Informed communities help schools thrive.

Earlier than most people realize, and it was never a surprise. This is closer to a 15-year paper trail than a single early warning.

The district was already flagging the core vulnerability in 2009. Property tax revenue, capped by state law at the lesser of 5% or the Consumer Price Index (CPI), collided with rising salary and benefit costs from a newly signed teachers’ contract. A single bad CPI year (0.1% against an assumed 2.5%) blew a $14 million hole in the district’s five-year deficit projection almost overnight. That is the same basic mechanism driving the deficit today.

It didn’t stop there. In December 2011, a 26-member Citizens Ad Hoc Budget Committee, a formal board-convened community group that met seven times, presented a report naming the same “structural imbalance” in almost identical terms to the ones this FAQ uses: property tax revenue projected to grow just 4.5% over four years, while salaries grew 13% and benefits grew 35%. The committee’s own Finance Committee chair said at the time, “The structural problem is not a surprise… I’m not envisioning something that’s going to make our structural problem go away, it might lessen it a little bit.” By 2015, a board member looking back at that report noted plainly: “There was a lot not acted on.”

By 2015-2016, the district was publicly disclosing a projected cumulative deficit of $112 million by 2025 in community information sessions. In March 2017, the board approved $5.1 million in contingency cuts to take effect automatically if a pending referendum failed. When voters approved that referendum in April 2017 (about 80% yes), the district’s own projections showed operating deficits growing from $5.1 million in FY2018 to $24.4 million by FY2025 without it. The $135.6 million the referendum was projected to raise over eight years was sized specifically to cover that gap through roughly the mid-2020s, after which further cuts were always going to be necessary. Then-Superintendent Paul Goren said as much directly in 2018, writing that the district hoped to “stay deficit free through fiscal year 2024-25,” naming almost exactly the year the crisis actually became public six years in advance. [1][2][39][40][41]

In other words, the 2017 referendum was never a fix for an unknown problem. It was a deliberately time-limited bridge, sold to voters on the premise that the district would use the intervening years to restructure its cost base. Two things determined how that played out.

Structural pressure. Enrollment has fallen about 25% since 2018 (from 7,943 students to 5,941), a steeper decline than any of 21 comparable nearby districts, while the district’s building footprint and staffing didn’t shrink to match. [55] Rising costs added to the strain. Total special education spending grew 57% in a single year (FY23 to FY24), and federal COVID relief funding that had propped up staffing and programs ran out. [25][27]

Specific mismanagement. During Superintendent Devon Horton’s tenure (June 2020 to June 2023), rigorous budgeting practices (zero-based budgeting) were quietly abandoned, financial statements were delivered late or not at all, required approval processes for large contracts weren’t followed, and the district absorbed roughly $20 million in unbudgeted losses across two fiscal years that nobody flagged in advance. Horton was later indicted on 17 federal fraud, embezzlement, and tax charges. He has pleaded not guilty, and trial is set for October 2026. [3][4]

(For the fuller story on Devon Horton’s tenure and the federal case against him, see “Who was Devon Horton, and how did his tenure affect our finances?” later in this FAQ.)

Put simply, the referendum bought the district roughly seven years to fix its cost structure before the bridge ran out. Instead of using that runway, the district largely spent it, and the underlying mismatch between costs and enrollment that voters were warned about as far back as 2009 is the same mismatch driving the crisis today.

Sources: [1][2][3][4][39][40][41]

The district has been executing a multi-year Structural Deficit Reduction Plan (SDRP) in three official phases:

• Phase I (SY25): $6.5 million in cuts, 39 positions eliminated, mostly through attrition and vacancies. Decided Feb-June 2024, enacted for SY25.
• Phase II (SY26): $13.3 million in cuts and a net reduction of 91 positions, including nearly halving the superintendent’s executive cabinet (11 down to 7). The January 2025 plan called for 73 positions; the total grew to 91 mainly through closing the Academic Skills Center, whose 17 tutors were laid off.
• Phase III (SY27 to SY30): a cumulative target of $16 to $18 million by FY2030, which includes both the closure of Kingsley Elementary and Bessie Rhodes and ongoing year-by-year budget reductions. The SY27 slice alone is $6.3 million. 52.5 FTE were eliminated for SY27, and $300k of the necessary cuts were taken from our allocated facilities maintenance budget, rather than a true budget cut. [60] District models show a necessary $4.95 million in cuts needed for SY28, $2.95 million in cuts for SY29, and $1.6 million for SY30. [5][24]

Beyond the SDRP, the district has engaged a forensic audit (Crowe LLP) of 2020-2024 spending, commissioned a new and more rigorous Master Facilities Plan, and brought in new board members and interim leadership.

Why this matters, in the district’s own numbers. The financial model the district presented in April 2026 showed that without these cuts it would have run out of cash entirely by FY2030, sliding from 107 days of cash on hand in FY25 to negative 14 days by FY30. With the Phase III cuts applied, the same model projected hitting and holding exactly 90 days of cash on hand every year through FY30.[5]

That do-nothing scenario is no longer the operative forecast, since the board went on to close most of the FY27 gap and the June 2026 preliminary budget projects meeting the 90-day target. But two things should keep that from reading as reassurance. About $300,000 of the FY27 package came from cutting the building maintenance transfer rather than from operating reductions, which means that money has to be found twice: once as operating cuts that still haven’t been made, and again as facilities work that won’t get done. [10][31] And 90 days of cash is the floor the board set for itself, not a healthy cushion. Ordinary swings in when bills come due against when revenue arrives can move through it quickly, as November 2025 demonstrated when the district had to borrow $15 million to make payroll. [29][30]

An important caveat. Independent analysis of the district’s own growth assumptions suggests Phase III may be a five-year reprieve rather than a permanent fix. State law caps property tax revenue growth at the lesser of 5% or the Consumer Price Index (CPI), averaging roughly 2 to 2.5% per year in practice, while the district’s underlying cost growth (driven mostly by labor costs) runs closer to 3.9% per year. Extending the district’s own model forward, the same cash crunch appears to re-emerge by FY33 to FY35 absent further cuts or new recurring revenue. This means we are not on a path to prosperity, or even stability. There will still be a structural deficit. We’ll just have bought ourselves a few more years of 90 days cash on hand.

Sources: [5][10][29][30][31]

Based on the district’s own numbers, probably not permanently, at least not without more action.

The district’s financial model shows Phase III getting to 90 days of cash on hand and holding it through FY2030. That assumes both the sale of Bessie Rhodes and completion of the additional roughly $10 million in operating cuts still needed through FY30 (see the admin-cuts question below for how that $10 million figure is built). But extending that same model forward using the district’s own growth assumptions suggests the same cash crunch could re-emerge within about five years after Phase III ends, potentially returning to crisis-level cash positions by the mid-2030s absent further cuts or new recurring revenue. Those assumptions: property tax revenue capped at the lesser of 5% or CPI, roughly 2 to 2.5% annual growth in practice, against underlying costs growing around 3.9% annually, driven mostly by labor. [5]

This is the numbers-based case for why a future referendum is likely necessary eventually, rather than just an aggressive round of cuts now. Rightsizing buildings and staffing to match actual enrollment is a necessary first step, but on the district’s own math it appears to buy time rather than permanently close the structural gap.

