The angry parents are not pulling any punches.
In a letter to the District 65 Board of Education and top administrators, nearly 50 parents whose children attend the Bessie Rhodes School of Global Studies accuse the district of going back on its word to preserve the Rhodes magnet program, by dropping plans to move its bilingual program to the new 5th Ward School.
“We write this letter to make the following clear,” the letter states. “[W]e want the Bessie Rhodes K-8 TWI program maintained in District 65 as it was promised to us.”
(TWI stands for two-way-immersion, a bilingual English/Spanish curriculum).
Moving Rhodes to the 5th Ward, the so-called “school within a school” model, was a key part of the 5th Ward School plan, approved by the board of education in March, 2022.
Read the full text of the parents’ letter.
But a few weeks ago, Interim Superintendent Angel Turner and Student Assignment Manager Sarita Smith wrote to the Rhodes community saying the “school within a school” plan was dead.
There were references to “building constraints,” but parents who attended a Rhodes meeting with District 65 officials on Sept. 21 tell Evanston Now there were no specifics discussed on whatever those constraints might be.
Plus, besides dropping Rhodes from the 5th Ward School, District 65 is also considering another huge change from the original plan — making the new school K-5 instead of K-8. (Rhodes is K-8).
One of the parents who was at the Sept. 21 meeting and signed the letter is Brigitte Frett Utter.
Utter, the mom of a Rhodes 2nd grader, tells Evanston Now that she is “concerned that [D65 officials] are not putting our children’s education first. Chaos has been created.”
Another 2nd grade parent, Ryan Lezcano, was also at the September session, and signed the letter to the district.
He tells Evanston Now, “I left there with a lot more questions than answers. They didn’t even know if the 5th Ward school will be K-5 or K-8. What school are you building?”
“We would think,” Lezcano says, “that after more than a year-and-a-half they should know the basic question of K-5 or K-8.”
The parents’ letter points out that bids for part of the 5th Ward site clearing and foundation work will be opened soon, but notes “what exactly are the … [bid] drawings based on? Are the intentions to build a K-8 or K-5 school? Which students will the school serve? Many critical questions remain unanswered.”
The letter stresses that the Rhodes parents are not opposed to the 5th Ward School.
Quite the opposite.
The parents’ letter says they simply support Rhodes and want it preserved as an entire school entity, in the 5th Ward school or else by keeping the existing Rhodes building open.
“We must not allow Bessie Rhodes and the K-8 TWI model to be collateral damage in the redistricting process,” the letter adds.
The 5th Ward School, which is supposed to open in the fall of 2025, is part of an overall redrawing of school attendance boundaries.
The original plan, which moved Rhodes and its 260 students to the 5th Ward, also called for sale of what would then become the former Rhodes building.
The parents’ letter also raises concerns about the fate of Rhodes’ teachers.
“Our teachers and staff were promised publicly and through your votes,” the letter tells the school board, “that their jobs were secure and would continue at the 5th Ward school. At the Sept. 21 meeting, this promise seems to be disintegrating.”
The TWI component is also important to the parents. Currently, TWI ends in 5th grade. The district planned to add TWI to Rhodes’ grades 6-8, but, of course, that can’t happen at Rhodes if there is no Rhodes.
Utter says if the “school within a school” concept is indeed dead, Rhodes parents are determined to save Bessie Rhodes school somehow.
“We want our school to be preserved. We are open to different ways to do it, or to keep it as is.”
The letter says that while “the District claims enrollment is driving the decision to close Bessie Rhodes,” the system’s own data shows that Rhodes is one of a handful of D65 schools where enrollment has not consistently decreased in the past five years, and is even projected to grow.
The parents also say that fixing up the Rhodes building would actually cost less than repairs for some of the district’s other schools.
Wrapping up their letter, the parents insist that the school board must keep its promise to keep the Rhodes program, and “any deviation from these plans must be transparently discussed in public forums and then openly voted on in the public record by the School Board.”
And what of the children who attend Rhodes?
Utter says her second grader, Max, is “definitely aware that something is going on. He’s aware of talk of closing the school.”
