A group of Evanston/Skokie District 65 parents who are attorneys sent a cease-and-desist letter Friday evening to interim Superintendent Eric Witherspoon and the school board, threatening to sue the school district over the school closure process.
At Monday’s school board meeting, District 65 administrators said that despite accidentally overestimate expenses by millions in their five-year financial projections, they make no significant changes to their plans to close Lincolnwood and Dewey elementary schools and eliminate non-mandated programs. A vote is scheduled for Nov. 9 to approve the budget plan and trigger state-mandated hearings before official votes on school closures.
If the vote takes place on Nov. 9, parents will file suit on Nov. 10, said Christopher Grohman, one of the parents who signed the letter. He will be the lead lawyer in the trial, should it proceed. (The letter states that the signatories represent only themselves and not their law firms.)
A Colorado judge issued a stay after Boulder Valley School District families filed a lawsuit on similar grounds earlier this year.
“When the board does not represent the voices of the community and when the administration does not listen to the community, it means we have limited avenues to present our arguments. And frankly, one of the most obvious responses to the situation becomes litigation, not out of desire, but out of necessity,” explained Joshua Stern, a Dewey parent and one of the attorneys involved in the letter.
According to the formal noticeThe parents believe that District 65’s approach to creating a budget plan is “inconsistent with its obligations under Illinois law” and if it continues, it “risks producing closure decisions that are legally invalid.”
In a statement sent Saturday morning, District 65 spokeswoman Melissa Messinger wrote that the district was reviewing the matter with its legal counsel.
“We recognize that potential school closures are deeply personal and impact our families and school communities and we appreciate continued engagement and advocacy,” Messinger wrote. “We will provide a more detailed response once we have had the opportunity to conduct a full review.”
See above the full formal notice letter sent Friday evening.
What does the letter say?
The letter contains six demands for the district:
- Provide independently reviewed financial analysis.
- Evaluate alternatives to additional school closures.
- Conduct and disclose a “comprehensive equity analysis.”
- Provide an assessment of educational and program impacts (with particular attention to the Dewey Two Way Spanish/English immersion program and the STEP program for students on the autism spectrum at Lincolnwood).
- Investigate Foster Elementary School’s savings representations.
- Ensure meaningful public participation before major closure decisions are made.
Stern said the district’s approach to closing schools made it seem like the outcome of the vote scheduled for Nov. 9 was “predetermined,” saying that, in his opinion, the school board was “in sync” with administrators. Stern said parents fear there is “a pressure campaign” to move forward with the project, which is happening behind closed doors.
Parents say this could violate Illinois School Code Section 10-22.13, which states that three public hearings must be held to discuss school closure proposals before a formal vote in favor of closing schools can take place. The parents argued that there are “substantial concerns” that the Dewey and Lincolnwood closures are being treated as “predetermined outcomes.” This could “undermine the purpose of the statutory hearing requirement” before the hearings have even taken place.
The letter cited the district’s focus on implementation, such as ongoing discussions about school boundaries, as evidence that the plan is a foregone conclusion. He also cited board members’ requests for additional information and review as evidence that the plan was not properly evaluated.
As previously reported by the Roundtable, board members requested certain stipulations before voting on the proposal to advance the budget plan, including a request from Maria Opdycke have the district’s financial projections analyzed by an outside expert.
“These circumstances suggest that the administration developed and advanced a financial strategy based on the closure of two specific schools without first conducting the necessary analyzes to evaluate the proposed closures and reasonable alternatives,” the letter states.
Stern and Grohman also said the district must “study the basis of 2022 representations” that opening Foster Elementary School would generate $3.25 million in annual operational savings.
“While we do not allege any wrongdoing by any current Board member, we believe the Board has a responsibility to respond to these historical representations and ensure a full accounting of the basis for these projections as well as the actual transportation costs and savings realized since Foster School opened,” the letter states.
The district’s own forensic financial report, released October 13, detailed results of Crowe LLP that the district could not provide documentation supporting the memo with the calculations used to reach the $3 million savings figure.
Concerns about fairness
The cease-and-desist letter also cites ongoing concerns about how district administrators’ proposed new boundaries have “the potential to alter the racial and socioeconomic makeup of schools” in District 65, impacting “equitable access to educational opportunities.”
Grohman said the district is legally required consider measures to prevent segregation when reviewing school boundaries.
“One of the requirements of the law is that (the district) analyzes the potential disparate impact on minority communities, you know, in this case, the African American community, as well as the Latino community,” Grohman said, adding that the district “has not met” some of those legal requirements. He said the parents had a professor at Stanford University. “on mandate” looking into this matter for them.
All records regarding district boundary changes are also must be accessible to the publicStern said. Stern submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the district in which he received no fairness analysis, although the response indicates that several documents were not sent to Stern because they were considered “pre-decisional” and therefore exempt from FOIA.
“The problem we all have is we don’t really understand the district’s needs and its priorities, and there are changing explanations about what’s going on, what the nature of the debt is, whether it’s structural or not, how quickly (with which) it needs to be addressed, etc. It seems random and designed to confuse the board and mislead the public. So the problem we have is we’re getting $17 million in errors, and that’s making headlines. newspapers as we try to get a new superintendent, it looks terrible,” Stern said. “And the community is screaming and the district is saying they’re going to do it anyway.”
Senior reporter Alex Harrison contributed to this story.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include a statement from District 65.
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