Sources: [5]

This is more urgent than a future-year problem. The district’s cash position has been weakening in real time. A CFO memo in April 2026 showed operating liquidity falling from $90.1 million in March 2025 to $42.1 million in March 2026. [28] Even after adjusting for a one-time Cook County property tax disbursement delay that alone cost the district over $1 million, liquidity is still down 5.7% year-over-year, and the CFO herself wrote that this “should continue to inform FY27 budget planning.” [28][29][30] The district’s multi-year model projected, before the FY27 cuts were adopted, that it would go fully cash-negative by FY2030 absent action. [5] Those FY27 cuts have since been made, but roughly $10 million in further reductions remains to be identified through FY30, so the projection describes a path the district has stepped off rather than a risk it has retired.

Based on the CFO’s memo in the August 10, 2026 board materials, we now have a closed year to measure against the projections. The CFO states “Overall, the FY26 year-end report shows a $3.4 million operating deficit, driven by uncertainty with county tax distributions and the additional associated costs, stagnated state and federal revenues with increasing prorations, total compensation exceeding revenues and increased student needs. In a tax-capped school district, the organization will always be challenged with controlling expenses on an annual basis even when the District isn’t faced with a short-term financial crisis.” [61]

This shows the impact moderate swings in revenues or expenses can have on a razor thin budget. Maintaining the district’s target of 90 days cash on hand is not a sign of financial health, it is sustaining the absolute floor even by the Illinois Board of Education standards. Fewer than 5% of school districts in the state have less than 100 days cash. [64] The district would need about $2.4 million more in cash to reach that 100 day mark this year.

There’s also a more immediate and specific strain. The district’s Capital Projects Fund, the account paying for Foster School’s final construction costs, is projected to end FY27 in the negative at roughly -$4.6 million. This sits separate from the district’s overall cash position, and it happens because Foster’s construction financing runs out while it remains unclear if and when a planned Bessie Rhodes sale can close the gap. [10]

Why does the overall liquidity trend matter beyond the balance sheet? This isn’t a hypothetical risk. In November 2025, when Cook County’s second property-tax installment came in late, the district was forced to issue a $15 million tax anticipation warrant, a form of short-term borrowing, just to meet payroll and vendor obligations. That single warrant carried real, quantified costs: about $27,500 in issuance costs, roughly $152,950 in projected interest, and about $961,662 in lost investment income, since the tax dollars it was counting on weren’t available to invest. [29][30] That comes to more than $1.1 million drained by one delay. Most of it was forgone investment income rather than direct interest, but all of it was money that could have reached classrooms instead. The lesson here isn’t that the margin for further delay is smaller than many people assume, it’s that specific funds are under real, near-term strain right now.

The CFO’s year-end report also signals more work ahead. Its conclusion states that district expenses must be contained, consistent with what previous financial leaders and consultants have recommended, and that appropriate measures must be taken in the fall to realign resources so the district maintains surplus budgets in coming years. [61] Read alongside the $4.95 million in cuts already projected for FY2028, that reads as advance notice of another round of decisions this fall rather than a description of work already finished. [61]

Sources: [5][10][28][29][30][61][64]

In closing its FY27 budget gap, the board reduced the district’s committed capital-expenditure (building maintenance) transfer from $2.7 million to $2.4 million, about $300,000 less than the policy commitment the board itself set. [10][31] This happened alongside decisions to reverse planned cuts to middle school counselors and librarians after public pushback. Each reversal reopened part of the budget gap, and some of the money to close it again came from capital funds rather than from new operating cuts. [31][32]

The practical effect is that this $300,000 has to be found twice. It counts against the operating reductions the district still owes in future years, because it was never an operating cut in the first place, and it simultaneously removes $300,000 of building repair work from a backlog that is already growing faster than it is being funded. Neither of the two reversals was wrong on its merits. But buildings tend to lose this trade, because nobody comes to a board meeting to speak for a boiler.

The consequences reach beyond FY27, because that $2.7 million commitment is one of three explicit conditions the board wrote into its January 2026 resolution closing Kingsley Elementary, defining the district’s “financial sustainability” in the resolution’s own terms. The other two conditions are a balanced budget and 90 days of cash on hand “through the course of the fiscal year”. [5] If the district falls short of those financial metrics by an October 2026 checkpoint, alongside maintaining a “Districtwide average kindergarten through fifth grade school building utilization rate is less than 75% (excluding specialized schools and programs)”, the board commits to recognizing that proposing to close Lincolnwood Elementary is needed. It further states that “should implemented measures prove not to be sufficient to meet the District’s structural deficit, the Board will consider other school closings during the 2026-2027 school year.” [59]

Sources: [5][10][31][32][59]

Not primarily, though it is a contributing factor.

Foster was financed through lease certificates rather than a voter referendum, a mechanism the district could approve without a public vote. That decision means Foster’s roughly $3.2 million annual lease payment comes directly out of the same operating budget now being cut for staff and programs, rather than from a separate capital funding stream a referendum would have created. [6]

There’s also an active, unresolved funding gap specific to finishing the building. Lease certificate proceeds (the original $40 million raised in 2022) are projected to run out with a payment due in August 2026, the same month Foster opens, leaving roughly $4.8 million still needed to complete the project. [8] The district has tentatively earmarked $4 million in proceeds from selling the soon-to-close Bessie Rhodes building to cover this, but as of mid-2026 that sale hasn’t closed, and the district’s own finance office has warned that the timing doesn’t line up. Rhodes proceeds aren’t expected to be available before the August 2026 payment is due. [9] Board President Nichole Pinkard put the stakes plainly: if that funding doesn’t come through as planned, “I don’t think anyone is up for $4 million of staffing cuts,” meaning the likely fallback is more cuts rather than a painless alternative. [7]

So Foster is one real factor among several in the structural deficit. State funding mechanisms that don’t keep up with true cost increases (particularly benefits, which regularly outpace inflation and make up a large share of the budget), staffing levels, and materially neglected facilities maintenance are all larger contributors to the overall deficit than Foster’s financing alone. The completion-funding gap, though, is a live risk worth watching closely through 2026. [10]

Sources: [6][7][8][9][10]

Because Foster answers a different and much older problem than the one driving the current deficit, and the history explains why. The previous FAQ discusses the financial impact of Foster, this FAQ briefly addresses the history.