But if Max were able to navigate through the District 65 website, he’d discover that the district is not exactly keeping up with its own reality.
On one of the pages about the 5th Ward School, the site still says that school will be for children in the local attendance zone “and will also serve as the new home of Dr. Bessie Rhodes School of Global Studies.”
Except, apparently, it won’t.
Update 7 p.m. 10/5/23: Another parent who signed the letter tells Evanston Now that “there are Bessie Rhodes families who are leaving,” and “the teachers don’t know what their future looks like.”
Mike Kendrick and his wife have a kindergartener and 2nd grader at the school.
Kendrick is a school administrator, but not in District 65.
As an administrator, Kendrick says he knows plans can change, but changes, and the reasons for them, should be properly explained
However, Kendrick says that the communication from D65 to Rhodes families and staff “has not been clear. It doesn’t feel like there’s been much transparency.”
“We were promised a school within a school,” he says, and his family were “committed” to the 5th Ward building with Rhodes included.
But with the “school within a school” now off the table, Kendrick says those with direct stakes in Bessie Rhodes- the parents, the staff, and, of course, the students, “have no idea what’s going to happen.”
They should be angry, but the mob wanted a monorail and the mob has spoken.
When is D65 going to come clean on this school? How many kids? What curriculum? What cost? It’s long overdue.
Let’s just get rid of “magnet schools” altogether. How are they equitable? How can a k-8 school with 260 kids like Rhodes be cost effective? And our other magnet, King, has the worst outcomes in the district, Especially for Black students. A school within a school is a ridiculous idea — just make it a TWI program.
Sorry, Rhodes parents, but you are not entitled to a “school within a school”. Likely other families will be moved due to redistricting – it’s too bad but hopefully will be equitable for most.
Your logic is flawed. If the goal is to “hopefully” be “equitable for most,” then by definition neither the TWI programs nor the Ward 5 school should be on the table. I disagree, but this is your stated logic we’re using. You might want to tighten up that statement or else it’ll continue to resemble the jumbled mess that is D65 & their shifting 8 or 5 grade school plans & broken promises.
Maybe not. But they are entitled to clear and consistent communication on an issue that concerns their children’s education.
It’s not entitlement! as a formal Rhodes parent we are asking be up front. Stop hiding facts. Facts are that this new ward school is not going to be beneficial for neither ethnicity students. Making a new school at a district where the majority is black… think for 2 seconds and reflect why is the district trying to keep certain ethnicity confined. You don’t see this problem at lincoln or Willard and I can assure regardless of redistricting which is more ridiculous because they are making sure certain students don’t attend certain schools.you have families from Chicago using evanston address to attend one of our schools that should be a priority as well when considering redistricting. King lab, agreed not the best school but moving them to another building without a plan?
This gets to the flawed logic used by the board to justify the school.
It should be emphasized that there is no ACADEMIC reason to build a new school.
The ONLY rationale was “we need a school there because Foster school was closed 50 years ago and that was bad.” There is NO evidence in the academic literature that busing has a negative impact on educational outcomes. The District has plenty of ‘black and brown’ students who live in other parts of town and walk to school. Did the District look at test scores of students who take the bus vs. those who don’t controlling for variables outside of district control (like race, class, etc..)? The answer is no.
The entire effort was based on nostalgia for what the neighborhood was like 50 years ago. They want to Make the 5th Ward Great Again.
Of course nostalgia ignores the reality: the neighborhood is much more diverse than it was 50 years ago. Most “black and brown” kids don’t live in the 5th Ward.
Because there is no real need for a new school and it is entirely based on the nostalgic reminisces of a small number of long-time residents, the board knew they couldn’t build the school the normal way by asking citizens to approve a bond issue. Instead the dodgy funding scheme is taking money out of the general budget which will inevitably result in less resources for instruction, extra curricular activities and capital upkeep of the district’s other properties.
It is going to result in poor outcomes throughout the District most likely. And to the chagrin of the Make the 5th Ward Great Again group, the new school will accelerate gentrification, making them more upset.
Well when we vote for school board members and then they hire superintendents and asst. superintendents etc. etc. No one is looking for competency. Competency has been replaced with certain words — marginalized, equity, social justice, etc. It is necessary to run two school districts with competency. One can only dream.
