Community Conversation - Staff #1

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 9, 2025 at 4 p.m.
• Location: Joseph E. Hill Education Center
• Approximate number of participants: 22

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.

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?

• Engage community partners to support fundraising (add to reserves and increase stability of community overall)
• Furlough staff for one day (four day work week)
• Expand prek into neighborhood schools or in clusters where students can attend home schools (would there be any cost savings around transportation)*
• If PreK is housed at neighborhood schoools, utilize JEH building differently or sell
• Expand preK to full day and increase number of seats
• If we close schools, how are we maintaining walkability? Are we looking at an increase in busing costs? Is closing schools actually a cost savings?
• Could we make all of the schools magnet schools?
• Facebook started a push for alt school, ultilize programs (and use someone else's money) and create opportunities that promote Evanston. Maybe an outside or charter magnet school?
• Utilize a current facility for daycare for employees
• First build capacity and ensure adequate staffing to then bring kids in thearpuetic schools back (must be ready)
• Offer as an incentive that employees can send their children to district schools
• Sell parking for Northwestern games
• Families leave Evanston because they can't afford to live here - need to partner with the City of Evanston to increase affordability and access
• Reach out to professional sports teams for sponsorships
• ETHS just got huge donation for arts wing, how can District 65 bring more donations in?
• Must have priorities and parameters around monitoring student residency; loss of income for the district in educating these kids; it is a chronic issue and the district is losing money
• Rental or sales revenue for unused buildings or spaces
• Partner with Northwestern students or classes on various projects - fundraising, outreach, branding
• Similar to CPS, use underutilized spaces within buildings as community hubs that can generate revenue