Evanston’s 5th Ward, a historically Black neighborhood, lost its only neighborhood school in 1967, when Foster was converted into a magnet school as part of the district’s desegregation plan, busing Black students to schools across the district. For decades after, more than 400 Black children were bused out of the 5th Ward each year to schools elsewhere in Evanston. [11] In 1979, community advocates pushed to reopen Foster instead of closing other neighborhood schools. The district’s own analysis showed this would have required busing fewer total students overall, so the effect would have been to shift which students bore the disruption. The board voted 5-2 to keep Foster closed. [11] In 2010, even while the district needed more space due to rising enrollment, a board member’s proposal to build a 5th Ward school got no support from colleagues, and the board instead considered raising class sizes. [13] In 2012, a referendum that would have funded a 5th Ward school failed. Ward-level results show the 5th Ward itself voted more than 2-to-1 in favor, while the neighboring wards voted against it by the widest margins in the entire election, roughly 65% and 64% opposed. [15] Foster wasn’t approved for construction until 2022, 55 years after it closed. [14]

Given that history, Foster reads as the fulfillment of a decades-old commitment rather than an example of poor fiscal planning. As Delores Holmes, a longtime 5th Ward advocate, put it at the July 2024 groundbreaking: “this is a promise made over 50 years ago, and it’s finally being kept.” Jerome Summers, who served on the D65 board from 2005 to 2013 and campaigned specifically on rebuilding a 5th Ward school, echoed the same sentiment.

And the two problems genuinely coexist. The district has too many underused buildings elsewhere, with all ten K-5 elementary schools enrollment at 66% as of late August 2026. It also had, for over 50 years, zero walkable schools in the one neighborhood that had been asking for one since the day it closed, and that had to wait each of the times it wasn’t reopened when the history and the data supported doing so.
Sources: [11][12][13][14][15][42]

Because the buildings are old and have been underfunded for years.

The average District 65 building is more than 80 years old. A rigorous new facilities study by StudioGC found the district needs $598 million in repairs over the next several decades. About 68% of that cost, roughly $410 million is needed by 2037. This is significantly higher than the prior facilities plan done by Cordogan Clark in 2021, comparing the same years of projected costs. [16][18] Only two district buildings are currently rated in good condition. The district only recently began committing $2.7 million a year to capital repairs against a need several times that size, and even that modest commitment has been cut into to help balance this school year’s budget. [17][50]

One clarifying note. An average Facilities Condition Index (FCI) of 41% means major repairs are needed. It does not mean the buildings are beyond repair, and neither facilities plan presents the dollars as a lump sum due immediately. Both are phased, multi-decade estimates. The point stands for rightsizing regardless: spreading inadequate maintenance dollars across too many aging buildings means none of them gets properly fixed.

Part of the facilities plan is not a matter of priorities. In August 2026 the administration brought the board a 10-Year Health/Life Safety Survey, the inspection Illinois requires of every district once a decade. StudioGC performed it alongside the facilities plan. It identifies $128.8 million in health and life safety work, sorted into items that must be corrected within one year, within five years, and within ten. [62][63]

That $128.8 million represents roughly 31% of the identified ten-year need by Studio GC. What makes it different is that most of the facilities backlog is a question of priorities and sequencing, while this portion carries legal deadlines. One caution: the memo gives a single combined figure and does not break out how much falls in each urgency tier, so how much of it is due within one year is not yet public.

This gap in funding our facilities is also much older than the 2021 or 2026 estimates suggest. As early as 2005, a district life-safety survey identified $16 million in urgent work. By 2015, that project was still incomplete and the district had identified roughly $90 million in facilities needs altogether, eleven years before the first $188 million estimate. The number has been growing for at least two decades because it has never been fully funded, not because something suddenly got worse in the last few years.

Sources: [16][17][18][41][62][63]

No specific referendum has been proposed, but it has been alluded to in community proposals and board member plans. Objectively looking at the district’s financials, it is hard to see a scenario where one or more increases to taxes is avoided.

Start with what a referendum is for. Illinois caps how much a district can raise property taxes each year. A referendum is how a district asks voters to go above that cap, either for operating money or to borrow for buildings. District 65 last tried in 2012 and lost, and passed one in 2017 that was explicitly sold as a time-limited bridge. [1][15]

However, not all school borrowing requires a referendum. Two mechanisms already in use here do not.

The first is lease certificates, which is how Foster School was financed. That let the district build without a public vote, and it carries higher long-term costs than voter-approved bonds would have. [21]

The second is health and life safety financing. When a state-mandated safety survey identifies required work, Illinois law lets a board levy for it and, when the levy is not enough, issue bonds without a referendum, repaid over as long as twenty years. The work has to be approved by the State Superintendent and, in Cook County, by the Executive Director of the Intermediate Service Center, and it proceeds under an order from that office. Taxes levied to repay those bonds sit outside the property tax cap. [63] The survey the board received in August 2026 identified $128.8 million of such work. [62]

Nothing about either mechanism is illegal. Lease certificates and life safety bonds are lawful tools built for specific purposes, and the state approvals on the safety side are a meaningful check. But together they mean a substantial amount of borrowing and taxing can happen through board votes rather than community votes.

Sources: [1][15][21][62][63]

Yes, and it sits at the core of the “rightsizing” argument, though the district’s most recent demographic study (2024) shows a more nuanced picture than a simple, uninterrupted decline.

Elementary building utilization is projected to sit at about 67% for this school year.
Two choices go into that figure, and we’ve made both conservatively. For enrollment we use the district’s own projection for the upcoming 2026-27 school year. [56] For capacity, where the district’s two published sources disagree (the Cordogan Clark study and the SDRP hub table), we take the lower of the two for each building to avoid overstating empty space.The biggest differences are for Lincoln, Lincolnwood, and Washington; the lower figure is the hub’s, which reflects classrooms dedicated to the STEP program and therefore not available as general-education seats [52][57]

On that basis the ten K-5 attendance-area schools have a projected enrollment of about 3,330 against a combined capacity of about 4,950. [52] The three middle schools are a different story at about 73% combined. Across all fourteen buildings in that worksheet, utilization is about 69%.

For the coming 2026-27 school year, our ten K-5 elementary schools are projected to average about 333 students, with an average capacity of 495. The district is projecting 67% occupancy in our K-5 schools.[20]

The district’s demographer projects a decline of about 345 students over the next five years, and the district’s own internal projection runs steeper, forecasting a 525-student decline over the same period (2025-26 to 2030-31); the two differ mainly because the demography report counts a slightly different population. [58] Either way, the projections then show the decline nearly flattening, with a slight uptick in the mid-2030s rather than a continued slide. [19] So enrollment isn’t in freefall forever. It’s declining meaningfully now and then leveling off around a new, smaller normal, which is why rightsizing to that new normal, rather than waiting for a rebound, is the district’s core challenge.

Sources: [19][20][52][57]

Two different narratives circulate, and they aren’t equally supported.

Comparing census-counted school-age children living in the district to how many actually attend D65, the district-provided “capture rate” fell only modestly, from a median of 81.7% in 2020 to 79.3% in 2024. [19] That’s a real decline, but it makes voluntary departure a contributing factor rather than the dominant one. The bigger driver, per the district’s own demographer, is that fewer school-age children live here now, the result of an aging population, more empty-nest households, housing affordability, and low turnover of existing homes. [19] That is not to say that the number of kids going to private schools is not an important factor that the district should understand numerically and also in motivations for leaving.