The community has been sold a bill of goods by a fake “leadership” team — JEH Administrators and the Board of Ed. From the start, Bessie R families were lied to. They may not be entitled to “a school within a school,” but that’s what they were told they were going to get, and being lied to, and purposefully at that, is devastating. What was obvious to some then and hopefully to all now: those were just words. Words said to mollify, to appease, and ultimately, to stop a potential build-up of opposition to a new school and criticism of Admin & Board.
In the end, like my daddy always said, you have to believe someone when they show and tell you who they are. These so-called leaders have shown us time and time again who they are. Nothing — absolutely nothing — that comes out of their mouths is the truth. They are literally taking Evanston & its kids for a ride and laughing behind our backs. When will they come clean about the new school? Only when we demand that they do, regardless of the names they call us. I’m not sure many in Evanston have the stomach to stand up for what’s right. Maybe Bessie R families can lead the way. Maybe.
Read the tea leaves…the principal left days before the school started.
The School within a School idea was silly from the get-go. It was an idea that wasn’t even on the table when the Student Reassignment Committee presented its findings to the Board a couple of weeks prior to the vote to go ahead with the school.
The basic premise was that putting up this building was going to be pain free for everyone – no one’s schools were going to be closed, no new taxes were going to be required, it was going to be paid for in savings from not having to bus kids around.
As time has passed, there have been two serious looks at the financing that shows that the savings intended to put up the building simply aren’t there and the Board has been told that no one has actually done the work to make sure that the numbers add up. Nonetheless, we have borrowed $40 million to build a new school and committed ourselves to pay $3.25 million per year out of operating funds.
The scope of the building seems to be changing as well. It was supposed to be a K-8 building, now there is discussion that it may be K-5 when we are less than 2 years from opening the doors to this new school building. And the budget has never changed – it is and always was $40 million when anyone who buys anything knows that prices are shooting through the roof.
There are so many serious, open questions about what is happening and the lies told to Rhodes families is just one of the many problems our leadership lacks the courage to address directly.
Unnfortunately the “promise” to have a “school in a school” does not meet the original plan for a 5th Ward School serving the residents of the 5th Ward.
Too many concepts have gone from a one-level to a two-level to a three-level school further expanding the original Foster School (K-5) feeding into Haven Middle School and adding 6-8th grades. The new 5th Ward School twill relieve the overcrowding currently at Haven MS
It has been over 50 years years of the school district busing over 600 students out of the 5th Ward. Losing their neighborhood school, as well as the stability of the school/parent/student relationship in the community. Finally this will be being corrected. It is certainly a greater prority!
My understandinging is that there will be TWI, ACC and General ED curriculums.
Much interesi is also in STEM/STEAM focus.
Teachers can be moved or go to the 5th Ward School. Over the years, many D65 schools have been changed in staffing and building names (Skiles, Timber Ridge, Central, etc).
The Legacy of Bessie Rhodes can be honored in other approriate ways.
I don’t disagree. The issue I have is that the Admin & Board were too eager to appease at best or intentionally dishonest at worst — when they responded to the upset of the Bessie R community upon finding out that part of the plan was to sell off their school. At minimum that school community deserved an honest response to their expressed upset. They didn’t get that — far from it. And now two years into planning they finally get some truth-telling from the “leaders.” I don’t blame them for being upset.
As for the new school, I hope that the 5th Ward gets all that they’ve been promised. Given the Admin & Board’s track record, however, I’m not holding my breath. Hopefully, 5th Ward Evanstonians are watching them very closely because the more time that passes, the worse this all looks.
It looks like the good people of Evanston got played and sold a bag of goods by Horton in a manner similar to the storyline of the old musical The Music Man. Horton cavalierly offered up the idea of why not combine Rhodes with the new 5th ward school as a means of diffusing any opposition from that quarter, well knowing that the building site size did not fit that large a building, nor did a realistic assessment of the costs of building to accommodate Rhodes and K-8 for all. The board may or may not have known better but I think the Sup. did know better. Wily not stupid.