Seventh and eighth grade students and families at the Bessie Rhodes School of Global Studies spent the last several days weighing their options for how to spend the remainder of the school year.
After Evanston/Skokie School District 65 backtracked on its initial decision to shutter the two grades after Nov. 15 — the final day of the first trimester — affected families got a chance this past week to fill out a survey about their preferences.
The possible closure of the upper grade levels stems from an ongoing lack of licensed teachers at Bessie Rhodes, which led District 65 to make an abrupt decision to send seventh- and eighth-graders to their neighborhood middle schools instead, an unexpected announcement for which Superintendent Angel Turner has since apologized.
On Monday, Turner presented the results of the survey to the school board. Thirty-six out of 42 total families responded, and 21 said their preference is to remain at Bessie Rhodes, with district administrators acting as backup teachers as needed, among other strategies to keep classes going. Another 10 families reported their top choice as moving both grades together to the district’s other magnet school, the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Literary & Fine Arts School.
According to Turner, later this week district officials will make calls to all 42 families to confirm their wishes, and then on Friday the district will make a final decision on whether to close the two grades. Families will have until Monday, Nov. 11, to request a transfer to King Arts or another school that is not their designated neighborhood building. Two students have already transferred out so far, one leaving District 65 entirely and another moving to Chute Middle School, Turner said.
About 72% of survey respondents said they would stay at Bessie Rhodes if the district chooses to keep those grades open.
One thing that remains to be seen, though, is what happens in the event that, say, half the students choose to move individually to other schools, leaving only a handful of students left at Bessie Rhodes. Replying to a question about that scenario from board member Biz Lindsay-Ryan, Turner said the district will figure out what to do if that situation comes to fruition. As a result, the final decision “is still a little dynamic,” noted board member Soo La Kim.
A possible reason for 10 families endorsing the move to King Arts: the promise of all students staying together in a school that has enough licensed teachers. That’s one thing board member Omar Salem took away from attending district meetings with Bessie Rhodes students and families last week.
“The quote I remember hearing was, ‘That way we still get to be together and still get a quality education,'” Salem said, recalling how some students said they preferred going to King Arts as a group. “I just thought I’d share that, cause it’s good to hear from the students, too.”
Half of Bessie Rhodes 7th and 8th graders want to stay, survey shows is from Evanston RoundTable, Evanston's most trusted source for unbiased, in-depth journalism.