Growing enrollment is still a worthwhile goal, and some community groups have proposed targets, for example adding roughly 200 students per year. [21] But it can’t substitute for aligning today’s costs to today’s enrollment. Even optimistic outreach takes years to show results, while the budget gap is immediate. And rebuilding the trust needed to win families back is easier from a rightsized, solvent starting point than from continued deficits.
Sources: [19][21]

More has already happened here than people often realize. The superintendent’s cabinet has gone from 8 members (2016-17, pre-Horton) to a peak of 12 (2022-23) back down to 6 (including 1 vacancy) today, smaller than where it started, a 50% cut from peak. Multiple community analyses show the district could still save a further $3 to $5.5 million a year by bringing its admin structure closer to peer-district norms. That range is a more detailed, updated estimate than an earlier and more conservative $1.4 to $1.6 million figure based on a simpler admin-to-student ratio comparison. [22][23][38][39][40]

Missing from this analysis is the incorporation of the HR audit, which the board noted during the May 4, 2026 board meeting would be presented at the June Committee of the Whole meeting (it has not been presented as of July 2026). [48] Also missing are clear definitions for a “peer district,” ensuring the comparison reflects the size, diversity, and complexity of our own.

There is an added challenge now. We have a term-limited interim superintendent, a new CFO, and two other cabinet resignations. It is important to recognize that all of the admin and staffing numbers represent human beings. This work cannot be done without all due care to ensure we’re doing what’s best for our students, and with an informed understanding of the roles our staff fulfill.

One specific number deserves caution: the district’s own $8.3 million admin-cut proposal. This figure, covering 22 administrators plus 42 non-union support positions, appeared in the district’s April 20, 2026 Phase III materials and missed its own contractual deadline for taking effect in FY27, pushing any resulting cuts to FY28 at the earliest. But there’s good reason to doubt $8.3M is a clean, actionable number. It likely represents a generally available list of positions flagged for review rather than a literal list of recommended eliminations. The board has routinely reviewed available options for cuts without choosing to implement them in their entirety, given the disruption that would cause. [47]

Headcount cuts alone can also disappoint in financial savings, though a widely repeated example of this deserves more care than it usually gets. Reporting found that in FY26 the district’s net position reduction of 91 came with total salary and benefit costs still rising by about $700,000, from $132.6 million to $133.3 million. That has been read as evidence that restructuring eliminated lower-paid positions while preserving expensive ones.

That reading may well be right, but this number doesn’t establish it. The district’s underlying costs grow around 4% a year, driven mostly by contractual salary and benefit increases and contractual obligations. Applied to a $132.6 million base, that alone would have added roughly $5.2 million. Against that, a net increase of $700,000 implies the reductions avoided something on the order of $4.5 million, or about $50,000 per position, which is an unremarkable average for the mix of roles involved. Some of those positions were also federally funded pandemic-relief roles always scheduled to expire, which complicates the comparison further.

The year-over-year figure measures the cuts against last year’s spending rather than against what this year’s spending would otherwise have been, and on the second measure the reductions appear to have done roughly what was expected. The narrower lesson still holds and still matters: because underlying costs rise every year, real headcount savings can coexist with a total budget that keeps growing. That is a reason to expect less visible relief from any single round of cuts, not evidence on its own that the wrong positions were cut.

Put it together. Administration is about 6.3% of the total budget, while salaries and benefits overall are about 70%. [46] So even an aggressive, fully realized version of further admin rightsizing, in the $3 to $5.5 million range this document treats as reasonably well-supported, doesn’t close the roughly $10 million still needed in operating cuts through FY30 on its own. (That $10 million figure: the board has tentatively approved about $6 million in cuts for FY26/27, with projected further cuts of $4.95 million (FY28), $2.95 million (FY29), and $1.6 million (FY30). [5][24] The FY28-30 slice alone totals $9.5 million, rounded here to $10 million. See the capital-fund question above for the related $300,000 drawn from the capital allotment rather than cut from operating this year.)

There’s also a timing cost to delay. The sooner these cuts are made, the fewer total cuts are needed to reach the same outcome within a few years due to the nature of inflationary impacts to delayed cuts.

Sources: [22][23][38][39][40][46][47][48]

Several community coalitions have put forward serious, independently produced alternatives to the district’s own closure scenarios. All of them converge on closing at most one additional school rather than two or more, which is close to what the board actually chose last year. Where they differ is mostly in how big the available savings actually are. Some estimates bundle in speculative or already-planned savings that inflate the apparent total, while others are more conservative.

The proposals also mix several very different kinds of money under one “revenue” heading:

• One-time money, like selling Bessie Rhodes or other district-owned property, or a partial sale of underutilized school grounds. Useful for closing a specific gap such as the Foster completion shortfall, but it doesn’t recur, so it can’t be counted on to solve next year’s budget too.
• One-time or possibly recurring donations. Any reliance on large fundraising goals needs to recognize the staffing and time needed to develop fundraising relationships, pipelines, cultivation, recognition, and moves management. Donors tend to prefer to give to an additive initiative rather than to close structural operational gaps.
• Recurring but genuinely uncertain, like cell-tower leases, solar-roof leases, facility rentals to outside groups, or corporate sponsorships. These require finding a counterparty willing to sign a contract, negotiating terms, and often permitting or capital investment up front. None of that is guaranteed to land at the estimated value, or on the estimated timeline.
• Recurring and largely within the district’s own control, like administrative rightsizing or reduced reliance on outside consultants. These show up credibly across multiple independent proposals and are the closest thing to a sure bet. As noted elsewhere in this FAQ, though, even a full version of these is not sufficient alone relative to the size of the gap.
• Recurring but slow to materialize, like enrollment-growth campaigns or new programming at underused buildings. Both could genuinely help over time, but they require sustained investment in staff, marketing, and program design before they produce material revenue. That’s realistically a multi-year payoff, not a fix for the immediate deficit.

None of this means the ideas are bad. Several are worth pursuing. But almost all of them, beyond straightforward staffing or purchased-service reductions, would need real planning: a feasibility and risk assessment, a mitigation plan if the assumed revenue doesn’t materialize, meaningful lead time before the first dollar arrives, and often new staff capacity to manage contracts, tenants, or programs that don’t run themselves. Treating a list of 20-plus ideas as a ready substitute for near-term operating cuts significantly understates the work and the risk involved in actually collecting that money.

We think the most useful takeaway isn’t any single proposal’s dollar figure. It’s that a genuine community consensus exists around a willingness to roll up our sleeves and get creative. These additional revenue ideas may be layered in over time as feasibility is actually tested rather than assumed, and they may be part of what addresses the ongoing structural deficit the district will still have even after the roughly $10 million more in cuts targeted through 2030.

