:

  • Date and time: April 11, 2025 at 9:30 a.m.
  • Location: Fleetwood-Jourdain Community Center
  • Approximate number of participants: 32

What criteria should be considered when making possible recommendations for a school to be closed or consolidated?

At this point, we are asking for your input on criteria that you believe are most valuable in future decision making around potential school closures or consolidations. To guide stakeholder discussion, criteria have been categorized into four categories. Please note that these are a starting point, not set in stone.

  • Excellence (EX): Striving for high-quality education and student outcomes

  • Equity (EQ): Ensuring access and opportunities for ALL students

  • Effective Use of Resources - Finances (FI): Maximizing financial and operational sustainability

  • Effective Use of Resources - Facilities (FA): Optimizing facilities, space, and infrastructure to best support student learning and community needs

  • Participants were encouraged to create an additional category if needed to capture criteria that may not fit in our existing categories.

Robust conversation took place across sessions and content from the meetings were summarized based on high level themes that emerged. In community and parent/caregiver advisory sessions, the responses were transcribed directly from the chart paper provided from the various groups. Identifying information has been removed and responses to question 2 are provided in summary form (not verbatim quotes).

Participants were given three stickers to vote for the criteria that they believe are most important on their groups’ chart. Those votes are reflected in the righthand column of the chart below.

category
(see above for description)		 criteria # of stickers
FI / EQ Minimize or eliminating busing ****
FA Number of families impacted by a closure ***
FA Increasing existing school capacity through modernization versus new build (cost-wise) *
FA Impact of closures on long-term family desirability to move to Evanston *
None given School occupancy  
EQ Accessibility ****
FA Age of building/condition  
EQ

Walkability location

 ***
FI / FA

Restructure schools

  • Maybe add preschool to elementary
  • Maybe change our middle school structure to 7-8
 ***
EQ Keep TWI schools or move TWI program **
None given Current enrollment  
None given Walkability/bikeability *
FA / FI / EQ Construction needs *
None given Enrollment in real time vs. capacity within new boundaries minimizing busing ***
None given Community use of land/building outside of school hours **
EX

We should always expect academic excellence

  • teachers
  • class sizes
  • keeping excellent administrators
 **
None given Least disruptive for all  
EQ Walkability: least walkable *
FA / FI Most repairs (with consideration of how much has been done in past vs. others to prevent discrimination)  
EX Teacher evaluations/parent concerns re: teachers, parent/student satisfaction *
EQ / FA Projected enrollment over 5 years in neighborhood  
FI / FA Community involvement/gathering/land use, i.e. how much is a facility used outside of school for gatherings, "third place" use  
FI Transportation cost is highest  
FI All other avenues/fundraising (endowments) have been explored because $2 million per school seems low **
FA Low enrollment *
FA Future enrollment projections *
FI / FA The degree of disrepair of the building *****
FI / FA The ability to use that school building in other ways to be able to rent it out and defer maintenance costs to the renter ***
EQ Proximity of schools to one another **
EQ Influence of transportation/walkability  
EQ Not close any schools due to community impact  
EQ Consider Title I schools, minimize harm to marginalized communities ****
FA Consider long-term use of buildings, may need to reopen in future, make sure open buildings can handle growth **
FA Conditions of actual schools - can they handle additional students?  
FI $2 million in savings per school doesn't seem like enough to close a school, make a difference in savings *****
FI Will busing be net neutral with school closures? **
  Restructure schools - 5-6, 7-8, alt. uses of schools that are being closed *
EQ Walkability ***
FI Balancing facility closure savings with increased transportation to other locations  
EX Community of school related to 5Essentials survey responses  
EQ Diversity, socioeconomic balance vs. walkability, potentially busing to new Foster School - what is anticipated enrollment shift from existing to Foster? ****
FA Proximity to other schools  
FA / FI Long-term use of facility - if increase in future, how to reopen, etc.  
EQ Accessibility - ADA, maintenance of buildings/upgrades, Title I *****
EQ Number of families impacted/who are those families impacted? e.g. language learners, low-income, disability, etc. ***

 

Knowing that difficult decisions are required, what creative solutions do you believe should be considered as an alternative or alongside potential school closures and/or consolidations?

  • Outplacement of students - can we bring students back into the district and reduce costs? Strengthen continuum of special education services to better serve student needs across the district
  • Explore cost savings of consolidating D65/D202
  • Expand prek to neighborhood schools; also consider providing additional daycare for ages 0-5 in underutilized buildings
  • Contract with community partners to provide daycare/prek in underutilized schools; agreement should include maintenance costs
  • Better understand where the City of Evanston is at in these conversations? The return on investment for ages 0-5 is very important for a community; don't see City partnering in meaningful way. An example is shifting the costs of crossing guards back onto the district, it takes away from the needs of the classrooms and district overall
  • Move administrators out of JEH into school buildings along with prek; sell off the JEH building
  • Creation of sister schools in glenview (creation of grade centers, eg K-2; 3-5) with teams of teachers that helped increase student support, collaboration
  • Utilize existing resources such as furnishing the new school with furniture already in the district or sell off what is not needed
  • Look toward private companies to sponsor furniture etc (eg wayfair or other companies trying to give back)
  • Early childhood or other providers to pay the district rent. 
  • Reduce the use of technology, especially at the younger grade levels - is it really needed and what's the cost/use?
  • Increase volunteers
  • Don't look at the capacity of current schools; look at the capacity under new boundaries and try to eliminate/minimize busing
  • Bring the sixth grade back to the primary schools; increase walkability
  • Leverage endowments (eg high school just got major donations) Start the process in District 65 to build reserves for moments like these and being able to support capital campaigns
  • Tightening relationships between different grade levels and across the districts (high school to middle school; middle school to elementary)
  • Could one of our other schools house Park School and district sells that building? Is there a better facility in D65 to support the needs of these students?