Last week I read retired Dewey Elementary School principal Donna Sokolowski’s letter regarding her perspective and analysis of District 65 in Evanston. Let me share how astounded I was that Evanston RoundTable made the decision to print what seemed to be every word of a long, meandering and obtuse letter filled with personal frustrations aimed […]
Category: Schools
Posted inCity News
Vandal breaks into Puerta Abierta Preschool
On the night of Nov. 29, a vandal broke into Puerta Abierta Preschool, 933 Chicago Ave., shattering windows and scattering papers and equipment through the hallways. Puerta Abierta, founded in 1997, is a Spanish-immersion preschool with about 50 students aged 2 through 4. Teachers arrived at the school the morning of Nov. 30 and saw […]
Posted inSchools
Registration opens for incoming kindergartners on December 6
District 65 kindergarten registration for the 2022-2023 school year opens on Monday, December 6. Children must be five years old on or before September 1 to register for kindergarten and are assigned to an attendance area school based on their residency address. The registration process must be completed online through the district’s student registration portal. […]
Posted inSchools
ETHS District 202 Board approves superintendent search firm
The Evanston Township High School District 202 Board of Education held a special meeting on December 1 and unanimously approved a search firm to hire a new superintendent in 2022. Board members met with a total of three firms in November and have selected Alma Advisory Group to lead the search process at ETHS. The anticipated cost for the project is […]
Posted inSchools
Notice of District 65 public hearing: Full-day school improvement days
The Evanston/Skokie School District 65 Board of Education will hold a public hearing at 7 p.m. Monday, December 13 at the Joseph E. Hill Education Center, 1500 McDaniel Avenue. The purpose of the hearing is to receive public comment on the District’s proposal to allow for up to two Full-Day School Improvement Days per school […]
Posted inGuest Essay
Donna Sokolowski: Why I retired from District 65
As I read the most recent news regarding decisions being made in District 65, I felt compelled to share my own experiences as an elementary school principal in the district, as well as my reflections about the current district climate. The most important discussions we should have are about the children. If we cannot listen […]
Posted inSchools
Since the 2017 school referendum, new construction has enabled District 65 to significantly increase its property tax levies
School District 65 increased its property tax levy for operations by about $13.9 million between 2016 and 2020. Thirty-five percent of that increase was due to new construction.
Posted inSchools
School District 65 shows improvement on 5Essentials survey, but scores below state average in ‘effective leaders’ and ‘collaborative teachers’
On the 2021 5Essentials survey, School District 65 scored higher in each of the five areas deemed critical for school success than it did in 2020. The District scored in the “Average Implementation” range in three areas: Effective Leaders, Collaborative Teachers and Ambitious Instruction. It scored in the “More Implementation” range for the other two […]
Posted inSchools
Evanston NAACP hosts panel on critical race theory
During its virtual Freedom Fund and Community Awards Banquet held virtually November 20, the Evanston/North Shore chapter of the NAACP conducted a discussion among several history and philosophy scholars about critical race theory, the academic discipline that has become a nationwide political controversy this year. In Virginia earlier this month, Republican Glenn Youngkin won the […]
Posted inSchools
District 65 struggles with bus routes amid driver shortage
First grader Levi Lang takes the bus to Dewey Elementary School and says his regular bus driver is always on time. But there are some mornings, his father Paul Lang says, when “after waiting for five minutes we kind of know, OK, today’s gonna be a sub day. Which usually means we’re waiting for a […]