Sources: [21][22][23]

Not in District 65. Since January 2021, all District 65 PTA fundraising has gone into a single pooled fund rather than staying at the school that raised it. The One Fund Initiative distributes that money back to every PTA using a formula with two parts: a flat amount per student, plus a variable amount weighted by each school’s share of students qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch relative to the district average. Schools without PTAs, including Rice and the Joseph E. Hill Early Childhood Center, receive flat allocations. The fund is held by the Evanston Community Foundation. [53]

This came from parents rather than from the district. The PTA Equity Project began in 2016 as a grassroots effort by PTA volunteers, ran a partial pilot in 2018 and 2019, and moved to full pooling after every PTA voted on it in December 2020. [53]

The problem it addressed was real. Reviewing 2016-17 PTA budgets, the project found per-student fundraising ranging from $32 to $286 depending on the school. That gap tracked a genuine difference in school populations, with more than 60% of students qualifying for free or reduced lunch in some buildings and fewer than 20% in others. [53]

One thing this does not mean. PTA money has never been what keeps buildings standing. The kinds of capital projects PTAs have historically funded are what the project itself calls extras, meaning playground equipment, library improvements, and auditorium sound systems. Life-safety and building-systems work is funded by the district, from the capital budget discussed elsewhere in this FAQ. So the deferred-maintenance problem was never one that any school’s parents could have fundraised around, at any point, regardless of wealth. That work rises or falls with the district’s own capital allocation, which is exactly why the reduction from $2.7 million to $2.4 million in this year’s budget matters. [53][10][31]

Sources: [10][31][53]

This is one of the ideas raised by multiple community proposals, and the district has since given a detailed, direct response to it. There turn out to be three different versions of the idea, and the district only modeled one of them.

JEH itself is underused, consistent with the broader capacity story in this FAQ. It has capacity for 404 students but currently enrolls 276, about 68%.

Version 1: distribute early childhood classrooms across multiple neighborhood schools. The district considered this during community engagement but did not model it, for three specific reasons it has stated directly:

1. Early childhood programming runs on grant funds and general district funds rather than tuition, so expanding it in the short term would increase district expenditures, cutting against SDRP III’s fiscal-sustainability goal rather than helping it.
2. Each additional site would need real capital renovation: safe playground and outdoor space, upgraded HVAC to manage asthma, allergies, and disease spread among young children, and child-sized cabinets, tables, sinks, and toilets.
3. Splitting the program across sites risks both higher special-education costs and lower program quality. Leading a strong early-childhood program serving a population with significant special-ed needs requires a unified team of educators, clinicians, and a school leader who deeply understands early childhood. Delivering consistent professional development also gets harder the more sites are involved.

That third reason rests on a specific legal requirement and on frontline testimony from district staff. Illinois law (Section 226.735 of the Illinois Administrative Code) requires districts to “implement and maintain limits on the workload of its special educators so that all services required under students’ IEPs… can be provided at the requisite level of intensity.”

At an April 2026 board meeting, a bilingual speech-language pathologist serving Early Childhood, Dewey, and the districtwide evaluation team testified about what dispersal would mean in practice. Centralizing lets her provide group therapy efficiently to students with similar needs, co-treat with occupational therapists and social workers, and hold regular consultative meetings with every specialist serving the roughly 42% of Early Childhood students with special needs. Spread across buildings, she said, “the only solution I can envision… is hiring more related service providers to provide the same services with less efficiency and lower quality.” That directly challenges the assumption that moving early childhood into elementary schools would save money once added staffing is accounted for. She also pointed to a specific precedent: when the district previously eliminated centralized cross-categorical special education programs and distributed that programming across schools, costs went up without improving student outcomes. [44]

The district separately floated a tuition-based model for families who don’t qualify for free or reduced lunch as one way to offset some of the cost. It said this idea, like the broader multi-site proposal, would need far more vetting and a longer implementation runway than SDRP Phase 3 allows, which is why it wasn’t modeled this round. (Worth flagging directly: whatever the eventual tuition amount, this would raise the same equity question addressed elsewhere in this FAQ. The federal free and reduced lunch threshold is a low bar relative to Evanston’s cost of living, so a “tuition for everyone above that line” model would still reach many solidly low- to middle-income families, not just wealthy ones. [54])

Version 2: relocate the entire JEH Early Childhood Center, as a single unit, into one other vacated school building. This version was modeled, and it’s a genuinely live idea rather than a rejected one. It could also free up the JEH building itself for the district’s separate Park program to move into (see below). Based on where JEH families currently live, the district says any relocated site should be in the 5th, 8th, or 9th ward, with adequate parking and safe drop-off and pick-up for both buses and family cars. It would still require capital investment to bring that site up to program standards. The earliest this could happen is the 2027-28 school year, with timing driven by available capital funds, competing capital priorities, and the scope of work needed at both buildings.

Version 3: close the JEH building entirely and move the administrative offices elsewhere too. This idea also came directly from community and committee feedback, and the district’s answer to it is the sharpest of the three. JEH is the newest building in the entire district, completed in 2002, and the only one with a facilities condition rating other than “poor” or “very poor.” It’s rated “average” at an 18.16% Facilities Condition Index, dramatically better than the 41% districtwide average cited elsewhere in this FAQ. Its main floor is modern, purpose-built, and currently serves almost 300 children in what the district itself calls “a high quality learning environment.” Given that, the district recommends students continue to be educated at JEH and did not model fully closing the building. In plain terms, of the district’s aging building stock, JEH is arguably the least logical one to close on facilities grounds alone, whatever the merits of the administrative-office question.

Sources: [22][23][43][44]

Yes, the savings are significant but not sufficient by themselves.

Operating savings. The district’s standing estimate is roughly $1.6 to $2 million a year in operating savings per closed elementary building. One independent community analysis put a single closure closer to $1.69 million. This operating figure already includes the ongoing costs of running a building, meaning utilities, custodial staffing, and routine upkeep, so it isn’t something to add on top separately. There may be additional efficiencies uncovered when operations and facilities become less complex. As a share of the annual budget this is small, about 0.8% as IINS notes, but as a share of what cuts the district still has to find it’s a lot more, on the order of 17% of the total still needing to be cut. Combined multi-school scenarios, with associated lease or sale revenue, can approach $6 million or more per year, which is meaningful progress toward the $16 to $18 million Phase III target. Even so, closures alone, including several of them, don’t fully close the gap. That’s why closures are paired with staffing reductions, program changes, and eventually additional revenue, most likely a future referendum, rather than treated as a stand-alone fix.

Avoided deferred-maintenance liability. Closing a building saves on operating it and also removes that building’s share of the district’s capital repair backlog. The district’s 2026 StudioGC assessment identifies $598.2 million in need districtwide, in 2025 dollars escalated 4.5% annually, broken out by individual building and spanning 2027 through 2075. That need is heavily front-loaded: summing the assessment’s own year-by-year schedule, $409.6 million of it, about 68%, falls in just the first ten years, through 2036. [50]

Of that near-term total, roughly $37.3 million is attached to the two buildings the district has already closed: about $15.9 million at Bessie Rhodes and about $21.4 million at Kingsley. If both properties are sold, that is capital need the district sheds rather than carries, leaving roughly $372.3 million across the remaining buildings through 2036. [50]

But selling is a separate decision from closing, and it deserves its own scrutiny. Shedding the liability also means shedding the asset, permanently. A building that has been sold cannot be reopened if enrollment steadies, and the district’s own demographer projects a slight uptick in the mid-2030s. Evanston is landlocked and essentially fully built out, so suitable sites are scarce as well as expensive, and building a school costs vastly more than maintaining one, as Foster’s roughly $40 million in lease-certificate financing illustrates. There are also live district needs that a held building could meet: the district has said any relocation of the Early Childhood Center would require a suitable site in the 5th, 8th, or 9th ward, which is exactly the kind of use a prematurely sold property forecloses.

Selling, leasing, mothballing, or holding a parcel carry different risks and different returns, and the district has already committed anticipated Rhodes proceeds to closing the Foster construction gap, which is a one-time use of a one-time asset. None of this argues against closure. It argues that the closure and sale decisions may need to be separated depending on circumstances.

Sources: [8][9][16][19][23][24][43][47][50]

In recent years, transportation has been one of the fastest-growing and least predictable cost centers in the district, and it cuts in more than one direction.

Special-education transportation specifically rose more than 400% in four years, from about $1.8 million to $7.3 million in SY 23-24. In recent years it has gone down to $6.9 million for SY 24-25. See the special-ed question below for the fuller picture. [25] Separately, consolidating buildings can increase general busing costs in the short term, since redrawn boundaries mean more students traveling farther to a new assigned school. Some closure scenarios explicitly required more busing to keep the remaining buildings from becoming overcrowded. The district has also moved to competitively re-bid transportation contracts that had previously been awarded without competitive bidding, which should help on the cost side regardless of the closure outcome. Staff have noted that only two providers currently service the area, which limits the district’s bargaining leverage.

Of note: at the June 22, 2026 board meeting, outgoing CFO Tamara Mitchell informed the board that she had negotiated a $200,000 credit from Britelift, one of the district’s transportation providers, to be applied incrementally during the 2026-27 school year.

Sources: [25][31][49]

Start with what the audit doesn’t say, because that’s the part most often lost. This is not a story about special education students costing too much.

The WestEd audit found that D65’s special education programs comply with federal law, that its placement processes follow best practice, and that its inclusion rate is higher than the state average and higher than every comparison district. Nothing in the audit suggests students are getting services they don’t need, and nothing in it gives the district license to reduce any student’s services. Those are set by each child’s IEP team rather than by a budget line, and that’s federal law.

What the audit does say is that the district cannot currently explain a large share of its own spending increase. That’s a systems and accountability problem. Five findings stand out.

1. The increase was sharp, sudden, and unprecedented. State and local special education spending rose from $27.8 million (2021-22) to $45.1 million (2023-24), a $17.3 million increase in two years. [25][27] WestEd reviewed 15 prior years of data, and no single year had ever increased by more than $2 million. Then two years in a row came in at $7.4M and $9.9M, while the number of students with IEPs actually declined slightly over the same period, from 1,102 in 2020 to 1,061 in 2024. It is important to note that costs will not rise and fall equally with the number of students served. It is a federal requirement to meet the needs of students individually, and one student’s needs may be very different in scope and cost from another.
2. Transportation quadrupled, and even the auditors couldn’t pin down one cause. Special-ed transportation rose from $1.8 million (2020-21) to $7.3 million (2023-24). [25] WestEd checked the obvious explanations and ruled them out. Student counts grew only modestly, and out-of-district placements stayed essentially flat, at 60, 82, 86, 82, and 67 students over five years. Their own conclusion: “there is likely not one clearly identifiable cause of the increase.”
3. Purchased services grew fivefold, and the district couldn’t produce a record of what was bought. Purchased services rose from $716,000 (2022) to $3.75 million (2024). WestEd noted that “historical tracking of contracted services for special education was not available for review.” One concrete inefficiency the audit did surface: contracted paraprofessionals bill roughly $61 an hour, against an average of about $31,654 a year for the district’s own paraprofessionals. WestEd recommends shifting toward in-district hires where feasible.
4. The opportunity gap widened rather than narrowed. The reading gap between students with IEPs and those without grew from -34 (2021) to -45 (2024), against a statewide gap of -36. The math gap is about 50% wider than the state’s. WestEd flagged this same gap in its 2019-20 review of D65. Six years and two audits later, it has gotten worse. Whatever the additional $17M+ bought, it did not buy better outcomes for students with disabilities.
5. The financial tracking exists but isn’t used for planning. The district has tracked “Maintenance of Effort” (MOE) data since 2008 but treats it as a report to file rather than a tool for decisions, with no defined procedures or communication between the special education, finance, and HR departments. WestEd also found the district tracks only two of the four methods federal law allows for demonstrating MOE compliance, and that using all four would give the district more flexibility rather than less.

An important correction to how this gets talked about. District budget materials have described near-term special-education spending reductions as “neither realistic nor legally permissible,” but that framing is stronger than what WestEd’s own findings support. [26] MOE rules do constrain year-over-year reductions, and special education is genuinely not an easy target for simple cost-cutting. Still, the audit itself doesn’t conclude the district’s hands are as tied as that language suggests, especially given that it isn’t yet using all the flexibility federal law actually allows. The three-year improvement plan is now underway, aimed at better outcomes and real accountability for the money already being spent rather than at finding cuts.

One more gap: the district’s own staff survey for this audit included zero general education staff, in a district whose entire inclusion model depends on general-ed and special-ed staff working together. WestEd recommended fixing that and we will pay attention to any developments on that front.

This pressure is current, not historical. In FY2026 the district finished about $3.0 million over budget on special education, split roughly evenly between staffing for paraprofessionals and teachers and tuition for students placed outside the district. [61] It was the single largest expenditure variance in the year-end report.

Sources: [25][26][27][45][61]

To be honest, there’s been a lot of input.

Note: the Phase III board-meeting count of 18 excludes the 3 statutory hearings, which are listed separately.

At the same time, many community members feel that the eventual decisions didn’t clearly track the criteria they helped build, or that the outcomes were semi- or fully predefined. Years of prior financial mismanagement also mean the district is rebuilding trust from a real deficit rather than from a neutral starting point. The sheer number of communications and engagement opportunities shows the district heard from the community, but hearing isn’t the same as consensus, and whether a true consensus versus a functional consensus is achievable is to be determined. There’s also a real question of which populations may be underrepresented in the feedback, given factors like transportation, childcare, scheduling conflicts, inflexible work schedules, or language barriers.

If there are perspectives you think the board has not heard, we encourage you to check out our Board Advocacy Guide.

Sources: [21][33][51]

This answer lays out documented history and then states where Thrive65 lands on it. We’ve marked our view as ours; you can weigh the facts differently and reach your own conclusion.

Walkability isn’t a formally recognized legal right the way, say, a free appropriate public education for children with disabilities is. But it’s a value District 65 families consistently rank near the top, which is why it comes up so often in the closure debate.

Here’s the history that we think should inform how the word gets used. Evanston’s 5th Ward, a historic Black neighborhood, lost its only neighborhood school in 1967 and went without one for 55 years. For much of that time, more than 400 Black children were bused out of the ward each year, and the need for a school there was named by the district’s own committees in 1979, 1992, and 2002, then declined for cost each time. A 2012 referendum would have rebuilt it and failed. The 5th Ward itself voted about 67% in favor. Two neighboring wards voted against it by the widest margins in the entire election, roughly 65% and 64% opposed, even though they had four other elementary schools within their two wards and the 5th Ward had none. Those votes were decisive in defeating the referendum. [14][15]

We raise this to explain how the word gets used now, not to relitigate a fourteen-year-old vote. A value that applies to one’s own children and not to someone else’s isn’t a shared value. That cuts toward the 5th Ward, the community asked to wait the longest for a walkable school, and it also cuts toward the times when applying the value evenly means other neighborhoods share some of the disruption that rightsizing requires. We’d encourage anyone weighing walking distances to look at current boundary maps rather than assume, and to hold the question with this full history in view.

Sources: [14][15]

Devon Horton served as District 65 superintendent from June 2020 to June 2023, then left before his contract was up for a superintendent job in Georgia. In October 2025, he was indicted on 17 federal counts of wire fraud, embezzlement, and tax evasion, tied to an alleged kickback scheme involving vendor contracts with both District 65 and Chicago Public Schools. [3] He and his co-defendants have pleaded not guilty. A three-week jury trial is scheduled for October 2026, and the board has commissioned a forensic audit (Crowe LLP) covering his tenure and its aftermath. [37]

Beyond the criminal case, a documented pattern of financial mismanagement during this period compounded the district’s structural challenges. Zero-based budgeting, a rigorous line-by-line budget discipline, was quietly abandoned. Financial statements were delivered late or not at all. Required contract-approval processes weren’t followed. And the district absorbed roughly $20 million in unbudgeted deficits across two fiscal years that nobody had flagged in advance. [34][35] Two new six-figure executive positions were created without ever being brought to the board for approval. [34] The decision to finance Foster School through lease certificates rather than a referendum, which avoided a public vote but loaded a recurring payment onto the operating budget rather than a dedicated capital stream, was also made during this period. [6]

Separately, Horton owed the district $25,000 upon his departure for breach of contract (insufficient notice). As of late 2025 he still owed over $10,000 despite a long-running repayment plan. [36]

Where this fits in the larger picture. The mismatch between costs and enrollment was documented by the district in 2009, spelled out in detail by a citizens’ budget committee in 2011, and openly built into the 2017 referendum, which was sold to voters as a time-limited bridge meant to buy room for restructuring. (See “When did this structural deficit start and what caused it?” above for that record.) What happened between 2020 and 2023 spent that runway and deepened the hole, but the hole was already there and already documented. [1][2][39][40][41]

That distinction matters for what comes next. If this were primarily a governance failure, replacing the leadership would largely have resolved it. The leadership has been replaced, and it hasn’t, because the underlying arithmetic is unchanged. Enrollment is still down, the buildings are still old, and property tax revenue still grows more slowly than costs.

What those years should leave the district with is a set of conditions: financial reports delivered when they are due, contracts that follow the approval process, a board that asks questions before it signs, and a forensic audit that finishes and gets published. Every one of those is achievable now, and the board and staff have made significant progress on that front.

Sources: [1][2][3][6][34][35][36][37][39][40][41]

1. Evanston RoundTable, “80% Yes! D65 Referendum Passes” (April 5, 2017) [link]

2. Evanston RoundTable, “From a Referendum to Budget Deficits: How District 65 Got Here” (March 23, 2025) [link]

3. Evanston RoundTable, “Devon Horton, ex-District 65 chief, faces criminal charges” (Oct. 9, 2025) [link]

4. Evanston Now, “D65: budget cuts could hit classroom” (Aug. 2024) [link]

5. District 65 Board of Education, “Expenditure Reduction Plan: SDRP Phase 3 Reductions,” board presentation (April 13, 2026) [link]

6. Evanston RoundTable, “Lease Certificates 101: A Primer on Funding the Fifth Ward School” (Dec. 21, 2022) [link]

7. Evanston RoundTable, “District 65 Discusses Possible Sale of Bessie Rhodes and Kingsley” (May 19, 2026) [link]

8. Evanston Now, “D65 Needs More Money to Finish Foster” (May 2026) [link]

9. Evanston Now, “D65: Six Groups Interested in Acquiring Rhodes” (May 18, 2026) [link]

10. District 65, “2026-2027 (FY27) Preliminary Budget” memo, CFO Tamara Mitchell (June 22, 2026) [link]

11. Evanston RoundTable, “Foster School: Its Role in Desegregating School District 65 in 1967 and Its Closing in 1979” [link]

12. Evanston RoundTable, “D65 School Board to Retain Consultant to Study Wide Range of ‘Momentous’ Issues” (2009) [link]

13. Evanston RoundTable, “D65 Board Considering a Cap and Transfer Strategy and Increasing Class Sizes” (2010) [link]

14. Daily Northwestern, “From Foster to Family Focus: More Than a Century of District 65 Decisions in the 5th Ward” (2022) [link]

15. Ward-level results of the March 2012 District 65 referendum as reported in Jordan Graham, “D65 Referendum Precinct Vote Breakdown Shows Split Across Wards,” Evanston Patch (March 22, 2012), citing Cook County Clerk precinct data (5th Ward 67.3% yes; 6th Ward 65.6% no; 7th Ward 63.7% no) [link]

16. Evanston RoundTable, “District 65 Discusses Report Projecting $598 Million in Facilities Spending Over Next 49 Years” (March 24, 2026) [link]

17. Evanston Now, “D65: Almost $600M in Repairs Needed” (March 2026) [link]

18. Cordogan Clark, District 65 facilities condition report (2022) [link]

19. District 65, “Updated Demography Study as of December 2024” memo, Dr. Stacy Beardsley, Assistant Superintendent (Feb. 10, 2025) [link]

20. District 65, “Capacity & Utilization Calculations” worksheet. [link] District 65, SDRP Hub, “Zero-School Closure (Baseline)” Data Tables, Utilization [link]

21. “Whatever It Takes” (WIT), alternative SDRP III path proposal, community-submitted document [link]

22. Legion of Data Nerds, “Financial Levers Memo” (Nov. 12, 2025), community-submitted document [link]

23. Invest in Neighborhood Schools (IINS), proposal letter to the D65 Board, community-submitted document [link]

24. District 65, SDRP Phase III school-closure scenario presentations, including “SDRP III School Scenarios Overview Memo” (Sept.–Oct. 2025) [link]

25. Evanston Now, “Audit: D65 special ed costs have skyrocketed” (Jan. 27, 2026) [link]

26. Evanston RoundTable, “Special Education Audit Recommends Oversight, Consistency in District 65” (March 1, 2026) [link]

27. Evanston RoundTable, “Analysis: With a 57% Increase in Special Education Funding, There Should Be Accountability to Significantly Improve Student Outcomes” (May 24, 2026) [link]

28. Evanston RoundTable, “District 65’s Financial Flexibility Weakens for Next Fiscal Year” (April 23, 2026) [link]

29. Evanston Now, “County Tax Mess Cost D65 More Than $1 Million” (Jan. 7, 2026) [link]

30. Evanston Now, “D65: ‘No Positive News’ About Cook County Tax Mess” (Jan. 13, 2026) [link]

31. Evanston Now, “D65 Breaking a Budget Promise” (April 21, 2026) [link]

32. Evanston RoundTable, “District 65 School Board Agrees on $969K in Budget Cuts” (May 5, 2026) [link]

33. District 65, SDRP Phase III community and staff engagement summary reports [link]

34. FOIA Gras (Tom Hayden), “District 65’s Financial Problems are the Result of Mismanagement” (April 2026) [link]

35. Evanston RoundTable, “Financial malfeasance allegations followed Horton for years” (Oct. 12, 2025) [link]

36. Evanston RoundTable, “Former D65 Superintendent Still Owes Over $10,000 Due to Late Payments” (Oct. 18, 2025) [link]

37. Evanston RoundTable, “Trial for Former District 65 Superintendent Set for October” (Feb. 11, 2026) [link]

38. District 65, Board Memo, “Annual Students Assignment Process” (Nov. 2023, ISBE 2024 data). Peer-district comparison data. [link]

39. Evanston RoundTable, “School District 65 Projecting $8 Million in Deficits Over Next Five Years” (March 18, 2009) [link]

40. Evanston RoundTable, “D65 Citizens Ad Hoc Budget Committee Presents Report” (Dec. 6, 2011) [link]; Patch.com, “Proposed District 65 Budget Grows, Balanced By Referendum” (2018) [link]

41. Evanston RoundTable, “D65 Opens Discussion on Possible Referendum, Will Form a Budget Task Force” (May 20, 2015) [link]; also “District 65 School Board Approves Tentative Budget with $98.5 Million Operating Expenses for 2010-11 School Year” (Aug. 17, 2010) [link] and “D65 School Board Approves Tentative Budget, $104.4 Million Operating Expenses” (Aug. 28, 2013) [link]

42. Evanston Now, “At Last — Ground Broken for New 5th Ward School” (July 16, 2024) [link]

43. District 65, Administration’s response to SDRP III spring community engagement feedback. Options considered for Orrington Elementary, Park School, and the Joseph E. Hill (JEH) Early Childhood Center (2026) [link]

44. Julie Irons, bilingual speech-language pathologist, District 65 Early Childhood Center. Public comment, District 65 Board of Education meeting minutes, April 20, 2026 [link]

45. Ballew, T., Mukuna, A., & Quigley-Cook, H. (2025). Evanston-Skokie School District 65 Special Education Review. WestEd (November 2025); District 65 Management’s Discussion and Analysis [link]

46. Legion of Data Nerds, “District 65 Administrative Growth Over Time” [link] and “Org Chart Creep” (analyses updated through May 15, 2026), community-submitted documents [link]

47. FOIA Gras guest post and comment discussion, “What Happens When Parents Get Serious About Public Records” (Tom Hayden, June 2, 2026) [link]

48. District 65, Board Committee of the Whole Meeting Minutes, May 4, 2026 [link]

49. District 65, Board Memo, “BriteLift Amendment” [link]

50. District 65, Board Memo, “HLS_MFP Report Memo 3.23.26” (March 23, 2026). Ten-year and per-building figures calculated by Thrive65 from Appendix A, “Facility Assessment Table: Summary by Building and Year,” summing scheduled need for 2027 through 2036. Year rows sum to $598.1M against the report’s stated $598.2M total, a rounding difference. [link]

51. District 65, SDRP Hub, “Engagement Opportunities and Resources” [link]

52. District 65, “Capacity & Utilization Calculations: Summary” worksheet, SY25 with board-approved future boundaries including Foster. [link]

53. PTA Equity Project (PEP), “About” and One Fund Initiative FAQ, ptaequityproject.com. PEP is a grassroots parent- and caregiver-led initiative operating in partnership with the Evanston/Skokie PTA Council; the PEP Fund is held by the Evanston Community Foundation. Note that PEP’s published materials describing the capital-project component date from the One Fund launch period and indicate that piece was still being worked through; its current status has not been confirmed. [link]

54. Illinois State Board of Education, “Income Eligibility Guidelines” for free and reduced-price meals (School Year 2026-27), ISBE Document 68-06, setting the federal income thresholds referenced here. [link]

55. Evanston RoundTable, “Analysis and viewpoint: District 65 has 25% fewer students, but 10% more staff. Why?” (March 22, 2026), reporting Illinois State Board of Education enrollment data for 2018-19 and district-reported enrollment for 2025-26, and comparing the decline to 21 nearby districts. [link]

56. District 65, “SY27 Enrollment Update 26_05_18” [link]
57. District 65, SDRP Hub, “Zero-School Closure (Baseline)” Data Tables, Utilization [link]
58. District 65, “5-Year Enrollment & Projections” memo to the Board of Education (Committee of the Whole, Nov. 2025), Table 3. Reports a district internal projected decline of 525 students for 2025-26 to 2030-31, noting the McKibben demography report separately projects 345 (it counts a slightly different population). [link]
59. District 65 Board of Education, “Resolution of the Board of Education Regarding the Closure of Kingsley Elementary School” (adopted Jan. 9, 2026). [link]
60. District 65 Board of Education, minutes of the April 20, 2026 regular board meeting (approved May 18, 2026), recording the approved FY27 position reductions: 53.5 cut, 1 added, net 52.5 FTE, $3,565,106. [link]
61. District 65, “FY2026 Unaudited Financial Year in Review,” memo from Eric Miller, Chief Financial Officer, to the Board of Education (August 3, 2026). [link]
62. District 65, “HLS Approval for Submission to ISBE,” board memo from Dr. Stacy Beardsley, Assistant Superintendent for Accountability (August 4, 2026), presenting the StudioGC 10-Year Health/Life Safety Survey. [link]
63. 105 ILCS 5/17-2.11, school board authority to levy taxes or issue bonds for fire prevention, safety, and specified repair purposes, including issuance without referendum where levy proceeds are insufficient; and 23 Illinois Administrative Code Part 180. [link]
64. Illinois State Board of Education, “2025 School District Financial Profile Scores, Based on Fiscal Year 2024 Annual Financial Reports” (October 2025), Table 7. Of 849 districts reporting, 38 (4.5%) held fewer than 100 days cash on hand; ISBE requires a minimum of 180 days to earn the highest score on that indicator.[link]

This FAQ reflects information available as of mid-2026 and will be updated as new board decisions, reports, and community proposals develop.

Thrive65 assembled our FAQs with help from Claude.ai on summarizing trends and visualizing data sets from multiple sources like news articles, board meeting presentations and comments, D65 SDRP resources, etc. Also a lot of nerding out on history and data from a few of us.
Note that we used Claude to help with inline sourcing, if anything is off on sourcing (or anything else!) let us know. This was mostly written and assembled by one person so mistakes are possible!